AdWords customer service needs a bailout

[rmay]

Chat support is gone, almost all contact forms now lead to an automated e-mail (12-24hours after submission) to their help forum, phone support has slowed down considerably...

The last few weeks have seen a tremendous decline in the quality of AdWords customer support, paralleled by a seemingly growing number of customers on their help forum complaining of ads not showing, card declines, etc. Seems as if they've been moving toward automation to replace the support functions previously dedicated to smaller accounts. Fairly clear that the headcount reduction has impacted this area.

Anyone else here feeling the pinch of the AdWords support depression? Seems to be a issue that has been coming up almost every day recently.

[avalon37]

Without question it is getting worse. With virtually 100% market share of the search business, it's a cost of doing business that they can reduce and I'm sure are in this economy. Let's be honest, it was never good to begin with. Very few advertisers call Google to spend more money - in fact I'd guess the majority of the touch points by advertisers result in the advertisers reducing their spend. Why would Google make it easier to reduce advertiser spend :)
If customer service made them money it would be open 24/7

[netmeg]

Chat seems to be working for me, though it takes longer (I'm apparently #5 in the queue as I type this) Maybe it's not working in Canada?

I haven't had problems getting through (but I don't try all that often) There are definitely cracks that need to be filled in though; this past weekend was a prime example.

[Rehan]

Chat option is there for me too, and I'm in Canada.

I haven't contacted support for several months. If it's even worse than before, then yikes!

[JoeT321]

"Make sure you provide your customer with a quality experience and you will see great quality scores!" - Google

hahahahaahha.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Just as an FYI, I've quoted much of this thread in the Advertiser Feedback Report that I send out to a lot of colleagues at Google each Thursday evening.

Yesterday, I also sent a link to the thread to a number of colleagues who are particulary interested in the subject.

AWA