Initial Sales of the Google Nexus One May Be Very Low

[r0k]

I think the biggest 'impediment' (and it's a plus too) is the relatively unorthodox method of sale. While some have mentioned how great the ad placement on the Google home page is, a lot of people aren't really used to buying cellphones that way. They want to see/touch it first.

Also, I read in the Times today that there have been many issues with this phone and there's no real customer support available.

This is the key point. Actually both of your observations stem from the fact that big G doesn't want to stoop low enough to communicate one on one with the plankton (that would be you and me) that are its customers.

I found this out in a rather harsh way when something went wrong with RIM's server and it kept hitting my gmail inbox with the wrong password. I found myself locked out of my gmail account on 7 of the 8 devices I use. Were it not for keychain access on OS X, I might have blundered in such a way to cut myself off completely.

Google uses robots (automated, unsupervised, and very likely unaudited software) for everything. Robots to crawl web pages. Robots to do tech support. Robots can trip a hidden bit that says you aren't really you any more and your account should be locked for 72 hours with no recourse. Nobody to call by phone. Nobody to answer an email. On Google's support site, you can send an email, but there is a disclaimer that you will NOT receive an answer. Your problem might be fixed. It might not. You are simply screwed. And this doesn't simply apply to freeloaders like me who use gmail, picasa, blogger and the free version of google apps. This is also Google's approach to their customers who purchase adwords.

There is no way any Android phone is in my future unless Google eats a great big slice of humble pie and opens a call center and starts answering my emails. By contrast, other email providers answer their phones and respond to your emails. There is the free Yahoo email service and the subscription based mobileme service. Both of these run rings around Google in their ability to interact with and listen to end users.

Low sales for Nexus One? I hope Google quickly recognizes the real root cause and starts offering support. Not supporting free web apps is one thing. Leaving a paying customer without a phone is negligent. This arrogant policy of ignoring customers makes fertile ground for the words "class action" to be planted in the not so distant future.

[Digitaldoc]

It seems to me the biggest impediment is the price, unless you are with T-mobile. Isn't it a whopping $500+

[blisterpeanuts]

The support forums at Google seem to answer pretty much every question. I'm confused as to what support is lacking.

You're not going to get expert technical support for a Nokia phone either. I guess it's the lack of a human response that irks some people, but I don't miss it myself. Usually they just read prepared responses from scripts, and I can find better answers by searching the forums.

Big Media reporters are announcing to the world that customer support is poor, a meme that gets picked up and repeated as fact on chatboards and blogs. But for the market the N1 is targeted towards, customer support is less of an issue than, say, your grandmother who can't figure out how to unlock the screen by sliding the little doo-hicky across or what the "home" icon means.

[Hook]

It seems to me the biggest impediment is the price, unless you are with T-mobile. Isn't it a whopping $500+

That's fairly typical for a high end unlocked phone. The problem isn't the price, per se, but that in the US people don't buy unlocked phones a lot, unlike the rest of the world. Thus, being only available on a samll carrier is the bigger problem.

[r0k]

The support forums at Google seem to answer pretty much every question. I'm confused as to what support is lacking.

You're not going to get expert technical support for a Nokia phone either. I guess it's the lack of a human response that irks some people, but I don't miss it myself. Usually they just read prepared responses from scripts, and I can find better answers by searching the forums.

Big Media reporters are announcing to the world that customer support is poor, a meme that gets picked up and repeated as fact on chatboards and blogs. But for the market the N1 is targeted towards, customer support is less of an issue than, say, your grandmother who can't figure out how to unlock the screen by sliding the little doo-hicky across or what the "home" icon means.

I'm willing to use forums for support for Linux. I didn't pay for it and I don't expect support. If I write a huge check for a phone that only works with google's email and I pay a huge data plan for that phone that only works with google's email, then google had better not expect me to wait for help in a forum when I have a problem. My expectations have been set too high by the rest of the wireless industry including but not limited to Apple and Palm. Yes, I said Palm has better customer service than google. Heck, even the people's republic of china has better customer service than google.

Forums are an excellent method of obtaining support for some things. I often turn to them first when I have a problem. And forums are often better than the support offered by a company. But forum users aren't company officials who can reinstate suspended accounts. All they can offer is sympathy. Who can help me in a forum if google's robot has flagged my ip for trying to break into my own account? I need somebody at google to answer the phone, log in to a terminal and fix the problem and I need it to happen in minutes, not after google's automatic 72 hour lockout period.

I do agree that human tech support is greatly lacking. I dread calling for support and hearing a certain accent that let's just say you might hear on the Simpsons. Often that means a low budget first level call center that is guaranteed to waste my time reading prepared scripts and trying to convince me to wipe and reinstall every OS on every computer I own before giving in and transferring me to level 2. What's worse than a clueless level 1 support guy you can eventually convince to hand you off to level 2? No support guy.

It's time for google to man up. How can you run a business if you don't talk to customers? You might get away with it for a while, but eventually people get tired of being ignored and walk away. Free email, web apps and so forth aren't going to make people walk in droves. But inability to obtain just in time support for a piece of high tech equipment costing over $500 is a recipe for failure. If google eats their humble pie and gets a call center in place by the time Nexus One goes live on all carriers, then they can make the argument that for $500 you get a "superphone" with a company that stands behind it that is prepared to make it work. But if they persist in ignoring end users, google can drop the price to the point there is no need for a carrier subsidy and still have trouble moving the things.

If I purchase an iPhone, I can call Att or Apple. If I purchase a Blackberry, Pre Plus or Droid, I can call Verizon. If I purchase a Nexus One direct from google and it breaks because of some software or server issue on google's end, who do I call, Ghostbusters?

[Drillbit]

So many reasons.

1. You are catering only in 3G to the US smallest network.
2. No AT&T 3G
3. Your country isn't supported (yet).
4. T-Mobile upgrade prices a bit too high.
5. Its so GeekPhone right now.

Sales should pick up when
1. T-Mobile upgrade prices lowered (which it did just today by a hundred dollars. Early adopters get a $100 refund).
2. When it appears in more countries
3. When AT&T 3G band becomes available.
4. When you get a Verizon-Sprint edition.
5. Get multitouch.
6. Can't fix the GeekPhone part. Look to the HTC Tattoo and Droid Eris as the real mass market Androids.

Motorola appears headed its way to selling phones on the same webpage as Nexus.

[blisterpeanuts]

If I purchase an iPhone, I can call Att or Apple. If I purchase a Blackberry, Pre Plus or Droid, I can call Verizon. If I purchase a Nexus One direct from google and it breaks because of some software or server issue on google's end, who do I call, Ghostbusters?

What services do you expect phone support for? Google's online products--gmail, contacts, calendar, docs, maps, etc.--are free web services available to anyone, android user or not. If you can't get into your gmail from your android handset, but you can from your browser, it would probably be a configuration issue that has been addressed a dozen times on the forums.

Your phone works with a carrier's services that you pay for, such as T-Mobile voice and 3G. If those services break down, you call T-Mobile, and they do support the Nexus One as well as their other Android handsets.

By the way I have noticed that Google employees frequent the forums (the ones at google.com/phone, that is) and they seem to answer people's questions in a matter of hours.

I'm not saying there's no gap in support, but so far I personally haven't felt the need to have an 800 number to Google. Maybe others have had a different experience.