One of the most common complaints about Google has always been that it’s almost impossible to get real live in-person support from them. Sure, they have support forums and feedback links, and occasionally you’ll even hear back from them when you report a problem. Clearly they do have support staff. But actually talking to Google support on the phone? No way.

Don’t get me wrong – I understand why Google has chosen not to have a general support call center: it’s expensive. Just ask Microsoft. When most of the services you offer are free, providing live support is going to kill your bottom line. As long as Google’s services are both excellent and free, and there are useful alternatives to live support, I’m happy to let Google slide on this.

So imagine my surprise, this morning, at being offered an option to have Google support staff call me on my phone and provide live, in-person assistance!

Here’s what happened: if you run a business and you care about your online presence, you are almost certainly familiar with Google Places. It’s a Google service that allows business owners to create listings that then appear on Google Maps and elsewhere. Recently, Google moved the public side of these listings to Google+, calling it Google+ Local. This is where your business listing now appears. Okay, I can live with that.

Or not. I recently discovered that not all of the details entered on a Google Places page end up on the public Google+ Local page. Missing items for me include images (in particular, the company logo), payment types accepted, email address, and additional details (free wireless, parking, etc.) What’s going on?

I poked around in the Google Places help for a while, but didn’t find anything about this problem. What I did see surprised me: an offer to speak with Google support staff about a problem with my Places listing. Recognizing that this was a rare opportunity (akin to sighting an extinct animal), I jumped at the offer. Within seconds, my cell rang, and I was talking to an actual Google support person.

I quickly explained the problem. I was told the following:

• Some elements of the Places listing don’t appear in Google+ Local; apparently a mysterious Google algorithm decides what is relevant and shows only that.
• Suggested workarounds:
  • Submit changes using the public page (Google+ Local).
  • Just wait to see what happens.
  • Stuff all the details into the business description.

Really? None of that makes any sense. If not all the Places information gets to the public listing, shouldn’t that be obvious when you’re filling it out? And what’s the point of entering something if it never appears anywhere? What criteria are used to decide what appears in my listing, and why should that decision be anyone’s but mine? If it’s easier (and much faster, apparently) for a random Internet user to update my business listing than it is for me to do it myself, something is seriously broken. If I stuff the missing information into the description, then it magically appears later on where it should have been in the first place, the information will be redundant. Worse still, the description is limited to 200 characters.

So my first ever conversation with Google Support left me with mixed emotions: happy to talk to a real live Googler, but dismayed at the mess that Google Places has now officially become.