Customer Care procedures

This document explains how to complete the following support procedures and activities:

• Create and manage support cases based on your organization's support service.
• View known issues affecting Google Cloud services.
• Contact Customer Care.
• Access additional services available to select paid Google Cloud services, such as escalating a case or changing its priority.

To learn about the availability of Customer Care, see Language Support and Working Hours.

For details about Customer Care's support services, see the Technical Support Services Guidelines.

Before you begin

Ensure that you have the Tech Support Editor (roles/cloudsupport.techSupportEditor) role. If you don't have this role, contact your Support Account Administrator.

Manage support cases

You can create and manage cases in the Google Cloud console.

The details that you include in a support case significantly affect how long it takes to resolve an issue. To learn about how to write an effective support case, see Best practices for working with Customer Care.

Create a support case

Before creating a support case, review known issues to see if a case has already been filed.

If no case has been filed, you can create one in the Google Cloud console by completing the following steps:

1. Sign in to the Google Cloud console Support page as a support user.

   Go to Support

2. Select the project for which you'd like to create a support case.

3. In the navigation menu, click Cases.

4. Click Get help.

5. Complete the required fields and submit the form.

After you submit the form, you're redirected to the Cases page where you can comment on the case, upload file attachments, or modify case attributes. The Customer Care team responds to the case based on its priority and the respective support service at the time of creation.

Note: We recommend uploading file attachments in formats that are widely supported and non-proprietary, such as PNG, TXT, or PDF.

Manage existing support cases

Any user with permission to edit cases (Tech Support Editor, roles/resourcemanager.techSupportEditor) can update any case for the resource (organization, project, folder) associated with the case, even if they did not create the case.

To manage existing cases, complete the following steps:

1. Sign in to the Google Cloud console Support page as a support user.

   Go to Support

2. Optional: To filter cases, use search or filter controls.

3. To select a case, click a case title from the list on the Cases page. The Cases page provides a list of your organization's support cases based on the selected resource. For example, if you select an organization, all cases for the organization are displayed. If you select a project, only the cases associated with that project are displayed.

4. If the case is open, add comments, upload file attachments, or edit case attributes. If the case is closed, you can reopen it if it was closed in the last 15 days. If it's been longer than 15 days, create a new case.

Enable case sharing

Case sharing lets users in your organization, and outside of it, track support cases through email. They are able to comment by replying to the messages and don't need to access the Google Cloud console.

Caution: When case sharing is enabled, users can share cases with emails outside of your Google Cloud organization.

Case sharing is disabled by default, but can be enabled by a Support Account Administrator. When case sharing is enabled, any user with cloudsupport.techCases.update permissions can add recipients by their email addresses.

Enabling or disabling case sharing does not impact existing cases, it only affects cases opened after updating case sharing settings.

To enable case sharing, complete the following steps:

1. Sign in to the Google Cloud console Support page as a Support Account Administrator.

2. Select the organization or a project within the organization.

3. Select Settings from the side menu.

4. Click Enable case sharing.

View known issues

The Google Cloud Support team publishes information about known issues affecting Google Cloud services as they arise. You can view these issues by visiting the Google Cloud Service Health Dashboard or using the Google Cloud console.

To view known issues from the Google Cloud console, complete the following steps:

1. Sign in to the Google Cloud console Support page as a support user.
2. In the navigation menu, click Cases.
3. Click the Known issues tab.

To automatically receive updates for a known issue, you can create a linked case to it. The following users can create linked cases:

• Enhanced Support: Tech Support Editor role only
• Premium Support: Tech Support Editor role only

If there are any open known issues that might be affecting your Google Cloud services, you also see a notification on the case creation page. For more information, see the Google Cloud Service Health Dashboard FAQ.

Contact Customer Care

All users can contact Customer Care with questions about Cloud Billing. You can also request support for technical questions about projects within your organization.

To contact Customer Care, complete the following steps:

1. Go to the Support page.
2. Select the project for which you'd like support.
3. In the navigation menu, select your preferred communication channel: Chat support, Phone support, or Community support.

Additional services

If your support service is Enhanced or Premium, you have access to the following additional services:

• Change the priority of your support case
• Escalate a case
• Request follow-the-sun service for a case

Depending on your support service and language, you might also be eligible to receive 24/7 support. For information on availability, see Language Support and Working Hours.

Change case priority

If the service impact of a support case changes, you can change the priority of your case based on the urgency and the business impact. When you change the priority, Customer Care is notified and attends to your case based on the new priority.

You can change the case priority in the Google Cloud Support Center.

When changing the case priority, be sure to provide information about the reason for change, and specifically, how the impact to the business has changed.

Escalate a case

If your support case has the appropriate priority, you can escalate it if the support effort or the provided solution is not meeting expectations.

When a support case is escalated, escalation is immediately assigned to a Customer Care Manager and notifies you within an hour. The Customer Care Manager owns the escalation until escalation closure. They would identify and address the escalation root cause, and report preventative actions to avoid similar escalations in the future.

The following examples demonstrate possible reasons for escalating a case:

• Customer Care misses time commitments.
• Customer Care misunderstands the impact or the nature of the issue and wouldn't comprehend even after you have made several attempts to clarify the impact or nature of the issue.
• The case might require additional expertise to resolve the issue.
• You think that the provided solution is completely off based on the nature of the problem and Customer Care wouldn't provide a convincing explanation that would be sufficient to prove solution validity, even after you request for an explanation.
• Your case is stuck because you and Customer Care are not in sync, despite communicating several times with each other, and your case requires additional resources to analyze the issue and determine the next steps.

When requesting an escalation, quote the case number and provide a reason for the escalation. You can make the request in the following ways:

• Go to Google Cloud Support Center, and click the Escalate case button, which appears 30 minutes after a case is created.
• Contact Customer Care.

If you have Premium Support service, you can also request an escalation by contacting your Technical Account Manager during local business hours.

Note: Escalation is meant for flagging process breaks. When you are experiencing high-impact issues, generally escalation wouldn't make the case go faster, and the best solution would be to ensure that the case is set to appropriate priority for an adequate amount of time. Escalating shortly after priority change might even cause the case resolution to be slower. You can find a more detailed explanation in the When should you escalate video.

Request follow-the-sun service

Normally, a case is handled within one time zone by a single Customer Care specialist. Doing so allows Customer Care to offer a personalized service in the time zone closest to you.

Due to the high impact of Priority 1 (P1) cases, they are defaulted to follow the sun, which means that the case is handed off between global teams to provide 24-hour support coverage. If you have Premium support service, you can also request this service for Priority 2 (P2) cases.

Note: Since follow-the-sun cases have continuous support attention, you might need to provide information at all hours of the day. Ensure that you have colleagues that are available after-hours or in a different location to continue engaging with Customer Care specialists.

To request follow-the-sun service for a P2 support case, contact the specialist working on your case during local business hours.

Support case status

After a support case is created, you can view case status in the Google Cloud console. Following is a description of the different statuses and their meaning:

Status	Description
New	The case is not assigned yet.
Assigned	The case is assigned to one of our specialists. You'll see a response within the target response time mentioned in the priorities table.
In progress Cloud Customer Care	Customer Care specialists are working on the case.
In progress Google engineering	Google product engineers are investigating the case. Turnaround times vary, depending on the issue complexity and product component in question.
In progress Google other	Another Google team is investigating the case. Turnaround times can vary, depending on the issue complexity and product component in question.
Waiting on customer response	We need more information from you before we can proceed.
Waiting on customer action	We need you to do something before we can proceed.
Solution offered	A solution for the issue or request in the case has been offered. The customer can reopen the case if the offered solution is insufficient.
Closed	The case is resolved and closed by the Customer Care specialist. If the issue is still ongoing, you can reopen it within 15 days by replying to the last communication. After 15 days, you'll need to open a new case.

Support case priority

When creating a support case, it's important to assign it the correct priority. Per the Google Cloud Technical Support Services Guidelines, the case priority determines the initial response time for the case.

The following table defines support case priorities. For more information, see best practices for changing case priority.

Note: Response times vary by issue priority and which support service you have. For response times, refer to the Google Cloud Technical Support Services Guidelines.

Priority definition	Example situations
P1: Critical Impact—Service Unusable in Production	The application or infrastructure is unusable in production, having a significant rate of user-facing errors. Business impact is critical (for example, revenue loss or potential data integrity issue). No workaround is available that can be quickly implemented (less than 30 minutes). Affected Google Cloud component or feature is marked as General Availability. Immediate attention from Google is required to resolve the problem.
P2: High Impact—Service Use Severely Impaired	The infrastructure is degraded in production, having a noticeable rate of user-facing errors or difficulties in spinning up a new production system. Business impact is moderate (for example, danger of revenue loss or productivity decrease). A workaround to mitigate critical business impact is available and can be quickly implemented. Affected Google Cloud component or feature is marked as General Availability. Fast response from Google is required.
P3: Medium Impact—Service Use Partially Impaired	The issue is limited in scope and/or severity. The issue has no user-visible impact. Business impact is low (for example, inconvenience or minor business processes affected). Case requires more in-depth investigation and troubleshooting and less frequent interactions.
P4: Low Impact—Service Fully Usable	Little to no business or technical impact. Recommended for consultative tickets where in-depth analysis, troubleshooting or consultancy are preferred to more frequent communications.

What's next

• Understand how to configure user access to support cases in the Google Cloud console using Identity and Access Management.