Google Helpouts

Helpouts by Google
Web address helpouts.google.com
Commercial? Yes
Type of site
 Marketplace
Registration Closed as of April 9th
Available in English
Owner Google inc
Launched 2013

Google Helpouts was an online collaboration service from Google which launched in November 2013 and allowed users to share their expertise through live video and provide real-time help from their computers or mobile devices. As of April 20, 2015, Google closed Google Helpouts.[1]

Operation

People offering help through Helpouts, called 'providers', can be large, medium, or small companies as well as individuals. Providers must be a native English speaker and a resident of U.S., Canada, Ireland, U.K., Australia or New Zealand. Providers create and maintain listings that explain what they offer, their qualifications, their prices, and their schedules. Every listing has a link to the provider’s Helpouts calendar. Providers must pass Google's screening process to qualify.

Helpouts handled scheduling based on user availability all by itself.

Once a Helpout was scheduled, it could automatically be added to users' Google Calendar, and users can also choose whether they wish to be notified through email or SMS.

On April 20, 2015, Google officially shut down Helpouts stating that the service hadn't "grown at the pace we had expected".[2][3]

Payments and pricing

All payments were done through Google Wallet. There were two kinds of pricing based on either a per minute or per Helpout session. Prices were set by the providers. Some providers offered both options at the same time, leaving it up to a user to decide which one was best for them. At the end of each Helpout, users were asked to write a review.

Helpouts offered a money-back guarantee. If a user was not satisfied with a Helpout, he/she could apply for a refund within 72 hours at the end of their helpout. Google had a cancellation policy that stated that some providers may or may not have a cancellation fee.[4] However, if they do customers must call in 24 hours prior to the session to avoid the fee. If they do not they will be charged 50% of their session price if it was for a fixed amount of time. If it was by the minute the customer would be charged 5 times the rate.

Categories

Helpouts categorizes help into the following categories:

Citations

  1. ↑ Official Blog: Introducing Helpouts: Help when you need it over live video. Googleblog.blogspot.in. Retrieved on 2013-11-05.
  2. ↑ "Google Helpouts Help". Google. Retrieved 6 May 2015.
  3. ↑ Opam, Kwame. "Google is shutting down live lesson marketplace Helpouts in April". The Verge. Retrieved 6 May 2015.
  4. ↑ Helpouts. "Cancellations - Helpouts Help". Support.google.com. Retrieved 2013-11-15.
  5. ↑ Vest, Jeremy (21 Nov 2013). "Google Helpouts: Video Training from Experts". Learning Solutions Magazine. Retrieved 6 May 2015.

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, September 10, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.