Don't take this personally, but Google doesn't want to talk to you. Part of this is that they would be absurdly busy if they had a customer support call centre that relied on employees, Contact Gmail Live Support since hundreds of millions of people use some form of Google every day.

The other thing is that Google values your security, and they don't want to put you at risk of hacking by dealing with things like password resets or account recoveries over the phone.

How to contact Google by phone?

You can call Google customer service at 888-409-0908. The number leads to an operator service called "Googolplex" that is based at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California.

Calling the number will take you to an automated menu that will guide you through a series of other menus. Most of the time, the end result of your call will be a voice recording directing you which web page to visit to try to resolve your issue. In some cases, you may be connected to a human customer service representative.

The Googolplex service has its business hours from Monday to Friday from 8 am to 5 pm PST. If you call outside of those hours, a voice recording will simply direct you through the menus and you will not be able to reach a human representative.

There is also an international option for those based in India. You can reach that Google contact team by calling 1-888-409-0908.

How to get help from Google support online

With most problems you encounter in the course of using Google, whether it's a problem with your Gmail, your Google Chrome browser, or Google Maps, chances are other people have encountered and documented the same problems a dozen times.

Google employees write tutorials on how to deal with common problems, and there are also user forums that address countless issues. Here's how to find the first one.

1. Sign in to your Google account, then go to support.google.com.

2. You will see a search bar where you can type your problem on top of the nine icons displayed in the middle of the screen.

3. If you are having a problem with one of these specific products, such as Google Chrome or YouTube, click the icon. Otherwise, briefly describe your problem in the search bar.

4. The page following each icon will list many of the most common problems users experience, so look for your problem there.