102143-awful-customer-service-and-why-it-matters

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I'm going to share some of the issues I've had with customer support. Now initially I decided to contact support because I was sick of being treated poorly and wanted to give some feedback:
 
 
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The customer support I've received from this company has been some of the worst I've ever experienced.
First up there is the blatantly incorrect assurance that most tickets will be answered within 24 hours.
Then after days of waiting the first response, which almost invariably is some copy paste form email that is at best tangentially related to the issue.
Then for any extended discussion about the issue of a lag in communication, generally then relying on getting one response a day.
Then comes the issue where every single response is from a different representative, meaning something one asks for is then told to be pointless when the next replies.
The issue becomes ignored as each new person tries to reiterate the first email and spout the company line and avoid any responsibility.
Lastly if I continue to be unsatisfied with the support I'm receiving the ticket will simply be closed.
Does anyone seriously think this is a good idea in this day and age? Your game is not good enough to deal with awful service.
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			Actually the forum section that they linked you to is one that is frequented by the dev team. CS agents have nothing to do with taking feedback sadly.	
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They linked me to this forum, the one we're in now.
 
The thing is, the feedback was for Customer Service. Even if some dev did happen to see this, they'd then have had to go back and pass it on the CS.
 
The issue is that this kind of interaction seems utterly normal to them.	
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They linked me to this forum, the one we're in now.
 
The thing is, the feedback was for Customer Service. Even if some dev did happen to see this, they'd then have had to go back and pass it on the CS.
 
The issue is that this kind of interaction seems utterly normal to them.
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Mr. Smiley here on our forums reads the Customer Service threads and typically replies to those that require replies. You can find his profile here. He's our Game Support Supervisor. 
 
- Team WildStar 
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He's more then welcome to weigh in on all of this if he wants to, but I'm not trying to stalk someone.
 
I would have assumed that since he was their supervisor they'd be able to talk to him.
 
This post is about me trying to make the point that first and foremost it's important that you deal with the people, even when you can't do anything you need to make them feel heard and taken care of and following that, if you send them to the forums to continue their customer service experience those in charge here should also treat their interactions with the same respect.
 
I guess technically you are, just not in the good way.	
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Lets call a duck a duck. You contacted CS to:
 
 
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... vent ...
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So because I decided to vent my frustrations in a positive constructive way they should be disregarded?
 
The point is I gave feedback and got treated as poorly as I always do when dealing with them when they hadn't even read the ticket I sent.
 
No decent CS would delete a ticket from a paying customer, because that's how you lose paying customers.
 
You may have that experience with Chillia, instead I see her lock almost any thread discussing feedback and issues that are appropriate to me. And if I have any disagreement with how the moderation works I get told in private "It's policy, you can email someone else if you care" it reeks of passing the buck.
Customer service will say to post feedback on the forums, the mods will lock the thread and suggest if you want to complain about that policy to email someone else.
This is not appropriate behaviour for customer service. In the case of the ticket I used as an example I mentioned all I expected from it, "Your feedback is important we're passing it up the chain. We are attempting to address these issues in these ways and are constantly striving to improve service... blah blah blah."
 
You reassure your customers and act like a human being. Instead I received an email that wouldn't pass a turing test.
 
Also WoW does a better job for one. Their CS always went above and beyond when I played that game, so much so I still reference it as a gold standard for this industry despite having left the game years ago.
 
If I had to recommend an MMO to a friend, do you think I'd suggest the company who made me want to rip out my own hair in frustration everytime I dealt with them? Or the one who solved all my problems in a reasonable time in a friendly, personable manner with a smile?	
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Also WoW does a better job for one. Their CS always went above and beyond when I played that game, so much so I still reference it as a gold standard for this industry despite having left the game years ago.
 
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*sigh* this again, do people realize they have over 10 years of experience with dealing with many sort of people?
Thats why, they changed they CS based on complaints, reactions and so on during the years and you expecting NCsoft do that over few weeks?
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So because I decided to vent my frustrations in a positive constructive way they should be disregarded?
 
The point is I gave feedback and got treated as poorly as I always do when dealing with them when they hadn't even read the ticket I sent.
 
No decent CS would delete a ticket from a paying customer, because that's how you lose paying customers.
 
You may have that experience with Chillia, instead I see her lock almost any thread discussing feedback and issues that are appropriate to me. And if I have any disagreement with how the moderation works I get told in private "It's policy, you can email someone else if you care" it reeks of passing the buck.
Customer service will say to post feedback on the forums, the mods will lock the thread and suggest if you want to complain about that policy to email someone else.
This is not appropriate behaviour for customer service. In the case of the ticket I used as an example I mentioned all I expected from it, "Your feedback is important we're passing it up the chain. We are attempting to address these issues in these ways and are constantly striving to improve service... blah blah blah."
 
You reassure your customers and act like a human being. Instead I received an email that wouldn't pass a turing test.
 
Also WoW does a better job for one. Their CS always went above and beyond when I played that game, so much so I still reference it as a gold standard for this industry despite having left the game years ago.
 
If I had to recommend an MMO to a friend, do you think I'd suggest the company who made me want to rip out my own hair in frustration everytime I dealt with them? Or the one who solved all my problems in a reasonable time in a friendly, personable manner with a smile?
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I have had different responses from different issues. I believe they are trying to answer the best way they can depending on your issue. If it's something to do with a known bug, they will likely direct you to these forums. Not every ticket is answered with "go read the forums". Though it would greatly benefit everyone to get out of general occasionally and read some dev posts, ptr notes, even off-topic can be refreshing.
 
I have had Cougar reply to a ticket and had a nice conversation with him through emails.
 
I have also had Mr. Smiley reply to a ticket and enjoyed our conversation.
 
I have also been directed to these forums because this is where my answer was and I didn't take the time to explore the many different topics we have here.	
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CS in any company gets a lot of tickets/phone calls a day.
 
The thing is, and it's been said a few times by people who work in CS, you aren't special all you are is a job number.
 
There are ways to send feedback but CS tickets aren't one of them. They have enough to deal with without people sending in their venting. No wonder people wait so long to have tickets answered when people send crap like that in and clog it up.
 
Whoever replied to you was far more polite than I would have been.	
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A few issues with this. I have worked customer service for several years and I will say that so far Chillia has done her best to do her job which is to try and keep things on track and keep us from acting like "cupcakes". Now you talk about your threads being locked and such well guess what i've had mine locked too and I can tell you why. It got off track people got rude end of story. It happens deal with it. I've had my post completely cleaned why? Because it included the "cupcaked" response. Did I get mad and blame CS for responding to the break in TOS? No its life it sucks.
 
Now you talk about being told things in private,
 
Mr. Smiley here on our forums reads the Customer Service threads and typically replies to those that require replies. You can find his profile here. He's our Game Support Supervisor. 
 
- Team WildStar
 
Real private. I've seen her give similar advise open for the world to see. As for "with a smile" not yet seen any mod be rude to anyone even though god knows some of us have been real "cupcakes" and deserved a swift kick in the "cupcake". But what do they do...turn the other cheek and do the job.
 
Now you have been given plenty of advise and even the direct name of a supervisor but since you don't want to use this information I will. I will send him a message about how good a job I think his team is doing. You know a message similar to the thread I made which you were on which is now buried and why was it killed? Oh ya because as nice as it was ment to be it wasn't on topic and thus had to be moved. Did I get mad? Nope.
 
Doesn't matter. Things have fallen into the "some people will never be happy" category. From what I have seen so far the president of the company could come by and kiss his "cupcake" and he would not be happy.
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You do realise there's the potential that by "In Private" I mean in private messages? Including referencing rules that aren't visible on the forums anywhere else?
 
Also that I wrote about that before she posted that? Do you realise why I was annoyed posting in your thread? Because there were two threads giving feedback to the mods, one was "Yay mods are great" and the other was "These are the issues I'm having with moderation policies" and only one of those was deleted.
 
Now as I've said, I'm not looking for an actual solution to this ticket or response. It was just the simplest example of how CS treats every damn ticket I had on hand. I could have posted the one where one rep asks for screenshots showing my in game ping, then the next one told me sending that was pointless.
 
Honestly, I don't give a damn what they do anymore. I've given them more than enough chances and they've snubbed every single one. I made this thread to discuss why getting treated like this and poor CS is bad and why as a consumer it matters to me.
 
I've said multiple times now what they would have needed to send for me to be happy with the response to that ticket, literally they just had to read it say "I hear you, it sucks that happened to you." Literally that is all I expected and would have been happy knowing I was heard.
 
The CS is awful in this game and it made up my mind that I won't be coming back. If you really think that poor CS is fine then argue that, the initial ticket was just an example.
 
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My issue which I hinted at less strongly here (Because of deletion) was that the moderators are part of the CS link when CS sends people here. That their policies for locking threads goes against that and shows a breakdown in it.
 
Of course discussing moderation policies is apparently completely banned, so much so it needs to be deleted instead of locked.
 
So I started a thread to discuss the general state of customer service, hoping not to tie it down to any issue. Because I thought that would be distracting. Each of those threads is about a specific issue, the only link is that CS has treated them all awfully. I've seen all those threads in my time here and they were in part why I know I'm not alone in feeling this way about CS.
 
Of course the fact I decided to post an actual example was a mistake, because it's become the focus and everyone is attacking that instead of discussing the issue.
 
Don't blame me for your thread being moved to off-topic, that had nothing to do with me. All I said was that I was curious whether the two posts about moderation feedback would be treated differently. They were, and if it wasn't for me discussing the issue there your thread would have disappeared even faster.
 
Honestly I'm not a hard customer to please, but I don't drop it easily if I've been treated poorly.
 
We wouldn't even be having this discussion if one CSR has read my last ticket before replying to it.	
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This is going to start a stir, My issue was Resolved while i was still on the support page.
I was up and going again shortly there after.I play on the Euro Servers. Martin i think his name is.
 
I was raiding in another game TSW. and a mate from the US. told me that tickets take for ever  to be responded too.	
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Don't get me wrong Alt, I'm not saying they fail with 100% of tickets or can't do anything right.
 
But every interaction I've had was awful, I'm trying to say as a customer that is something that turns me off. This thread is me saying that it matters to me, that if they can't change anything else they should focus on how a good experience will benefit an experience.
 
The fact you feel good after a good CS interaction and are excited to get back into it means they did something right, you aren't the only one to say that so I'd be more wondering why some people get amazing service and others don't/	
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My sub is deactivated due to their ungodly bad CS, i won't be giving this company any more money. I was accused of using 3rd party applications to cheat, then it suddenly changed to "oh, you were hacked.. we'll turn you back on.. but we won't restore anything, sorry  you lost all your trade skills" then it changed to, "o, btw, since you were hacked we're gonna penalize you and strip your character of all your gear you crafted, and give you this absolute shit gear that matches your level, btw, we can't be bothered to actually look and see if your gear changed in anyway when you were hacked."
 
Are you kidding me? I'll never buy another NCSoft product ever again.
 
Moderator edit: Language 
			
				
	Edited July 26, 2014 by Chillia	
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My sub is deactivated due to their ungodly bad CS, i won't be giving this company any more money. I was accused of using 3rd party applications to cheat, then it suddenly changed to "oh, you were hacked.. we'll turn you back on.. but we won't restore anything, sorry  you lost all your trade skills" then it changed to, "o, btw, since you were hacked we're gonna penalize you and strip your character of all your gear you crafted, and give you this absolute shit gear that matches your level, btw, we can't be bothered to actually look and see if your gear changed in anyway when you were hacked."
 
Are you kidding me? I'll never buy another NCSoft product ever again.
 
Moderator edit: Language 
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			I think one thing that may help increase customer satisfaction is we customers need to realize that we can't always be helped in the way we would like for them to help us.  And also realize making a ticket and reading the responses while we're still upset/mad/angry/raging will color our perspectives and the way we write a ticket to CS.	
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I am sorry but they don't read the tickets and just say they can do anything to knock them out this is the worst customer service I have received compared any company or game they really don't care about losing customers and believe they are trying to at this point.   
 
I know for a fact that they can restore elder gems I have several friends that had them restored due the user interface issues with the elder gem vendor.  But they refuse and that even goes against their one time oops restore policy on toons  over 45. 	
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I think one thing that may help increase customer satisfaction is we customers need to realize that we can't always be helped in the way we would like for them to help us.  And also realize making a ticket and reading the responses while we're still upset/mad/angry/raging will color our perspectives and the way we write a ticket to CS.
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So basically you got ticked and vented at CS and expected some kind of automated response. When you got said automated response it wasn't the one you wanted so you came on here to vent some more.
 
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYgyTJsthrA	
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You could read the rest of my post, where I go on to say that having poor customer service will turn away customers. I just quoted someone who's quitting because of CS, there's another locked thread on the first page where another person is quitting citing CS as the number 1 reason for it. This post is to point out that customers care about it and that even if there's no solution to be had actually putting some human service in is the way to increase customer retention.
 
You could even argue against that, say why you think a soul less automated system is better for the customer and player retention for whatever reason.
 
You could even talk about how your experience with CS was better than average and why that good service is convincing you to stay on as a customer.
 
Or you could skim the start of my post which is purely for context and post a snarky response and facetious youtube video.
 
Good for you.	
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NCSoft's customer service is pretty bad. I had an issue where I couldn't transfer my character because the transfer service gave me the "you have unclaimed mail" error. I had no mail. So I talked to someone who seemed like he knew what he was doing, only to have a different person an hour later send me the generic "you need to delete the item in your inventory and accept the new item" which had absolutely nothing to do with my problem. I made my ticket short and concise, the entire ticket was 3 sentences.
 
I had no mail. The problem wasn't that I had duplicate items, one in the mail, and one in my inventory. The problem was I had no mail but the transfer service said I did.
 
Maybe this is NCSoft's problem but if I was working for Carbine I'd make in game GM's and staff them with interns pronto. Preferably SOMEONE who knows SOMETHING about the game. It seems like NCSoft's support has ZERO knowledge about the game and they are just reading screen prompts telling them what to do. Reminds me of Microsoft's support, "are you sure the computer is plugged in?"	
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