SOE Community Summit
Customer Service Part I, or DUDE, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY?


I am a big fan of EQII. I think it’s the best MMOG out there. SOE has a lot of good games under its belt, and more in development. On the whole, I haven’t a lot to complain about… except Customer Service.

Now, Customer Service has changed many times since I first installed EQ in March of 1999. It used to be draconian, with the standard line of “no”. It didn’t seem to matter what you petitioned, the answer was usually “no,” although they used more words.

My sword of uberness disappeared overnight; I swear I don’t share my account and I don’t know what happened – can you replace it?
~No.

My quest is broken because I accidentally destroyed this lump of clay that looked like all the other lumps of clay in my inventory. I can’t progress in the quest now, cause the mob won’t drop another lump of the special clay for me, even though I have killed it 42 times. Can you fix it?
~No.

Everyone in the raid just died multiple times due to the three server crashes we had tonight. Can you restore our xp?
~No.

I joined the Guide program in 2001, and learned from the inside how the process worked. The petition system was interesting and complex. I loved problem solving and took to it all immediately.

During my time there, I watched as the SOE Customer Service policies began to change before my very eyes. GMs were given new tools and new leeway in their perusal of customer’s problems. They often spent a great deal of time and effort in researching where a missing item went or how something got broken, or who scammed who out of what. It was a far kinder and gentler time (for all but the griefers and exploiters), and I developed a great deal of respect for the GMs I worked with. They honestly cared for the players and did all they could to help, if they could.

When I became a Senior Guide, it was a whole new kettle of fish again. In addition to handling the more difficult petitions (which I loved) I was involved with training and helping the Guides on my server do a good job, and moreover, to do it consistently. I can tell you that while we had a great many exemplary Guides, things were not always perfect. The Seniors looked over all the service reports and picked up issues that needed more work.

Things are not so different now, many years later on, long after Senior Guide Brasse packed up her armor and left for SWG and then EQII. The difference is that the job that Guides used to do is now being done by paid staff, largely based in India. Guides still exist, but their involvement is now with Live Events in game, not customer service.

I have had my share of unhappy experiences with SOE Customer Service. Oh yes indeedy.

I have known many people, when confronted with a serious issue in game, just throw their hands up and not bother even submitting a petition, due to their poor experiences with SOE Customer Service in the past. To me, a CS person at heart, this is simply not acceptable. If people don’t want to contact CS because it’s not worth it and they feel they will not get any sort of resolution, then it is broken.

DUDE, LEMME SPEAK TO YOUR SUPERVISOR

So there I am at the SOE Community Summit, and Alan “Brenlo” Crosby introduces the Customer Service folks. Brad Wilcox, head of CS, Richard Schmelter (EQ/EQII/EQOA) and Sharon Morris (SWG/Vanguard/Matrix), both CS managers.



I knew I had something to talk about, something that deeply concerned me. My friends, my guildmates, had no faith in CS. This is a perception that is very difficult to turn around. Ask any cell phone company.

As Brad said, “CS is measured on the best experience the player has ever had.”

Seeing Rich there brought back memories of a particularly frustrating experience I’d had, and that is what I used as a lead in to my questions:

So as not to bore you with the details, I had a seriously convoluted issue involving a Heritage Quest and a later quest series. I was well and truly stuck and unable to progress.

This is a job for customer service, thinks I, starting to submit a detailed petition about my predicament. It did not go well. The site was having issues and would not allow me to log in over the course of two days, my email address was deemed invalid (even though it was the same address CS had contacted me at) the GMs seemed unable to help and I was growing more irate by the hour. I believe my hair caught on fire at one point before I finally just threw my hands up in frustration.

And then, the petition being marked as “resolved” because I could not respond to it in any way… I received an EQII Customer Service Satisfaction Survey. Oh my. I was not nice. I was angry, upset and let that show in no uncertain terms.

The next day I received an email from Rich Schmelter regarding the survey, and I felt badly. I had really unloaded in my survey response, and here was Rich, a guy I knew and respected, one of our GMs from the old days, having to respond to my ranting. Hey… he also fixed the problem and off I went on my merry way. It brought to bear the deeply human element in customer service, and I felt like more than a bit of an ass. I took care to write an appreciative response.

Rich said he’d kept that correspondence – I bet he hauls it out every now and again for new trainees to show them just how ANGRY a Dwarf can get, and what they may have to deal with. ~sigh~

A week later, a friend of mine who had exactly the same issue petitioned in precisely the same way, with loads of detail about the issue and how mine had been resolved (it did take GM intervention)… the response they got back was formulaic, clearly not written by someone in the US, and worse, seemed to have nothing to do with the problem they described. They didn’t bother pursuing it further and just swore they’d never waste time with CS again with all their people in India and not having a clue about the game.

So… this issue happened over a year ago.

There is a widespread perception that the outsourced GMs are useless, that they cannot even manage to grasp many of the issues, and seem unable to act on anything. As one wit piped up, “Allo, my name is GM Andrew, ow may I elp you?” Yeah, sure, your name is Andrew.

My question was, in the face of this persistent and negative perception, exactly what sort of training do the overseas staff get? What sorts of resources do they have to investigate matters?

Brad… remember Brad? Yeah, he stood there patiently waiting while I relived my rant at some length, and then described some of the changes that the CS program had undergone.

Of course, they use staff in India due to cost issues. Brad said that the outsourced staff were provided extensive training, made use of detailed training docs and were also required to play the game to a certain level. He then said that in spite of intensive training, it became clear that not everyone can handle all issues. He explained that the petitions are “tiered”, according to complexity of issue.

This brought back yet more memories of the Guide Program, where the newest guides answer all petitions and then escalate them as needed to Guide or Senior Guides. Full circle. The GMs in India will do the same, handling Tier 1 issues, while convoluted cases like mine would be sent up the line to people with a greater breadth of game specific knowledge.

DUDE, YOUR SITE SUCKS

A very soft-spoken attendee who was there representing the SWG community stated her complaints about the petition process itself; how time constraints in game made it such that having to deal with the clunky web interface was discouraging to the process.

I couldn’t agree more. I tried to send in a petition last week, although I was in a group at the time. Up comes the window, with all the unclear, generic tabs and labels, done in clone-trooper laboratory colors. I click on what I think may be the right thing, start filling in information, and then find I have to select subcategories. I agonize over which of the non-matching categories is closest to my issue. By now my group has moved off, fallen asleep or pulled mobs to kill us, and I’ve just shut the darn petition window down.

Even worse is the fact that I have more than one account. This means that when I try to submit a petition, it tells me I have to verify my email address. Uh huh. That means I have to wait for an email to arrive, need to click on it, and then go back to petition. Not today… and the petition is closed.

Now, the cynics among us may say that SOE throws up these barriers specifically to discourage people from petitioning. That is not the case, it’s just poor design. I have a friend (Jen “Tyraenna” Allen) whose job is working in “Human Factors”; her company conducts studies on all manner of interfaces for usability, everything from GPS Navigation systems to the Rock Band interface. It is amazing how dumb people really are (myself included), and how hard it is for us to navigate systems considered simple by the designers who put them in place. I cannot imagine the field day Jen would have in testing the SOE petition pages. Well, actually, I can.

When I started TheBrasse.com, I asked Jen to look it over, because I’d had my fill of impossible to navigate sites like TenTon Hammer, where the only way I can ever find my way back to information through the morass is to bookmark specific pages and ignore the rest of the site. So sure, my site looks dorky, but hey… it’s simple. I bet you can find what you want pretty quick.

The good news: SOE is looking at making some adjustments to the site again. I look forward to testing it out. Meanwhile, I tend to use the Live Chat option, even though it means I have to be on during their business hours. I like the direct communication aspect of it.

DUDE, I’M BEING HARRASSED!

There was significant discussion on what constitutes harassment within a game, and some of the issues that arise from it. Harrassment is one of those difficult areas where the issues range from volatile and deeply upsetting to just plain silliness.

In a few cases, GMs have had to change players’ names and even move them to another server to resolve issues.

In other cases, they get to view chat /reports that show that the petitioner was the one who started a foul name-calling session in the first place, and didn’t quite realize how much text the /report command took in. Doh! Keep in mind that the /report function takes in ALL chat windows, even those that are hidden. Let your paranoia run rampant the next time you submit one, mwa-ha-haaaaaa.

Speaking of /reports, it is true that you do not necessarily have to submit a petition in order for the chat log to land on the CS desk… but an accompanying petition goes a long ways towards making sure that the GMs can find exactly what you were reporting, much faster.

DUDE, DIDJA BAN HIM?

Sorry, you’re not going to get to know how any particular drama ended up. Investigations can take time, so don’t expect the “OMG ITSA BOT I BEEN WATCHIN HIM FOR THREE HOURS” guy to suddenly poof within minutes of your petition. Not gonna happen, and that is lucky for us, because not only can a petition be false, but even worse, simply mistaken.

Consider this example: CS contacted a person suspected of being a botter and they responded right away. When asked why they didn’t respond to other people’s tells, they said they merely got tired of having to respond to every single stranger who wanted to waste their time by sending “/tell Are you there??”. Yeah, I would too.

Most infractions will result in a warning, a note made on the account. Subsequent violations or more serious issues may result in a suspension or banning. However, SOE CS does not take the heads and spike them on the battlements as was done in you know… the dark ages.

If someone is BANNED, it is never done without a lot of discourse and evidence. This is something that has not changed from ye olde days when Senior Guide Brasse walked Norrath. I knew some of the people who were banned from my server (usually from having to deal with a lot of petitions pertaining to them) and oh yes. Every one deserved it. Big time.

If you really want to know if someone was suspended and banned, put them on your friends list. If a normally highly active pain in the arse suddenly disappears for a week or more… you have your answer.

DUDE, GIMME ONE MORE CHANCE!

Something I was surprised to learn was that the banned can come back to life. Rich explained that on more than one occasion he’d been contacted by someone who had been banned in the distant past and literally begged to be allowed to play again. A second chance is offered to some, after discussion, with the proviso that even the most minor violation will result in their privileges being pulled.

Bottom line: the people who work at the top in customer service are deeply committed to excellence and to helping players. They are smart, savvy folks who have seen everything that the players can possibly come up with. Brad shows up for work at some ungodly hour before sunrise JUST so that he can deal with tough petitions while it’s still quiet. Ok, so maybe that’s nuts, but these people LIKE what they do.

SOE Customer Service continues to evolve, as do the games they serve. I am going to keep encouraging people to use the system, and to pursue poorly handled issues. I have already asked for a more in-depth discussion with Brad for April, and I can hardly wait.

March 12 Addendum:

Customer service is an odd field.

It is, as I mentioned somewhere or other in the commentary, a largely thankless job. And yet, any time I have been involved in the service end, there is a massive feeling of well-being that comes from being able to resolve a difficult issue. That is why I loved being a Guide, back in the day.

People who stick with the field as a career can only do so because their need and desire to aid others outweighs the frustrations that come with the territory. Here is where the problem lies for many workers: a lot of companies really do not care about evaluating or evolving customer service tools and procedures. Those workers are stuck in a morass of company apathy that does not enable them to do their jobs. SOE is constantly changing how their CS works because the playerbase and its needs are important to them, and that is a grand thing indeed.

A lot of people want a glorious, high profile job as a Dev or Art Lead... but to be honest, I'd take a position working with SOE CS. I cannot think of another company I can say that about.


Next time, an article that deserves its own space: SOE CS and GOLD SELLERS.
I learned a lot, and it is scary.