Anti-Aliased: The customers aren't always right, but they should be supported
The customer isn't always right. Trust me, I know, I use to work at GameStop. *shivers at the thought of pushing reserves* Sometimes, the customer is wrong -- dead wrong -- but that doesn't mean the customer shouldn't be supported and appreciated.
Customer support is one of those areas of MMO games that often goes overlooked when it goes right, or put under a spotlight when it goes wrong. There is no middle ground with that department, and the many good people who put long hours into making sure your account properly works don't get enough thanks
Well, let's fix that. Today I want to talk about two recent interactions I've had with customer support, but I also want to address a few issues that I have with the system as well.
Undergoing the Blizzard
I really, really hate calling Blizzard customer support. I usually end up on hold for an hour and that's the part that drives me crazy, even though they're usually very helpful. So when my roommate was interested in having me along to play World of Warcraft with him, one last time through the old world before the cataclysm, I wasn't fully interested. As fallout from when I was hacked, my account was locked because a stolen credit card was used to pay for my account. Even though I had taken the credit card off of the account immediately and informed Blizzard of the situation, my account was still locked up and Blizzard told me I owed them for a month of gameplay.
Well, that's where my account sat for the last year -- locked until I paid for that hacked month. So, because I wanted to get back into the game, I wondered if I could get Blizzard to repeal that fee. I did, after all, notify them of the situation. (Not to mention they didn't give my character her 450 inscription back when they restored my account, making my shoulder inscription useless.)
I called Blizzard, and was about to deal with the wait until I got the message, "All our customer support representatives are busy, please call back later." I've never heard of a company literally turning calls away, nor did I ever have that happen to me when dealing with Blizzard. So, a little angry, I looked through to find the email address for the proper support, and began writing my long email to explain the situation.
Three days later I had partially given up hope. I had heard nothing back from the department, I wasn't going to email them again, and I had learned that the only way to communicate with the appropriate division of customer support was to email them -- I couldn't call.
Needless to say, I was surprised when I found an email in my inbox from the Blizzard CS team when I was looking for a few pending interviews. Blizzard had unlocked the account, waived the fee, and told me that I should contact a GM in game to get my inscription back. No questions were asked, no further response was required. It was done, just like that.
I was shocked. My whole interaction was relatively painless and it had achieved an outcome that I honestly wasn't expecting to happen. Many kudos to the World of Warcraft account management department, and personal thanks to GM Jaelyxa, who handled my request.
