300 ESO Customer Service Employees Let Go

Asherons_Call

What??? I had no idea they even had 300 customer service people. Most of the time I get a canned response when I contact them anyway so I guess I won't be missing much.

zornyan

timidobserver wrote: »

Erdmanski wrote: »

Maybe they lost their jobs because they weren't doing them well. Everyone here complains about how bad the customer service is, so maybe this is actually an initiative by ZOS to improve customer service. Perhaps they are moving all customer service to a single location to improve efficiency and improve departmental communication.

A layoff like this doesn't necessarily mean the game is struggling or they are struggling financially.

Normally I would agree, but a layoff before Christmas seems a bit desperate/abrupt. Just for the sake of PR, they would have waited until January/February if it were just improving efficiency. I have actually seen layoffs delayed for this reason.

Except they were laid off September last year..read the date of the articles
..

Kahl_dur

driosketch wrote: »

Is this story current? I'm pretty sure we heard about customer service employees at an Irish call center being laid off last year.

Yes, the news just came out today: 12/18/15. This isn't the first time ZOS has laid off customer service reps though.

zornyan

Kahl_dur wrote: »

More info from EuroGamer:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-12-18-elder-scrolls-online-irish-customer-service-office-closed-and-300-jobs-lost-report

more info, from last september, god I keep thinking this is a time warp or something.

Jumper45

Divinius wrote: »

Jura23 wrote: »

terrordactyl1971 wrote: »

Sad, the game must be struggling

Or it's doing so well that ppl don't submit enough tickets to keep customer service occupied.

Something tells me that this is not the case.

Idle hands is wasted money. So it could indeed be the case. If there is no where to transfer then they are let go. Most if not all businesses do it.

hrothbern

Erdmanski wrote: »

Maybe they lost their jobs because they weren't doing them well. Everyone here complains about how bad the customer service is, so maybe this is actually an initiative by ZOS to improve customer service. Perhaps they are moving all customer service to a single location to improve efficiency and improve departmental communication.

A layoff like this doesn't necessarily mean the game is struggling or they are struggling financially.

It can be that it is financially not going well. Both the 1,000,000 marketing initiative as the lay-off.

But it can also mean exactly the opposite !!!

that they are heading to make more profit this year than so far estimated. Meaning that they are performing better than the shareholders expectation. Everybody has already his bonus secured.
So what to do with the excess profit?
So they cut costs and make the marketing 1,000,000 financial obligation now, all going in the reported costs of 2015, and have some financial leeway to perform in 2016 better than the strategic plan for 2016. Boosting expected bonus pay out for over 2016.

finance has always her own reality.

Abeille

Can't it be that they were hired on a six-month contracts to help with console releases, and the contracts expired? The console release was around six months ago after all.

Niaver

Now i see why support can not help me, don't want even to read the message about my problem and just spam standart useless answers.

terrordactyl1971

driosketch wrote: »

Is this story current? I'm pretty sure we heard about customer service employees at an Irish call center being laid off last year.

Yep, it was posted today on Eurogamer.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-12-18-elder-scrolls-online-irish-customer-service-office-closed-and-300-jobs-lost-report

AhPook_Is_Here

Jura23 wrote: »

What were those 300 ppl doing I wonder.

From my experience, responding to tickets with answers almost completely unrelated to the issue. I remember I had to resubmit a ticket once about 5 times before it seemed like they even read it to provide an answer that addressed the issue inadequately. I haven't bothered submitting any issue to CS in ages since they never can actually help with anything, if something was messed up, bugged, vanished, broken, I just assumed it was working as intended.

Kahl_dur

The 300 jobs were from the European Customer Services Center, according to yesterday's original article from Connacht Tribune:

http://connachttribune.ie/games-over-for-software-giants-as-galway-loses-300-jobs-741/

terrordactyl1971

So basically, there is now ZERO customer support for European players.

Jura23

terrordactyl1971 wrote: »

So basically, there is now ZERO customer support for European players.

As long as they keep sending cash, there is no need for support I guess.

Artjuh90

well i feel bad for the 300 people.
weird part is about it that costomer serves of ZoS is not at par at all and they will make it worse by having less people involved with it good job ZOS right for christmas. Merry chirstmas and a big [snip] you for next year

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Cursing & Profanity]

terrordactyl1971

So nasty to wreck 300 families 1 week before Christmas. Surely they could have waited a couple of weeks?

Oh well, next time ZOS screws up a patch we don't need to feel too bad about pulling the plug on our subscriptions. What goes around, comes around right?

Kahl_dur

terrordactyl1971 wrote: »

So basically, there is now ZERO customer support for European players.

Perhaps ZOS will consolidate customer service for both the NA and EU servers under one roof? None of the articles say. Seems like they'd have to hire more customer service reps though...

AhPook_Is_Here

terrordactyl1971 wrote: »

So basically, there is now ZERO customer support for European players.

I am sure they have offices all around the world to inadequately answer your problems and tell you why it is impossible for them to help you with your issue.

I bet the real reason is more about hiding tax liability in Ireland, that has a very low corporate tax rate. A company overcompensates one division of an international corporation into a tax haven, to reduce their overall tax liability. This is a practice that is going away in Europe, and they are likely just getting ahead of the curve before the fiscal year ends.

This article covers how Starbucks was doing this in Europe and how it lead to a precedent-setting ruling against this tactic.

Dominoid

Abeille wrote: »

Can't it be that they were hired on a six-month contracts to help with console releases, and the contracts expired? The console release was around six months ago after all.

It's exactly this. Six month contracts which have expired and weren't renewed. Suck for those involved and the time of year is bad, but these aren't really layoffs.

NewBlacksmurf

They can let them go because they were wasting money paying ppl who couldn't get us our crowns on xbox one.....
which is still an issue so...peace out 300

tist

I would too if I had 300 customer service reps. That's absurd.

Jura23

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

terrordactyl1971 wrote: »

So basically, there is now ZERO customer support for European players.

I am sure they have offices all around the world to inadequately answer your problems and tell you why it is impossible for them to help you with your issue.

I bet the real reason is more about hiding tax liability in Ireland, that has a very low corporate tax rate. A company overcompensates one division of an international corporation into a tax haven, to reduce their overall tax liability. This is a practice that is going away in Europe, and they are likely just getting ahead of the curve before the fiscal year ends.

This article covers how Starbucks was doing this in Europe and how it lead to a precedent-setting ruling against this tactic.

Yep, this is the most logical explanation.

WalkingLegacy

Lots of companies layoff before Christmas. Amazon does it.

They still have their main office in Maryland. If anyone actually read the article, it mentions that this Ireland office was started up originally because it had the financial backing of its government. Maybe they quit whatever support they were giving ZOS?

It's not all doom and gloom and they sure as heck need to get some more money into fixing bugs because they shouldn't need that many CS agents anyways.

Volkodav

Maybe those employees werent doing their jobs right.

Pangnirtung

Junkogen wrote: »

Right before Christmas? Damn, that's cold.

Yeah, sadly that is a way that human resources gets out of paying for stat holidays.

As for the layoffs, every large company does what it calls efficiency assessments. It's cold hearted and brutal to the real people and their families that are affected.

JamilaRaj

Well, who would want to work at CS for ESO anyway? It had to be horror job, considering how bug ridden the game is. I am surprised there were so few suicides.
The devs should be assigned to penal teams and tasked with carrying out CS. For minor bugs, they would have to resolve "where are my crowns" tickets. For major bugs, they would have to deal with The Lag related tickets. And the worst evildoers, those who deliberately cripple the game with P2W, would have to police forums; read all this crap 12 hours a day.

Volkodav

JamilaRaj wrote: »

Well, who would want to work at CS for ESO anyway? It had to be horror job, considering how bug ridden the game is. I am surprised there were so few suicides.
The devs should be assigned to penal teams and tasked with carrying out CS. For minor bugs, they would have to resolve "where are my crowns" tickets. For major bugs, they would have to deal with The Lag related tickets. And the worst evildoers, those who deliberately cripple the game with P2W, would have to police forums; read all this crap 12 hours a day.

This made me laugh out loud. XD

Alcast

Happy Christmas!

Callous2208

I heard they were just heading to the hot gates to meet the Persians. In all seriousness though, these things happen all of the time in the corporate world. As someone said previously, most likely some contracts ended and were not renewed. The sky is not falling, sulk back to your dark abyss doomsayers.

nimander99

Ummmmm I swear they did this same thing in Ireland last August as well...

Edit: read other's posts. Glad I'm not the only one that remember this happening not long ago Felt like deja vu.

timidobserver

zornyan wrote: »

timidobserver wrote: »

Erdmanski wrote: »

Maybe they lost their jobs because they weren't doing them well. Everyone here complains about how bad the customer service is, so maybe this is actually an initiative by ZOS to improve customer service. Perhaps they are moving all customer service to a single location to improve efficiency and improve departmental communication.

A layoff like this doesn't necessarily mean the game is struggling or they are struggling financially.

Normally I would agree, but a layoff before Christmas seems a bit desperate/abrupt. Just for the sake of PR, they would have waited until January/February if it were just improving efficiency. I have actually seen layoffs delayed for this reason.

Except they were laid off September last year..read the date of the articles
..

In that case nevermind.