The Customer Support in ESO is fundamentally flawed

Tyagar

So, to be honest I was irritated about this topic since a long time. I was not effected immediately that much, though I had one very disturbing experience with the ESO support about a year ago (I will mention a bit more about that incident below). Thus, frankly, I just never really bothered to write the kind of message you are reading right now. However, these days I am having a small problem for which I need assistance from the ESO support again, and after a long search through the official support menu and the forum I must say, calmly but very clearly: The Customer Support system for ESO is a disgrace.

My immediate problem, for which I require assistance, is the following: I was living abroad for quit a long time, in particular at the time when I initially purchased ESO. But now I am back, and I would like to change my country of residence in my ESO billing information (e.g., the coutry of residence affects the currency and price of ESO related product such as DLC's). However, apparently it is not possible to make this change on my own (yes, I now I can change my billing information, but actually I cannot change my country of residence). So I need to contact the support in order for them to help me changing the information. (I can unterstand by the way that the country of residence might be some sort of legally sensitive information, and that ZOS does not want to immediately offer the possibility to change this information on a daily basis – like you actually can do with the rest of your billing information.)

Okay, now what would normally happen – and by that I mean on every reasonably managed platform – is that I would just contact the support, describe to them my problem, and then probably would get assistance after at most few days. But with ESO support this is not what is happening because the procedure breaks down already in the very first step:

It is not possible to contact the ESO support!

Let me be clear about two points here:

1. I did invest quite a long time in researching if there is any way at all to write a message to the ESO support. I could not find any. Still it might always be possible that I missed something, so please point out to me if this is the case. (However, a support option that is so well-hidden that even a long and careful search does not reveal its presence, should maybe not be called a support option.)
2. Yes, there is the Web Assistant which you can reach under https://help.elderscrollsonline.com. But please have a look there and share with me the very interesting experience that there is apparently absolutely no possibility implemented (any more) for actually contacting the support. (In my case, the problem I have is not described in any of the subsections you can find in the Web Assistant, so I actually need to get in personal contact with the support team. The Web Assistant is not of any help to me.)

So now again, and I kindly ask you to think about what it means:

It is not possible to contact the ESO support!

I think it is realtively safe to assume that this is not a design flaw, but that this is a decision consciously made by ZOS. But if so, then this means that ZOS does not want to offer the possibility of support. But if so, then I think we are actually having a huge problem here! If I may ask so, then please think about it, please compare it to the standard you should be used to from pretty much every other platform/office/company in your every day life, and please check for yourself if you think this is a good situation.

I also want to make 2 more comments. First, as I mentioned before, I had another small problem for which I required assistance by the ESO support about a year ago. Already at that time it was extremly difficult to get in contact with the support. But, in the past it was actually possible to contact support! As this is apparently not the case any longer, this means that at some point the option to do so was deliberately removed. I kindly ask you to also think about that point and about what it tells you with respect to the relevance ZOS attributes to a well-working support system.

Second, and yes this is the one small exception from what I wrote before: there is the in-game support you can reach by hitting F1 while in the game. And yes, here you can, at least theoretically, actually write a message. Given the circumstances, this is already an interesting observation. However, reality is sadly much worse than one might hope for:

• The menu is constrained to a number of fixed subcategories revolving around in-game issues such as stuck characters, crashes, exploits, etc. There are no subcategories for out-game issues such as billing information, hacked accounts, etc. Which, as one might argue, makes sense, since this is the in-game support. On the other hand, as one might also observe, it means that there is actually absolutely no support offer targeted on out-game issue after all. There is also no general feedback/problem-report category here (but there are subcatgories for "Pleasant surprise" and "That's awesome" if you want to use these).
• Now of course I could be somewhat unapologetic and just post my issue in any of the (wrong) subcategories. However, there are at least two problems. First, one problem is that the length of the message you can post is highly limited, effectively limiting your ability to describe what problem you have. (Dear ZOS: Why?) And the second problem: I actually posted my issue in a random subcategory (I was able to squeeze my problem description into few enough words to fit the form) – but I jsut do not receive any answer. Well, maybe the person who read my message felt not reponsible, because my issue did not fit the category, I don't know. But kidding aside, it has been more then one week, since I posted a message (I received a confirmation e-mal about the reception of my posting), and I just do not get any feedback. And I am not surprised in the least. When I had this other problem about a year ago, and when it was still possible to contact the support, I wrote 4 mails within the time of over a month before I finally received an answer. In fact, I received an answer right after my 4th meassage in which I kindly (I think; well maybe...) explained that I pretty much lost all my hope to ever get any feedback at all, and that just out of curiosty I will now start to open 1 ticket each single day on the very same topic just out of the curiosty if there is actually anybody reading my messages at all.

So to summarize: The in-game support is a theoretic option to contact support, fundamentally flawed in its design, but a theoretic option. However, I sadly cannot report any positive experience with using it. In particular, it is not helping me with my current problem.

So now I'm a big man, and I can deal with my problems. But the point is, as the post title says, I think the Customer Support system in ESO is fundamentally flawed, and I also think it was put into this shape deliberately. And I am very unhappy about this siutation! Again, if I am missing some support option well-hidden somehwere from at least my eyes, then plese tell me. But if not, and if you can agree to some extent with my above assesment of the situation, then please share you concerns and maybe help building up some pressure to show ZOS that there is actually a certain discontent with the situation as it is right now.

VaranisArano

I tend to get good results when I use the in-game Ask For Help feature, which generates a fairly boiler-plate "we hope this solved your problem" message. When I reply again to that message, I've had good luck getting an actual fix or the problem escalated to the people who could help me fix it.

Its not the most user-friendly of systems by a long shot, but that's worked for me.

Zaldan

ZO$ don't want to deal with their customers, hence the removal of ways to contact them and the reason EVERY in game request for assistance is replied to by a bot and quite often replies two and three as well.

Elsonso

It has gotten harder to write a support ticketm but it can be done. It is similar to navigating a voice response system dedicated to steering you away from an actual person, but eventually there is the option.

At that point it is a matter of picking categories that they read, I guess.

In any case, I suspect that ZOS handed off customer support to Bethesda. If that happened, this explains the changes. ESO would not be the only product they support. I also don't know gow experienced they are supporting live games.

DMuehlhausen

Do you have any idea how many tickets they receive a day?

I work for a support company that has about 5000 total users and we get 80-150 tickets a day. Now ESO has at least 2 million active users probably . They are probably receiving at least 15k tickets each day. Out of those 15k tickets I'm guessing 95% at least are resolved quickly, and nobody has any complaints. There are going to be issues, or tickets that will be problem tickets or possibly the user just doesn't like the response.

Ladislao

I used both in-game and website customer support.

Judging by the results it seemed to me that the in-game system does not work at all. All my tickets about bugs and bots are still unsolved.
But the use of support via website left only positive impressions. All problems were solved. And quite quickly.

Apache_Kid

A product of this size only offering e-mail support through a ticket system in 2018 is just ridiculous. There needs to be live-chat or phone support. I don't care if I have to wait a long time I'll sit on hold or on a computer waiting for a live chat because I will actually be able to work through the issue in real-time as opposed to e-mailing them and then all of a sudden having the response from ZoS suddenly stop then start again hours later by a new support employee who has no knowledge of my situation because the last person who was helping me stopped working for the day.

At the very least, there should be a phone or live-chat support option for ESO+ subs. We should be getting priority treatment from support anyways for subbing to a premium tier.

Vahrokh

DMuehlhausen wrote: »

Do you have any idea how many tickets they receive a day?

I work for a support company that has about 5000 total users and we get 80-150 tickets a day.

Then you know, that the 1 guy whose problem is not solved is going to post like it were 2000 people, right? That's how it goes.

Apache_Kid

DMuehlhausen wrote: »

Do you have any idea how many tickets they receive a day?

I work for a support company that has about 5000 total users and we get 80-150 tickets a day. Now ESO has at least 2 million active users probably . They are probably receiving at least 15k tickets each day. Out of those 15k tickets I'm guessing 95% at least are resolved quickly, and nobody has any complaints. There are going to be issues, or tickets that will be problem tickets or possibly the user just doesn't like the response.

If ZoS Support is using the same type of system for 2 million active users that your company is using for a system of 5000 total users, shouldn't we be discussing this as an issue? I don't understand your point. If there are too many issues causing too many support tickets for your support staff to deal with then your system is flawed or you do not have enough employees.

Azaharys

https://help.elderscrollsonline.com/app/incident
This is a link to the web assistant, hope it helps with your issue and that you can get it solved soon.

LeagueTroll

Typical cost savings method

AlnilamE

OP, just pick the "I have an ESO Plus purchase issue" to proceed to the next page so that you can write up what you actually need assistance with.

And provide feedback in the FAQ page to say that the information there was not helpful.

Prof_Bawbag

DMuehlhausen wrote: »

Do you have any idea how many tickets they receive a day?

I work for a support company that has about 5000 total users and we get 80-150 tickets a day. Now ESO has at least 2 million active users probably . They are probably receiving at least 15k tickets each day. Out of those 15k tickets I'm guessing 95% at least are resolved quickly, and nobody has any complaints. There are going to be issues, or tickets that will be problem tickets or possibly the user just doesn't like the response.

That almost brought a tear to my eye, but not enough violins. It's up to ZoS to have something in place to cope with those amount of requests/issues/complaints. Your 5000 people system will presumably be a lot more scaled down than what ZoS has in place, or should have in place. So you can't really compare the 2. Different software too which requires different approaches.

I work in similar dept within the NHS in the UK, however, we have enough staff to cover the basics should a real issue arise. Which is often the case. Again, it can't be compared to your job or ZoS' set-up as it involves different software.

emily3989

What? You don't get the standard robo-response about ignoring people as an option regardless of your feedback or complaint? Because I am sure that is what CS was designed to do.

Tyagar

DMuehlhausen wrote: »

Do you have any idea how many tickets they receive a day?

I work for a support company that has about 5000 total users and we get 80-150 tickets a day. Now ESO has at least 2 million active users probably . They are probably receiving at least 15k tickets each day. Out of those 15k tickets I'm guessing 95% at least are resolved quickly, and nobody has any complaints. There are going to be issues, or tickets that will be problem tickets or possibly the user just doesn't like the response.

Well, you are a bit missing the point I want to make here. The real issue I want to point out is the design of the support system and how it seems to deliberately prevent you from getting in contact with people from Customer Support in the first place. Response time is only relevant if you have been able to establish some sort of communication at all. To be fair, I also mentioned two cases where I had to wait for an answer. But in both cases the waiting times were/are so long (over 1 month and several messages in the first case(!), already over a week in the second case), that some expression of concerns seems justified in my opinion.

Tyagar

Azaharys wrote: »

https://help.elderscrollsonline.com/app/incident
This is a link to the web assistant, hope it helps with your issue and that you can get it solved soon.

Thank you for pointing out this link; it is the same link I posted before, only navigated a little bit further, though. And thus it is the very link my comments were, and still are, addressed to. As a bit of an update I can add the following information though: Shortly after opening this forum thread I received a mail from @ZOS_MikaS stating that it was noticed that I have a problem with submitting a ticket, and I was refered again to the very same link. First, let me say thank you for the response. Second let me say that at first I was a little bit irritated when receiving this mail, as again this link is actually the one my comments refered to fom the beginning. I had some sort of revelation though, after reading this post:

AlnilamE wrote: »

OP, just pick the "I have an ESO Plus purchase issue" to proceed to the next page so that you can write up what you actually need assistance with.

And provide feedback in the FAQ page to say that the information there was not helpful.

The amazing thing is that this information is actually correct! (Not that I would doubt you AlnilamE, but I spent quit some time clicking through the Web Assistent.) The point is, and here I have thus to correct my previous comments, if you navigate to https://help.elderscrollsonline.com/app/incident click through the "correct" subcategories, then in the end you will be provided with the possibility to leave a message. If however you click through the "wrong" subcategories, then you will only be provided with some information related to the category in question, but you will not receive the possibility to leave a message. Unfortunately, it is completely not clear which of the subcatgeories is "correct" or "wrong" in the above sense, and if you are unlucky like myself and while you are randomly navigating through some categories you are only hitting the "wrong" ones, then you are left with the impression that there is no way to leave a message for the customer support at all. This means two things:

1. It is acutally still possible to leave a message for the Customer support.
2. The possibility to do so is so well-hidden, so poorly documented and only accessible if you use the support system in a way it is not intended to be used (namely, you have to post in a category that in many cases will not be related to your actual problem) that I want to keep my criticism related to the general design flaws of the support system in place.

Huyen

Apache_Kid wrote: »

A product of this size only offering e-mail support through a ticket system in 2018 is just ridiculous. There needs to be live-chat or phone support. I don't care if I have to wait a long time I'll sit on hold or on a computer waiting for a live chat because I will actually be able to work through the issue in real-time as opposed to e-mailing them and then all of a sudden having the response from ZoS suddenly stop then start again hours later by a new support employee who has no knowledge of my situation because the last person who was helping me stopped working for the day.

At the very least, there should be a phone or live-chat support option for ESO+ subs. We should be getting priority treatment from support anyways for subbing to a premium tier.

Blizzard had live-chat and phone-support, but since the end of 2016 (when I stopped playing) the options were almost always greyed out and couldnt be used. Problem is with live-support that you cant filter the real questions from the rubbish (people who whine about anything) anymore, wich takes up more resources then needed.

Apache_Kid

Huyen wrote: »

Apache_Kid wrote: »

A product of this size only offering e-mail support through a ticket system in 2018 is just ridiculous. There needs to be live-chat or phone support. I don't care if I have to wait a long time I'll sit on hold or on a computer waiting for a live chat because I will actually be able to work through the issue in real-time as opposed to e-mailing them and then all of a sudden having the response from ZoS suddenly stop then start again hours later by a new support employee who has no knowledge of my situation because the last person who was helping me stopped working for the day.

At the very least, there should be a phone or live-chat support option for ESO+ subs. We should be getting priority treatment from support anyways for subbing to a premium tier.

Blizzard had live-chat and phone-support, but since the end of 2016 (when I stopped playing) the options were almost always greyed out and couldnt be used. Problem is with live-support that you cant filter the real questions from the rubbish (people who whine about anything) anymore, wich takes up more resources then needed.

Yes but WoW had live support for most of its hey-day I remember using it.

And i think that live support would make it easier to weed out the trolls. Support tickets in theory still need to be read by someone (although sometimes it's clear mine are not read) so i dont see the issue other than they don't feel like re-investing enough of the fortunes of profit they make from the crown store into improving their infrastructure and hiring more people.

Storm_knight22

AlnilamE

Tyagar wrote: »

Azaharys wrote: »

https://help.elderscrollsonline.com/app/incident
This is a link to the web assistant, hope it helps with your issue and that you can get it solved soon.

Thank you for pointing out this link; it is the same link I posted before, only navigated a little bit further, though. And thus it is the very link my comments were, and still are, addressed to. As a bit of an update I can add the following information though: Shortly after opening this forum thread I received a mail from @ZOS_MikaS stating that it was noticed that I have a problem with submitting a ticket, and I was refered again to the very same link. First, let me say thank you for the response. Second let me say that at first I was a little bit irritated when receiving this mail, as again this link is actually the one my comments refered to fom the beginning. I had some sort of revelation though, after reading this post:

AlnilamE wrote: »

OP, just pick the "I have an ESO Plus purchase issue" to proceed to the next page so that you can write up what you actually need assistance with.

And provide feedback in the FAQ page to say that the information there was not helpful.

The amazing thing is that this information is actually correct! (Not that I would doubt you AlnilamE, but I spent quit some time clicking through the Web Assistent.) The point is, and here I have thus to correct my previous comments, if you navigate to https://help.elderscrollsonline.com/app/incident click through the "correct" subcategories, then in the end you will be provided with the possibility to leave a message. If however you click through the "wrong" subcategories, then you will only be provided with some information related to the category in question, but you will not receive the possibility to leave a message. Unfortunately, it is completely not clear which of the subcatgeories is "correct" or "wrong" in the above sense, and if you are unlucky like myself and while you are randomly navigating through some categories you are only hitting the "wrong" ones, then you are left with the impression that there is no way to leave a message for the customer support at all. This means two things:

1. It is acutally still possible to leave a message for the Customer support.
2. The possibility to do so is so well-hidden, so poorly documented and only accessible if you use the support system in a way it is not intended to be used (namely, you have to post in a category that in many cases will not be related to your actual problem) that I want to keep my criticism related to the general design flaws of the support system in place.

So, what do you know?

When I wrote my reply, I actually wrote feedback into their FAQ for "How do you change your country?" saying that there was not "change country" option in the web assist. I did not expect a response since the feedback form states there would be no reply.

But today I got an email from Customer Support offering to assist me in changing my country of residence (which I don't need, I was doing this to help you).

So if you haven't sorted this out yet, I would suggest following the same path. (But I do hope it's all sorted by now).