Please Improve Customer Support

Heindrich · November 2015

Dear Zenimax

This is not a QQing thread or a futile appeal against specific cases where my friends and I felt badly treated or unsatisfied with service received or judgement made. Instead I write to appeal to the powers that be at Zenimax to increase resources they devote to customer service, which appears to be overwhelmed and struggling to deal with the flood of tickets they must receive daily, resulting in poor judgement and frankly a shambolic level of service that is damaging the reputation and quality of ESO as a gaming experience and undermining the confidence of the community in the safety and longevity of the game.

I won't go into the substance of specific cases, but a few examples of bad service:

1) I was wrongfully banned a few weeks ago. My ESO Plus renewal was automatically terminated and I did not receive any email or explanation of any kind as to why. After my account was restored later in the day, customer support refused to provide any details on why I was banned in the first place.

2) When i got banned I spent 1hr18mins, 15mins and 40mins on hold trying to get through to telephone support. After wasting so much time and money, I never got to speak to a living soul. It seems that telephone support has been closed altogether since then.

3) Both myself and my friends have received completely unrelated and obviously copy-pasted generic responses to tickets. When I say unrelated, I mean completely unrelated to the tickets we raised.

4) I reported 10+ accounts I strongly suspect to be bot-farmers for Iron Hide Scraps, Iron Ore and some other materials that is flooding the EU PC server. I only got one generic response to one of the tickets and all the accounts I reported are still active. Instead I got (wrongly) suspended again for 72 hrs on an unrelated issue. lol

Let me be clear. I love ESO, I think it's a great game and people don't give it enough credit. However customer support is one of the direct interactions between Zenimax and its customers, and the most important one. In my experience and that of my friends, customer service levels are simply inadequate at the moment to the detriment of the game as a whole. I wouldn't be shocked if my above examples are only the tip of the ice burg. I don't even blame the people working in customer support. It seems to me that they are horribly over-stretched and under-manned for the massive and important job they do.

So my plea is simple. I know you guys get pulled in all directions by different players demanding different things. But improving customer support and providing more resources for the department would be a massive benefit for everybody, and help to make our community safer, fairer and more pleasant for all.

Regards,
Hein

hamburgerler76 · November 2015

idk about all that but I do think we need better customer support every time I mail them a ticket no matter the subject I get the same auto response. to fix most UI problems you can reload the game and waiting 30 sec can cause npc's to appear im tired of it its bin 3 months since launch and your overwhelming ticket auto response is getting old

OGLezard · December 2015

wow, one of the VERY FEW threads to EVER need ZoS attention, it has 2 post (now three after I hit submit)..... I %10000000000000 agree with this. @ZoS any response?

Sithisvoid · December 2015

Actually they just laid off a good chunk of customer support http://www.mmogames.com/gamenews/zenimax-studios-lays-off-300-employees/

THEDKEXPERIENCE · December 2015

Welcome to the business world!

dimensional · December 2015

So did this get resolved or what...? Come on, ZOS.

Heindrich · January 2016

j

dimensional wrote: »

So did this get resolved or what...? Come on, ZOS.

@dimensional
I wasn't appealing against any specific issue, so there was nothing in particular I expect to "get resolved". I just used some personal experiences to illustrate the problem.

That said, it seems that customer service has deteriorated further my post, which got little attention cos nobody cares about customer service until it fails them. And cos I didn't mention "wrecking blow", "nerf", "night blade", "lag" and other keywords to get attention on this forum.

SnuggleMePlease · January 2016

This definitely has my support. I haven't had much experience with the customer service department as of yet, aside from being reported for nonsensical banter in zone chat, but I definitely think that is best for all parties involved that Zenimax put an emphasis on making sure the issues of each individual are handled efficiently, comprehensively, and thoroughly. Hopefully, we receive some sort of communication from a Dev.

Cheers,
Snuggle

GnGEmpire · January 2016

@Heindrich It's sad that a thread of this importance has gone unnoticed.

Thanks for taking the time to write this and I agree with every word.

I am embarrassed to be paying for a game with literally the worst customer support I've ever experienced.
The large mobile companies who are known for their bad customer support still do a better job than ZoS at this.

I've submitted a ticket like 3 days ago and not even a basic reply so far.

mike.eso · January 2016

Just wanted to jump in here and say I agree, never seen customer support as bad as this, its just sad.

Hope499 · January 2016

Wow....would be hard to support them after that ***....bump this.

Tors · January 2016

On the other hand, I have had good experiances with customer support. So its swings and roundabouts I guess.

I wont make any mentions of the OP's specifics but generally random stuff doesent happen for no reason, and generally it happens to the same people over and over.

Yeah the old addage "no smoke without fire" is not fair, but not far from many peoples thourghts in cases like this.

I would hope that banning an account is not somehting completed by an automated process and that there is some human oversight in the process.

Anyway, that fact that you got your account back is cool and im glad for you but you need to understand the numbers of people who do make unfounded complaints against people and how easy it is for a human looking at these and get jaded/bla'zeh about who is in the right and just make a mistake or slap the ban stick

Work in any customer support function very long and your respect for the human race dive bombs......

UrQuan · January 2016

GnGEmpire wrote: »

@Heindrich It's sad that a thread of this importance has gone unnoticed.

Thanks for taking the time to write this and I agree with every word.

I am embarrassed to be paying for a game with literally the worst customer support I've ever experienced.
The large mobile companies who are known for their bad customer support still do a better job than ZoS at this.

I've submitted a ticket like 3 days ago and not even a basic reply so far.

Are you sure that you submitted a CS ticket and not a bug report? The bug reports go to a different team and you don't get a response from them (even if you asked for one) unless they want more info from you. A while back I could have sworn that I submitted a CS ticket, but apparently I accidentally submitted a bug report instead and that was why I didn't get a reply.

Having said that, I've recently had abysmal experiences with CS for this game. Really, really terrible experiences that speak to a lack of any kind of real CS regime/management.

RedTalon · January 2016

They do need better support, but this is mostly a buy-to-play game now and don't think despite them giving away they have the resources to maintain a full CS staff, in fact if I recall things right a lot of their layoffs have been in customer support.

And yes necrothreading is fun when its something like this.

Eztrelle · January 2016

I think they are looking to outsource their support. That means several things to me......

1.) The person you get on the phone is not going to have an appreciation or understanding of the game.
2.) Thier responses will probably be scripted.
3.) Thier aim will be to close tickets as fast as possible and for any reason they can get away with.

Don't expect an improvement.

Cazzy · January 2016

+1 vote.

UrQuan · January 2016

Just yesterday I submitted another ticket about a quest that's been bugged for months, preventing me from completing the main Imperial City questline (it wasn't bugged at IC launch, because I completed that questline on a different character back then, but some time since then it got broken).

Here's the email I got about my CS ticket:

ZOS CS wrote:

Hey there,

Thank you for taking the time to contact The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited support team. My name is Lino. It would be my pleasure to help guide you today, my friend. I'm sorry you are having problems with your quest. In order to better assist you, please provide detailed information about the steps you took that led to the problem you are having. I helps a lot if you provide the name of the Quest, and any additional information you may have. Screenshots are also welcomed. You can also submit your problem through the /bug report in the chat box.

For now, we will go ahead and set this ticket to solved - but don't let that alarm you! A simple reply to this email can immediately reopen your ticket so we may resume our conversation.

And here's my response to it:

Me wrote:

If you had bothered to actually read the ticket I submitted you would have seen that the specific quest was selected in the ticket, and all of the information about the stage of the quest that is broken and what happens was in there. If you had bothered to look up the other tickets I have submitted you would have seen that I also submitted a bug report about this, and that this is not the first time I have had to do so, as this quest has been bugged for months.

I need the manager of CS to contact me directly and explain to me in detail why it should be acceptable for CS reps to consistently not read the tickets submitted.

I'm sick of this happening with such predictability. If the CS reps would actually read the damn tickets submitted then they would see that I always put all of the relevant info in there.

This time I'm not letting this go until I've had a conversation with the CS manager. To anyone with any experience in CS it's blatantly obvious that the only metric they're using to measure the CS team's performance is # of tickets closed and/or average time to close tickets. That's what drives this pathetically unprofessional behavior in the CS reps (reading the damn ticket should be the most important step - not the step that always gets skipped so that the ticket can be closed immediately), and as a former manager in a CS-related field I can tell you that it's absolutely a management problem.

Shogunami · January 2016

UrQuan wrote: »

I need the manager of CS to contact me directly and explain to me in detail why it should be acceptable for CS reps to consistently not read the tickets submitted.

Having worked with customer support myself I can only say that if I had performed as some of the ZOS CS does, I would have been fired within days. I don't know maybe ZOS CS doesn't have any concept of ticket ownership and responsibility - maybe they only go for closed tickets as performance indicators because it seems that a lot of tickets are closed without even having been opened, much less read.

edit: Heh, should've read your whole post - it's just like you say. The very structure of ZOS's customer service seems to be at fault here.

Wily_Wizard · January 2016

I have to wonder how many good ESO players we have lost due to poor customer service.

Heindrich · January 2016

Wily_Wizard wrote: »

I have to wonder how many good ESO players we have lost due to poor customer service.

@Wily_Wizard

Well I haven't been "lost", but I decided not to renew my ESO Plus sub after they cancelled it in the first erroneous ban.

I really wanna see ESO and Zenimax do well, but there is nobody holding CS accountable for their decisions, the communication is terrible and there is no reasonable course of appeal. So I could protest in the only way I have control over.

MornaBaine · January 2016

This is both true and troubling. Step up ZOS and take some ownership here. Your CS is terrible. Also, why is it so difficult to find the means by which you can be contacted by phone in the first place and why are your hold times so unacceptably long? You can throw away a million bucks on an advertising gimmick but you can't afford a decent CS staff?

Zyle · January 2016

I've said this before and I'll say it again -

In my experiences, how much a company invests into their customer service directly correlates to how much they value their customers. In this case, I think it's obvious we're not of much value.

abuniffpreub18_ESO · January 2016

You need to have customer service to improve it. You can't improve something that isn't there.

I_killed_Vivec · January 2016

I submitted a ticket a couple of weeks ago and never got a response... but I did get an invite to respond to a questionnaire on the quality of service I received.

ralonasan · January 2016

This is probably the last thing on their never ending list of things to improve.

KaleidoscopeEyz · January 2016

Please nerf customer support. Way to op. Glad to see Karma exists. Stop being a narc.

KaleidoscopeEyz · January 2016

Sithisvoid wrote: »

Actually they just laid off a good chunk of customer support http://www.mmogames.com/gamenews/zenimax-studios-lays-off-300-employees/

Actually, that story is old. They did the layoffs months ago, August maybe, but for some reason the news sites got their times mixed up and reported the same initial story again months later.

Heindrich · January 2016

KaleidoscopeEyz wrote: »

Please nerf customer support. Way to op. Glad to see Karma exists. Stop being a narc.

lol wot? I have no idea why u seem butthurt with me. I don't even know u. Did I snipe u in Cyrodil? xD Actually nevermind I don't care.

I_killed_Vivec wrote: »

I submitted a ticket a couple of weeks ago and never got a response... but I did get an invite to respond to a questionnaire on the quality of service I received.

lol yes I experienced that as well. Submit ticket... a few mins later I get 2 replies and I think "wow really? CS responded already??" And then I open the first and it just says they're too busy to handle tickets right now... The 2nd one asked if how well CS resolved my issue.

UrQuan · January 2016

Shogunami wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

I need the manager of CS to contact me directly and explain to me in detail why it should be acceptable for CS reps to consistently not read the tickets submitted.

Having worked with customer support myself I can only say that if I had performed as some of the ZOS CS does, I would have been fired within days. I don't know maybe ZOS CS doesn't have any concept of ticket ownership and responsibility - maybe they only go for closed tickets as performance indicators because it seems that a lot of tickets are closed without even having been opened, much less read.

edit: Heh, should've read your whole post - it's just like you say. The very structure of ZOS's customer service seems to be at fault here.

Exactly. It's absolutely pathetic. And I just got a reply to the last email I sent them:

ZOS CS wrote:

Hey there,

Thank you for your response. Regretfully, your contact history is not available. As specified in my previous response, I would need you to provide the information requested for additional support.

I will close the ticket, but remember that replying back will re-open the ticket so that I can assist you further.

We look forward to hearing back from you.

So according to CS they can't actually read the CS tickets? Seriously? And absolutely no mention of having the manager contact me. This is absolute ***.

@ZOS_GinaBruno I don't like tagging you for everything, but can you confirm that CS staff don't have the capability to read the CS tickets? This is a major issue that needs to be addressed.

FilteredRiddle · January 2016

I'm right there with you, Hein. I love ESO but the Customer Service has been a constant disappointment. I've had one positive exchange and more negative ones than I could count. This was my last exchange (reads bottom to top): http://www.awesomescreenshot.com/0615jec08f.

Defilted · January 2016

My only experiences with Support was before they fixed the Crowns for ESO plus on the Console(XBOX). I had to place a ticket each month and there was a 3 business day turnaround if I emailed each day. I could have just got lucky.

Since I work for a company that does customer software support for their own software I have to say that it is pretty standard to run a very skeleton crew support staff to cut down on business bottom line.

With that said I thought the support I got was decent. I never looked at what the auto responses ever said, other than the instructions to submit the correct information for my ticket. I am sure they where generic based on how fast I got the initial response.

Sucks that the OP has had such a terrible experience, I hope they read your post and improve there service level.