Expanding and improving the powers of Customer Service

KriHavok · April 2016

This is more of a request for the developers to facilitate Customer Service, by improving their capabilities to assist players in-game. Things such as manually transferring an item between two character's inventories (because bank won't allow it) sounds possible, but Customer Service currently don't have these powers. Which I find surprising, considering other prominent MMOs have Customer Services that are able to handle simple requests similar to this quite easily. Another thing I've asked is to reset a quest for my character, which they were unable to carry out, but this may be difficult to code, so I'm unsure on this one.

So I want to hear what you guys think about this, or if you've had an experience that required Customer Service in-game but they were unable to help you. I know the developers are probably busy sorting out other things, but this would be like a 'quality of life' improvement for the game by boosting the assistance that staff can give to players.

mdylan2013 · April 2016

KriHavok wrote: »

This is more of a request for the developers to facilitate Customer Service, by improving their capabilities to assist players in-game. Things such as manually transferring an item between two character's inventories (because bank won't allow it) sounds possible, but Customer Service currently don't have these powers. Which I find surprising, considering other prominent MMOs have Customer Services that are able to handle simple requests similar to this quite easily. Another thing I've asked is to reset a quest for my character, which they were unable to carry out, but this may be difficult to code, so I'm unsure on this one.

So I want to hear what you guys think about this, or if you've had an experience that required Customer Service in-game but they were unable to help you. I know the developers are probably busy sorting out other things, but this would be like a 'quality of life' improvement for the game by boosting the assistance that staff can give to players.

I deconstructed my engine guardian by accident, they wouldn't bring it back for me... Granted it was my error but they've done it for other people.

On the flip side, I was given two XP scrolls that I wasted recently due to the cake issue...

KriHavok · April 2016

mdylan2013 wrote: »

KriHavok wrote: »

This is more of a request for the developers to facilitate Customer Service, by improving their capabilities to assist players in-game. Things such as manually transferring an item between two character's inventories (because bank won't allow it) sounds possible, but Customer Service currently don't have these powers. Which I find surprising, considering other prominent MMOs have Customer Services that are able to handle simple requests similar to this quite easily. Another thing I've asked is to reset a quest for my character, which they were unable to carry out, but this may be difficult to code, so I'm unsure on this one.

So I want to hear what you guys think about this, or if you've had an experience that required Customer Service in-game but they were unable to help you. I know the developers are probably busy sorting out other things, but this would be like a 'quality of life' improvement for the game by boosting the assistance that staff can give to players.

I deconstructed my engine guardian by accident, they wouldn't bring it back for me... Granted it was my error but they've done it for other people.

On the flip side, I was given two XP scrolls that I wasted recently due to the cake issue...

Interesting. Because I've accidentally deconstructed an item before, and a GM contacted me in-game about it to return it to me. I don't know if it was the exact same item I deconstructed, or just a duplicate, but I was definitely given it back. I wonder why these discrepancies occur, and situations like this only add to the idea of the developers going through this system and giving Customer Service the essential tools they need to fix all these issues. Because, lets be honest, mistakes happen amongst players, and it's disheartening to not be given the support to revert these mistakes.

KriHavok · June 2016

Just thought I would add another point here... But since there was that issue of items disappearing after Dark Brotherhood, I found I was missing an item, so I sent a ticket to Customer Support about it and they said they were unable to return my item to me, instead, giving me 5000 gold compensation. That item was actually a bugged item, but they can be worth a lot due to their rareness, and could've easily exceeded 5000 gold if sold to a collector.

This poses the issue, why can't Customer Support return items like these? Ideally, Customer Support needs a catalog or directory where they can either make a copy of the item (selecting all the stats that the item had before) or a standard copy that's present in the logs and can be handed to players if necessary.

emily3989 · June 2016

They should take the Amazon.com approach to improving customer service. Back in the day, the CEO decided to stop all focus on improving their horrible customer service ratings through training/hiring etc. and put all effort into making their product so easy and efficient to use that they would simply negate the need for CS. Seemed to work for them.

Point being, it does not matter how many CS reps ZOS hires, if the product is riddled with issues they cannot fix, it will never improve. FIX the ISSUES.

KriHavok · June 2016

emily3989 wrote: »

They should take the Amazon.com approach to improving customer service. Back in the day, the CEO decided to stop all focus on improving their horrible customer service ratings through training/hiring etc. and put all effort into making their product so easy and efficient to use that they would simply negate the need for CS. Seemed to work for them.

Point being, it does not matter how many CS reps ZOS hires, if the product is riddled with issues they cannot fix, it will never improve. FIX the ISSUES.

This is a good principle to go by. But at the same time, because ESO is a video game designed by code, discrepancies are only natural, so bugs are almost inevitable. Because of the nature of ESO as a product, ZOS should have an EFFICIENT and well FUNCTIONING Customer Support program/plug-in that can combat issues like this successfully, as this will lead to better customer satisfaction.

Robbmrp · June 2016

While this is a great idea, I doubt that Zenimax has the man power to take on something like this. They are short staffed with CSR's and while this could be done within a few minutes, it would take more people to accomplish it and stay current with tickets. If they expanded their CSR's a little while adding this capability, it would help a lot.

KriHavok · June 2016

Robbmrp wrote: »

While this is a great idea, I doubt that Zenimax has the man power to take on something like this. They are short staffed with CSR's and while this could be done within a few minutes, it would take more people to accomplish it and stay current with tickets. If they expanded their CSR's a little while adding this capability, it would help a lot.

If ZOS invests the time for their developers to create a good enough platform for their Customer Support to use, then there should be less stress on their employees anyway, and if done correctly, they might not even need new staff. The only real extra manpower I see them having to put in is making sure the Support Team is trained in how to use this platform and the responsibilities associated with it.

But in the long-term, this should save them more time than writing back to say "Sorry, we can't do that right now, but bring this up on the forums and follow our social media channels for updates.", which leads to disheartened customers. Whereas, with this new platform, customers would feel more content and confident in ZOS' capabilities to fix any mistakes they make.

ZOS always makes it its goal to improve Customer Support, well this here is the perfect opportunity.