Vrak, Orlyia, I know I’ve racked up a fair share of naughty boy points over the years, and you’re well within your rights to put me down, but c’mon. 30 days. A year of clean livin’ and now 30 days for two tickets. Really?
I want to preface this feedback by clarifying that I’m not submitting this with the expectation of a resolution or appeal. Rather, I’m simply sharing my perspective and lived experiences with Blizzard’s customer support and appeals process.
Last week I received a 30-day Battle.net suspension for allegedly violating the Customer Support Interaction Policy. This suspension was imposed after I submitted a ticket appealing an account action on an old WoW license. In 9 days, the only response I have gotten in my protest to this is that they’ve reviewed the internal logs and affirm I was using 3rd party programs (???).
Over a year ago I was last actioned (14-day) for this —incorrectly, fwiw. I appealed again towards the start of Cataclysm hoping to access transmogs and received the standard autoreply boilerplate. Two months later, I opened another ticket, knowing the previous one had not even been considered, hoping my luck might change with Warbands on the horizon.
I get it—a real live person at TelePerformance probably handled those tickets, but it’s clear they didn’t receive much thought, especially given the subsequent account action and eventual “3rd party programs” response. This isn’t an isolated issue. I’ve replicated the problem on this Bnet (US100185313), and it’s something others have posted about on Reddit: appealing a non-existent action only results in the same boilerplate reply. Feel free to test it out yourself if you’re willing to live dangerously in defiance of CSIP.
While I understand that the remaining CS staff are overworked and underpaid, and that Blizzard, like many other companies, has moved towards making CS less accessible, I feel this only exacerbates the issue. If we didn’t have to slog through the KPI trenches, we wouldn’t need to keep reopening tickets. I’m okay with being told no; it’s the autoreply boilerplates and complete ignorance of the issue where it’s obvious no one even read the ticket, much less considered it.
I’m no stranger to the penalty volcano, but its application here is completely misguided. Two tickets over the course of a year, submitted to people whose are literally paid to handle CS tickets—how is that grounds for a 30-day Bnet-wide ban? And what about the countless tickets that can’t be resolved or could easily be addressed by FAQs or third-party sites? What truly constitutes a frivolous ticket? It is an arbitrary blockade to bully players into giving up, entirely unnecessary to hide behind when we already know access can be revoked (or reinstated… winkyface) at any time for any reason or no reason at all.
On this very forum, users are often urged to be more understanding towards customer support staff – acknowledging their humanity, potential for mistakes, and daily work pressures. While I fully appreciate that my issues stem from corporate decisions rather than individual staff members, it’s disheartening to see that this understanding isn’t reciprocated when it comes to customers’ experiences and frustrations.
My appeals over the years have often been light-hearted—like offering to buy D4 if we could cut a deal, or joking that my subs should be considered union dues, so could I have my union steward present this time? The responses, though, have been either dismissive templates or outright disdain, if they do happen make it out of the KPI trenches. I get that the glory days of customer support are behind us, but I don’t think my expectations are unreasonable.
I believe a more balanced and nuanced approach to handling appeals is necessary. The current system lacks proper consideration of individual circumstances, often resorting to rubber-stamping decisions without truly understanding the situation. This isn’t just about empathy; it’s about taking the time to properly assess each case on its merits, rather than applying blanket oppressive policies without regard for context.