I’m not sure how happy Amazon customers are – they seem to be now going through mixed reactions – especially after they have introduced “dollar store” merchandise. Costco on the other hand - their customers love them. I really like both Costco and our new BJ’s - super nice people (but Costco is a step ahead of them).
There are legit companies that do have great customer service (and no I don’t think great customer service is giving in to all customers wants or needs nor the customer is always right - they are not)…
But those companies who actually listen and use thought behind their actions and know that not everything is black or white or if a=b then c is the answer…those are the ones who excel.
Those who use blanket policies (regardless of the situation) and one size fits all are the ones to avoid. Blizzard’s has gotten so bad I just don’t even try. If something goes missing or I can’t complete something I just move on… I don’t even put in a ticket, I don’t even put it in bug report.
That’s fair about Amazon. They’re not AS good as they were, but you can still talk to a person and get help quickly. People now-a-days are mad because of return prices when they used to be free or fees waved out of courtesy.
I do agree with you. You don’t have to resolve 100% of issues because that’s not practical, just as Sony. But it’s also treating customers like valued customers. If you cannot fix my issue, tell me. I’ll appreciate your honestly. To talk to me about a game that has nothing to do with my ticket then tell me “This was already resolved” is just idiotic.
It’s not even that GMs aren’t allowed to help with things they used to. It’s that they literally took away the tools that once had allowed them do to this. First line GMs now are typically outsourced and have no actual access to Blizzard tools to fix anything, as best I can tell. They are going to give you a form letter that may or may not have anything to do with your issue. If it does, it’s going to tell you to do a full UI reset or visit wowhead.
When that doesn’t work, they will then tell you what you experienced is a bug and to report it as a bug and on the bug forums, and that there is nothing they can do to assist you further. This is true, as they no longer have the tools to assist. You will receive zero resolution.
There are (incredibly rare) occasions where stuff will get escalated to a team with the ability to actually interface with Blizzard’s systems beyond basic tickets. Those issues will (hopefully) get fixed. The chances of your ticket being one of those is vanishingly rare, though, unless it’s something to do with payments, harassment, or some very bizarre technical issue (and even then most tech issues are given the ‘report as bug or visit our tech support forums’ form letter treatment).
I didn’t say they could fix everything. But they could fix a lot. And quick. Some examples, that I’m 100% not misremembering:
During Cata we did a quick BWL run for fun and there was a known glitch, where the ID bugged out and nobody could enter the door after the first boss, with random adds spawning over and over. 15 minutes after writing a ticket, a GM appeared and fixed it for us so we could continue.
Again Cata. Did the first boss in Dragon Soul on Heroic. Our raidleader died during the fight and when we killed the boss, he was somehow assigned another ID than the rest of the group. He couldn’t get in anymore, raid night seemed to be over. Contacted support and got it fixed ca. 45 minutes later, a specialized GM fixed the problem for us.
Getting the “Insane” title was a bit bugged for a while roughly 12 years ago. Don’t wanna go into much detail, but basically some requirements unchecked themselves and the achievement/title didn’t appear. They managed to investigate my logs and give me the achievement manually.
Had some serious griefers ruin an RP event during WotLK. Wrote a ticket and got contacted by a GM a short while later who took care of the issue, so we could continue.
These days it takes much more time to even get an answer, and the answer is then “Here’s a wowhead link and don’t forget to put in a bug report, cya”.
I forgot that companies are cutting down on returns and I kind of agree with it. I don’t buy as much from Amazon as I used to but only because I can actually find the same thing cheaper or somewhere else and rare I have to have anything over night or in 2 days and .
I’m also on a kick reduce spending…I’ve wasted too much money on nonsense I don’t need.
You are 100% spot on with making the customer feel appreciated, wanted and valued and nothing Blizzard has done in the last 10 years says any of that (which is quite sad).
I’m fine with it taking longer to get a response, but a real response. If you will help me, but it’ll take a couple 2-3 days, I’m fine with that. Waiting 2-3 days to state something wrong, then close the ticket, forcing a person to have to reopen and wait 2-3 more days is as abysmal as it gets.
I know some are, but Amazon I was told did it because of a lot of fraud returns. I can see if an account is new or returns things a lot, but long-time customers who return 1 thing every 5 years, they should be more lenient.
I admit, I’ve bought a lot of things I didn’t need too. I have a full tote in the basement which is proof of that.
I don’t recall you or anyone else saying they could fix anything so I am not sure where that anyone got that idea.
And I remember GM’s fixing things on the spot for me… Including a mob that died on a hill and I could not get to it to loot. The GM came in and said, yup that is a horrible place to die and put the items in my bag and thanked me. It was super cool and super nice.
I also remember GM’s coming in and saying they could not fix “x” or do “y” but at least they told me and I was not left hanging for 10 days and 5 nonsense replies via email about things that had nothing to do w/the actual issue.
Not that I know of. Not unless Microsoft changed that in the past year. They DO use a keyword auto reply system with templates during high volume though which often gets it wrong.
Most of the GM tools are now player side as well. Item restore, char undelete, mail restoration, char unstuck, etc.
People really need to stop asking for game hints and trying to submit bug reports through the ticket system. GMs don’t, and never have, handled those things.
First, let’s cover some things that a Game Master is generally not able to do.
Game Masters are unable to provide Game Hints.
Game Hints consist primarily of providing information on the functionality of the game, drop rates and locations, encounter mechanics, etc…
Game Masters are not Developers. They cannot change game design or otherwise circumvent intended design, nor go beyond the policies that are in place to ensure everyone has a fair playing experience.
Game Masters are not able to resolve potential bugs in-game, though they are sometimes able to help with issues caused by a bug.
Game Masters cannot provide Beta access, they don’t have keys to hand out. Nor do they have release dates for patches or other events. If it is not listed on our website, a Game Master won’t be able to tell you.
People can certainly have the opinion that they SHOULD do those things, but they do not. They can’t fix bugs. They are not part of the QA team. They don’t want GMs giving game hints/explanations because it is time consuming and the info is already out there.
They could do a lot better job of telling people that though in their replies, or in the menu system. It would save everyone a lot of frustration.
This. Being told no is ok, as long as the communication is there and the player understands the reasons.
Response within 10 minutes to taking day(s) for a response
I could talk live, and ensure my issue was understood because some people fumble with their words when they’re upset or frustrated.
GMs back then didn’t tell you to go to websites that are known for having spyware
GMs didn’t threaten customers who have serious issues, cannot get them resolved, who refuse to accept a canned reply that does not answer anything or tell them anything.
Responses were personal and often unique, not copypasta.
We’re not talking about game hints, I don’t know where this is coming from now. Of course they’ve never handed out guides or gave hints how some things worked. But they did fix actual broken stuff on the spot, already gave several examples.
Another example is broken quests. They did manually complete those for players when progress was actually bugged. Now they don’t anymore.
Literally nobody is asking for game masters to tell them why the Love Rocket still hasn’t dropped for them or where they can find a certain quest item.
I don’t care if “GMs can do this and GMs can’t do that.” What I care about is “Should Blizzard as a whole be doing these things? They’re not? Their customer service is bad.” You do understand that “customer service” means more than just people on a team, right?
You do realize that whatever random restriction is placed upon the GMs, is at the beheadst of whoever is making those decisions at BLIZZARD, right?
There’s no state or federal law that says “GMs can’t grant x or y achievement because reasons.” Every. Single. Failure of customer service under Blizzard is BECAUSE OF BLIZZARD.
I have the person you are responding to on ignore as well… (sadly the forum software lets parts bleed through if they are quoted) but I agree with you, no one here is talking about hints or anything else like that.
Nah, they still do. I’ve had a GM go in and fix one of those just a couple months ago. It’s entirely dependent on whether they can do that based on the type of bug or coding.
In some cases, that bug is much more complex and needs the dev team to work on a fix for it.
In others, they already worked out that it was something more simple and the GMs can do it.
Of course it is. Same with every company. You seem to keep missing the parts where I say that the CS is not very good and is extremely frustrating. That communications and expectations are not handled well. This applies to Blizzard, and to a ton of other companies with “modern” CS.
I don’t know why you ignore my complaints about the CS system…or my agreement with the concerns of others. Telling people how things work so they can work with what we have, is not the same as agreeing that it should work that way.
Strangely, the whole “They can do this, but they cannot do this” is mostly speculation. Ever notice how there is no actual proof of it? It’s just people trying to gaslight you into being “ok” with some canned response you have and possibly being sympathetic towards them.
It’s some of the weirdest propaganda I’ve seen in a long time.
ba dum, tss!
That’s fine, but tell the person that? Don’t gaslight the customer and try making them feel like they’re the problem and shoo them away. That’s just dumb.
This seems to be the crux of the issue in this thread.
I’ve been giving information. I haven’t once said this is the greatest system in the world or anything like that. Neither have you. And you’ve come right out and given your opinion on it.
So I’m just going to highlight this in larger words.
Exactly this. They had a lot of options and actual skill and knowledge to do stuff. But Blizz chose to put a stop to it and assign CS employees not just to one game, but to all of them. Now game masters often don’t seem to have any clue about the game or what the problem is and their hands are bound.
If CS had always been in this state it would probably a much smaller issue. But especially older players got used to a certain standard of quality and it becomes a bigger issue when this quality gets taken away more and more.
No, but what you have done is given misinformation such as stating that this type of garbage customer support is common or that it’s the norm, which it isn’t. And the fact that you’ve not once tried to refute my statement proves it.
Speaking as one of them, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, their CS used to be the gold standard. I couldn’t praise it enough. It’s a complete 180 from what it was. Literally (not figuratively) going from the top of the spectrum to the bottom.