I have been in a senior level support role for various tech companies over the last 20 years. I have to say that my experiences here have been extremely poor. i Have been playing these games for over 15 years and for the most part have never had any issues at all. However this last year i have had a few super minor issues. So I thought to myself. Rather than just look the other way lets go ahead and actually ask for some support. I have to admit I was pretty astonished at how poor the actual support you receive really is. I mean of the 3 issues i submitted not even one of them so much as got more than an auto response back. All of them basically saying well I canât help you sucks to be you. I mean these are tiny run of the mill issues as well. Also theres like some sort of selective style support happening here. Because 1 person gets a certain response and another with exactly the same issue gets a completely opposite response. It is almost like a who ya know good ol boy who nepitism type of system. I was always super confident that had i had an issue it would get looked at and effectively resolved. I couldnât have been more wrong. You canât actually speak to a human thats not allowed apparently. The GMâs find some sort of categorized policy to hide behind and screw you out of the support you deserve. They apparently from one response i saw can not use any sort of judgement call and basically tell you. Look I know what i am doing is wrong but i canât do anything about it. What a literal joke. Whoever it is in charge over there needs to wake up. They are prohibiting their staff from doing a good job and customers are not happy. Unhappy customers=poor metrics-poor metrics means someones getting replaced. whether itâs the customer replacing the vendor or the vendor replacing staff is the question. You guys make me a sad panda.
This would seem to prove that the responses arenât automated 
That said, no two issues are exactly alike in a game like this.
For the majority of issues, contact really isnât necessary and when it is, they will indeed contact you back either via ticket or in-game.
o.O So you think that they want to say no? Itâs a million times easier to say YES and they absolutely do when possible. But it sounds like whatever issues you had (since you donât actually mention any of them in your post), are not necessarily ones that a GM is able to help with.
Now, if you wish to actually share what your issue(s) are or were, we can often times help to shed some light on whether or not a GM would have been able to help out.
To be clear, there are no auto-responses. Our staff often will use templates in many of their replies, but those arenât automated⌠They are designed to allow them to provide a relevant reply without typing out virtually the same thing over and over again.
Going over your more recent issues, from what I can see you reported an issue with the consumption of a flask and it not working. While we can sympathize with the situation that isnât something that we can help with. We cannot verify if you did or did not get the buff, so we wouldnât be able to refund/reimburse the flask.
This would be best reported as a bug, so that our QA team can take a look and discover if there is an issue.
For clarification, the first response you received was basically to let you know that we are experiencing a high volume of tickets. The response provided some basic directions for seeking game advice, where to submit feedback/suggestions or otherwise ask the community for help while also letting you know to reopen your ticket if you still had an issue.
The second game master, very much had some custom responses for you and let you know that theyâd see what they could do but ultimately could not verify the flask use and what happened.
The last, noting your frustration, provided some advice on how to provide feedback to our devs.
At no point did they say⌠"Oh I wish I could do this, I know itâs wrong that I canâtâŚsorry. ". I am sorry for what frustration this may have caused you, Lowlifescum, but the policies we have in place regarding item replacement arenât new. We have always had a variation on them requiring specific verification before restoring an item.
For the current issue, policies for what situations we are able to help in WoW Classic are fairly strict. Which were set up when WoW Classic was introduced. Iâm sorry but we are not able to assist with quest reward swaps, even in situations where you may claim that the system froze⌠That isnât something weâd be able to verify, therefore we wouldnât be able to make an exception specifically for you. Again, while the Game Master sympathized with the situation they did not say anything against the policy they follow, only what options were available.
If you have feedback on those policies or systems involved, youâll want to submit your feedback through the submit a suggestion option located in the help menu in-game or by posting in the appropriate forum. The WoW Classic General Discussion forum for this situation.
Vrakthis,
I am not arguing the policy I agree with it. However I wasnât presented with the option to pick up a quest at all so i feel this isnât applicable, why is it that i wasnât presented with the options for the quest? Why didnât I get so select my path? What made this decision for me? I play a hunter I donât have any interest in any other type of gear. I donât have any automation in my questie addon. so why is it that i didnât get the opportunity to select my own quest and gear? Why did mine get chosen for me? As a player I feel i should have been presented with these options to make a logical game choice on my behalf. But like i said i wasnât able to do this and i still donât know why. I feel like i should have gotten a fair opportunity to make these cognizant decisions but now just like my flask im being shooâed away by a policy. I mean essentially you are saying im culpable for this issue without any way of verifying that either. so why canât a judgement call come into play here? This exactly what im talking about.
I couldnât say. The system doesnât select for you so it is more than likely that you did make a selection according to our systems but from your point of view you were on a frozen screen or disconnecting, etcâŚ
I understand that may not have been what you experienced from your end, Lowlife, I do, but WoW Classic was not set up with many of the quality of life options that the current version of Battle for Azeroth has. Many of the quest rewards are broken up by spec, not what spec you are or could be. That is part of the challenge and charm of Classic.
Primarily, because WoW Classic has extremely limited support by design. Itâs intended to be more challenging, mistakes or in some cases, technical issues, more punishing. Our staff overall is able to make an exception, but those exceptions have guidelines that must be followed otherwise it simply isnât fair to everyone else who may believe they also should have a judgement call come into play.
I donât think there are many out there who donât understand the frustration in this case and of course we would like nothing more than to be able to grant every request, but it just isnât always feasible. Sorry.
You are saying exactly what i said in my ticket. I/we can help but i just donât want to. Because whatever guideline caveat i need to wiggle into isnât being met. I mean at this point you have obviously reviewed my situation. In my mind any practical person would have been wow this obviously a blatant mistake. I should help this guy out and correct it. (as a good customer service rep would do) Whether that mistake is human error or technical in capacity shouldnât even matter at this point. The log shows quest accepted quest completed item received. user logoff ticket submitted. You should also see that i play from foreign country and have a pretty poor connection. That said itâs not like i walked up selected an item tried it out and then decided to complain about it. Which more than likely that policy was implemented to prevent. It just boils down to poor customer service at some point. Because you are being prevented from helping me. The funny part is you have probably spent more time on this than just helping me out would of taken.
I think you are misunderstanding, Lowlifescum. This isnât a situation in which an exception can be made. There are no exceptions in this case based on that it is WoW Classic. Any reasonable person may very well consider, this was like a mistake, but it isnât just about you, it is about hundreds and thousands of other users who also âmake a mistakeâ and need to request a swap.
Not exactly. Yes, it is for cases in which one may change their mind but it is also for those who may have been careless. In WoW Classic your actions can have long lasting consequences. As we generally cannot determine which, we have a hands off approach for all Quest Reward Swap requests.
Iâm not a Game Master so how much time I spend is irrelevant since at no point would I ever have swapped the quest reward. My job is doing exactly what Iâm doing, trying to provide clarity around our policies and procedures. I understand that they may not always be agreed with, but that isnât a necessity.
You have been treated fairly. Good customer support sometimes means telling the customer âNoâ. The response you were given is the same that was given to players in Classic who picked the wrong trinket from the Darkmoon Faire. Consistency is also a sign of good customer support.
I question your claim of being in a senior level support role. Customer Satisfaction is only of of many metrics that are measured in job performance. Adherence to policy has just as much weight. A support person having high Customer Satisfaction isnât going to stay employed if they do it by not following policy.
You can question anything you want dude. The fact of the matter is customers are suffering these issue with no resolve. Albeit i understand they may not have the staff to service these issues. They should however build a self help tool if they cannot field the needed staff. The cop out that this cannot be done due to policy doesnât help anyone. The fact of the matter is they have the tools to do so and have done this in they past. They even published a self restore item service. so this whole thing just seems like a load of crap. But then again the gms used to actually come and visit you in game. this whole customer experience just sucks my will to even play the game. Not only do you have to deal with the gms who wonât help they also sluff you off into the forums where you have to deal with the trolls and the blizzard forum mods who try to make you look like an idiot. SMDH
So your company doesnât have any policies that you have to abide by? I find that difficult to believe. Having rules is essential in any customer service relations field.
My understanding is that in Classic, their tools are vastly different and much more limited when compared to Retail. This was intentional and even explained prior to Classic being launched.
Rarely. In fact, very rarely. People also used to put in ticket like âTell me a joke!â or âCan I have some gold?â, nonsense like that. In time, it lead to the current system that helps point players to proper resources and discourages players from putting in tickets for things that a GM canât help with.
This helps to set proper expectations at the customer level.
Canât* help. Itâs not optional or personal for the GM.
If you think someone was trolling, then report their post. As for Vrakâs replies, I donât see where he tried to make you look like an idiot. He helped to provide clarity and responded to some of the hyperbole around responses being automated or any of your ticket replies being âsucks to be youâ as you put it.
If you think theres a technical limitation here you are naive. this isnt the actual old client. it just uses old data that was even restructured to support spell batching etc. Just stop talking you arenât helpful in any way.
They have a policy that does not allow it. The policy is not new.
Then you would need to post the suggestion in either General Discussion, or Classic General Discussion. The Devs donât take feedback from the Customer Support forum and the SFAs here are not liaisons with them.
I donât remember them ever changing quest rewards, except in really specific conditions. What you describe and the item in question were not those conditions.
Restoring an item you destroyed/deleted/disenchanted is not the same as exchanging a quest reward.
Because the tools they had at the time did not allow them to do it from outside the game. Times change. I can personally confirm that they do actually still contact players in the game for some issues when needed. I had it happen with an issue with one of my EU characters. Talking with a GM would not have changed the results in your issue.
No one has trolled you. You not liking what someone posts doesnât make it trolling.
All Vrakthris did was clarify policy.
Based on what? You donât have knowledge of Blizzardâs back-end.
You donât get a say on who posts in this thread. Any player with an account in good standing is permitted to post in thread in Customer Support.
I donât think anyone has suggested that they are literally unable to switch your reward. They could give you all the rewards if they wanted. But there are policies around this. The technical limitation is that they donât change quest rewards.
I didnât say technical. I said that the tools that theyâre provided by the developers are not the same as retail. Thatâs what they use to provide people with assistance. There are absolutely limits to what powers are given to GMs.
Not liking the answer doesnât make it less helpful in the same way that being told ânoâ isnât actually bad customer service.
Plus arent they hands off because player wanted a 100% original like it was back in vanilla exp and not a more hands on approach like now.
Iâm sorry, Lowlifescum, I think you may still be misunderstanding.
It isnât about the amount of staff available in this case, it isnât about a self help option availability. WoW Classic had specific policies set up for it based on the experience that was created for it when it was launched. There were some self help options that our Devs and Support department wanted to be available, like the Item Restoration Page and the Character Undelete option.
For dungeons and raids, the Bind on Pick up timer is available in Raids, but not in Dungeons. Any item that is looted/master looted in a dungeon will not be transferred. The same is for Quest Rewards, where it was decided for WoW Classic that the reward selection will not be swapped regardless of mistake or change of mind.
Which was primarily due to tool limitations which required Game Masters to be directly logged into the game for some contact. That is no longer necessary and we found that by limiting unnecessary contact, which wasnât needed in 99% of the situations dealt with, that we could resolve the issue and help a lot more folks.
Not a moderator, and your fellow players disagreeing with you doesnât make them trolls.
I believe at this point we have covered all the points that need to be covered and any further discussion should take place in the appropriate forum as a suggestion to change policy and WoW Classic support.