Well, you see. There is @BlizzardCS and @WarcraftDevs. Obviously, Devs will respond to the Devs account. BlizzardCS, those are the same SFAs that post here.
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I think you misread. They were pointing out the two are different teams.
The CS Twitter is handled by Forum Support Agents who post here on this forum. Same folks.
The main Blizzard or WoW twitters are handled by social media team.
Neither communications team can say anything without Devs giving them info though.
This is the current main statement overall
This thread tries to capture some of the common known issues
Thread tracking login issues yesterday with many updates
UI reset issues and a work around from yesterday
I realize more is better, but they are making some attempt at it?
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This is a Customer Support forum, is it not? I think it’s safe to assume a criticism of lack of communication in the context of customer support will reach the ears of whoever manages the BlizzardCS twitter account.
If it doesn’t then that just means there’s another layer to the customer support issues.
No. They are not a liaison. This is peer-to-peer for the most part. There is a sticky if you are curious.
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100% the lack of communication is the MOST frustrating part . Well…maybe #2 to taking 10 mins to loot something.
COMMUNICATE WITH US BLIZZARD
Customer Support is a forum for players to assist other players. Yes, we have some very helpful SFAs, again, when they’re on the clock, but think of this forum as more of an infodesk. We players who hang out here are happy to give other folks whatever assistance we can or at the very least point them in the proper direction to where their issues can be dealt with or addressed in the event that it is something outside of our hands.
Customer Support is not Customer Service.
People tend to come here because our SFAs are the most interactive Blues that people see. Unfortunately, it leads to a lot of incorrect assumptions as to what can and cannot be accomplished here. These dozens of threads with people complaining about servers being down, boats not appearing and all of that? They really should all be in the Bug Reports forum so the proper staff can see them. Especially now that the SFAs have likely clocked out for the day, it’s just the silent mods and us players. But Bug Reports is generally a one-way venue of communication. Only very, very rarely do you see any Blue interaction over there and usually that’s when a thread originates here and is moved over there.
And just because I feel like it needs to be said before someone comes in here with guns blazing - this isn’t to gatekeep anything. It’s to try and make sure people are truly being heard and their issues addressed. It’s what we do here. Try and get people in the proper places so as to get the best help they can.
Some previous posts from our SFAs to give credence to what has been stated:
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/en/wow/t/what-is-happening-to-blizzard/1413862/33
Let me point you up a couple of posts where Mirasol helpfully posted threads about the current issues.
As I stated, the SFAs are likely clocked out for the day, so I wouldn’t count on any further Blue posts here until they return in the morning. Now, just because they are not here 24/7 does not mean that there isn’t a whole host of staff working around the clock to try and get these issues fixed as quickly as they possibly can.
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I have no expectations of immediate replies to this. I do however have expectations that the left hand talks to the right hand.
Customer Support and Customer Service 10000% should communicate and collaborate with each other. Full stop.
I appreciate that the hairs you are splitting are relevant, but I remain unconvinced that they undercut/negate my criticisms.
You’re welcome to believe as you’d like, but in this instance, you are mistaken. The avenues to ensure your feedback will be heard have been laid out for you as clearly as possible. I do wish you all the best.
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to what end?
stuff will work when it works.
do people actually think they’re not aware there are issues?
nobody needs a running commentary on what’s going on behind the scenes.
let people do their jobs.
we’ve seen it far too many times before… people just become MORE disgruntled when there’s any attempt at giving updates.
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Another hallmark of bare bones customer service would be that a complaint about customer service posted in a Customer Support forum would not fall on deaf ears.
Customers should not be responsible for understanding the nuances between a Customer Support forum and a CS twitter account that you are underscoring here.
Your last statement is objectively false based on ample studies of customer service, though I can understand if such practices are not helpful to you.
You can’t please everyone. But you can try to please as many as feasible.
this complaint comes up a decent amount, and I can’t say I understand it. If they posted this morning that they’ve already deployed a fix and they’re working on more fixes over the course of the next day or two… what update are you looking for exactly? 9pm - still working on fixes 10pm - working on fixes still i promise 11pm - still am going to fix the things etc etc. I generally support the idea that they don’t give fluff updates where nothing has happened or changed just for the sake of giving people some blue text to read.
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those studies clearly weren’t based on the reactions of posters on the blizzard forum.
The only thing which will please people, is having the game running flawlessly.
They don’t want to hear “we’re working on it”.
…it’s blindingly obvious that they’re working on getting things running as smoothly as possible.
Any sort of update is only met with snark and derision.
Responses about how “i work in IT, i can do a better job, hire me”.
or… “my 3 year old niece/dog could do better”
or… “2 hours ago, you said it would be 2 hours… it’s now 2 hours and 2 minutes and the servers aren’t back up. GG. Massive fail.”
etc etc
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Were those studies conducted on customers that were gamers? In case you haven’t noticed gamers are very mean and entitled, to the point that Devs and CS employees at various gaming studios have quit their dream jobs because they simply don’t want to put up with the mental abuse that gets lobbed at them daily. Heck if you just look at the huge thread from yesterday where the Blues here were giving the “issue known they are working on it” updates you will see posters attacking anything a Blue said. They were calling the Blues stupid, incompetent, lazy, etc. Heck I saw one post that said if they didn’t get the servers up the guy was going to behead someone at Blizzard.
So yeah, I would avoid communication that is simply going to be met with vicious personal attacks. They will update when they can, but usually the only thing they can do is post that there is a known issue and that it is being worked on. Which honestly is all anyone deserves to be told.
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Arguing in defense of appalling customer service because confirmation bias implies that most of the customer base is too toxic to appreciate it is certainly a take you can have…
What confirmation bias? It is provable and measurable fact. The gaming industry has a toxic customer problem and Blizzard is not the only game company to have severely curtailed their direct communication between employees and customers.
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Arguing that giving updates more often is a good idea because confirmation bias from some study says so is certainly a take you can have. But your alleged study goes against the fact that when it is done here on the Blizzard forums it involves a lot more angry posts and a lot more aggressive posts and a lot more abusive posts. That is not just some theory. It’s not some random study not based in an actual event situation.
Not doing something because some players demand it doesn’t make it appalling customer service. Some of the activities of players is less than stellar though. The SFAs should not have to spend their days posting the exact same thing in every thread made because yet another player is looking for a personal response. For an ongoing issue, one post should be suffice. If the issue is still going on and there is no post, it doesn’t mean they have stopped working on it. It means there is no new information. It’s not a hard concept to understand.
Players don’t need to know the exact cause of the issue. If there aren’t any directions for players to follow, there’s nothing a player could do to help. Knowing any of the details of what is happening isn’t going to resolve the problem. Where does the release of information stop?
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Discrediting the concept that studies exist that disagree with your opinion does not mean the studies are wrong. Make a valid argument not a fallacious one, or don’t make an argument at all.
Please refer me to where I suggested the SFAs should “spend their days posting the exact same thing in every thread made”.
One post should suffice, with regular status updates, even if the update is “no new info, will update again in X time”.
One thing that comes from the studies you don’t know about but discredit without any actual evidence is the concept of customer abandonment. It’s, for example, what you experience when put on hold after being told “hold please” and then you just wait for what feels like forever. Mitigating this is a core principle of customer service. One way to mitigate is to check in with someone on hold regularly so they don’t feel like that way. It’s simple, effective, and takes a tiny amount of effort for a big return on customer satisfaction.
But more importantly, in situations like a wide service outage, proactive notification that reaches the largest amount of your customer base is a must. And Blizzard has at least 3 modes of communication - the Forum (least effective), the BlizzardCS Twitter account (more effective), the Launcher (most effective). Yesterday’s service disruption was only mentioned on the Forum (unless anyone can show me otherwise?).
Yes, I agree that replying to every thread on the Forum would be inefficient and unwise, but then I never suggested that anyway.
I have in no way suggested that Blizzard needs to give us root cause analysis reports on issues. Between this and the “posting everywhere” comment, I feel like you’re just putting words in my mouth so you can strawman or you have not carefully read my post.
As an aside, I get that some folks replying to this seem to think Blizzard customers are apparently not deserving of good customer service because so many forum goers can’t act like decent human beings, but that’s a terrible strategy for a company to take.
It’s also SUPER weird to me that folks are here arguing against my complaint when in these same forums you can see ample evidence of customers experiencing, for example, customer abandonment. And if Blizzard isn’t interested in doing anything to improve their customer service, they simply will just ignore my post and move on with their day.
Again though, what kind of business are those studies actually studying? Because video game customer service is way different than credit card customer service, or retail customer service. Most video game companies don’t even really have customer service like we would think of it. So studies are not a be all end all, and don’t necessarily have to be wrong to not be valid in certain situations.
Honestly with the amount of stories of abuse that have come out, I’m surprised that any game company anywhere has customer service like Blizzard does. Also, Blizzard is not the only game company that has cut back on their communication because of a toxic customer base. Riot used to have their Devs communicate directly with their players on the forums and stopped completely because of the abuse.
I also think Blizzard could communicate better, but I’m not going to complain about it when I’ve seen how employees are treated when they do actually communicate.
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So we agree but you don’t think it’s deserved.
I get that, I just disagree that it isn’t deserved.
Customer toxicity issues and customer service issues really shouldn’t be addressed in the same way, but that’s another topic entirely.