We need better support

Support Customer Support
1

Hi, guys! :slight_smile: I’ll try and keep this brief and it concerns customer service. This is only my opinion. CS is currently terrible and near nonexistent. Therefore, CS needs to be improved and lines of communication between players and Blizzard need to be opened. If you agree, please post your support. Thanks!

Some stuffs I noticed:

  • World of Warcraft customer service ( or ‘CS’) has become a joke, dare I say comparable to RuneScape’s CS being honest.

  • Players are discouraged to write tickets now, instead being directed to articles and forum posts, oftentimes irrelevant or simply non-helpful.

  • Players are suspended and banned and muted with little to no rational provided or with a form letter to which players cannot respond to.

  • The forums as a whole lacks any necessary and real interaction from the side of Blizzard. CS posts even frequently seem a bit salty, as though CS is bothered to do their job.

  • There’s a lack of genuine interest and actual comprehension in CS reading and helping, period. Tickets are often responded to by CS in a way that suggests said ticket was not even carefully read. Replies and waits another ~24 hours

  • And in ending this post: there are very limited ways now to contact anyone at Blizzard. It is extremely unfortunate that it seems Blizzard in fact instead has made contacting actual CS more difficult intentionally…

(I had posted this topic initially in general chat, but am unsure if it belongs here or there. Let me know, thank you.)

2

Regarding your last bullet, that is actually an intentional decision. When it was much easier for them to be contacted, anyone and everyone could and would put in a ticket that simply said “help” or “I need assistance,” and response times climbed upwards of a week or more. That you imply you want to go back to that is astonishing.

The system that exists now is vastly superior because it generally only allows you to choose an option that a game master has the faculties to assist with. Sometimes, yes, they misunderstand what someone might be trying to say, but people often seem to forget that they’re human, too. It’s natural to err.

I’m also not sure how having DIY options (the articles you mention) is a bad thing, but they generally mention that if it isn’t information you want that’s within their scope, you can still reach out to them.

Emails for account actions without information on how to proceed are rare and should be reported as a bug when brought up.

As for your understanding of CS, their activity on the forums is non-existent by design. Customer Support (this forum) and customer service are two different entities.

I think that about covers everything? But it’s late, so I probably missed something.

3

In which case, I believe the design intended to greatly limit ways for players to reach customer support is a bad design namely when legitimate help is needed but cannot be found.

Also, you misunderstand me. I don’t have an issue with support articles nor with the weeding out of ignorant tickets. However, I have had issues in the past for which support articles nor Google were of use. Being honest in selecting the options offered in making a ticket disallowed me to actually make that ticket. I don’t find being frustrated in such a scenario “astonishing.”

I did not say I have a problem with WoW support articles. I have an issue with being directed to them when my situation is not covered by them and I need legitimate CS.

Thank you sincerely, I didn’t realize the distinguish. Is a Blizzard representative posting on the forums considered customer support?

I think that about covers everything? But it’s late, so I probably missed something.

4

A lot of people assume that CS is a one-stop shop setup. Not every company can or will do that. It’s expensive and for some, it’s suboptimal.

5

The Blues in this forum are Support Forum Agents. They can help resolve a few issues, but primarily help point players in the right direction to get help. That is the entire point of the CS forum, answering questions/clarifying policies and telling players where they can get the help they need.

The only way to reach Customer Support employees is submitting a ticket. Same with Game Masters, ticket only. Any of the Blues on the forums are neither of those.

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And I understand that is Blizzard’s intent. I disagree with that.

I should clarify that I mean the lack of any agents actually posting on the forum in general, not isolated to this specific subforum. I suppose that falls into the lack of communication category, which I disapprove of.

As for tickets being the only way to contact support, I believe in some instances there is an option to talk via text direction to an agent. Has this been removed?

7

Live Chat and Callback are still available for very specific types of issues (such as Billing, Account-related issues, Tech Support, etc.).

8

Meaningless hyperbole.

Correct, players are discouraged from writing junk tickets. These would be tickets for things that CS can’t help with. If you’re being directed away from a ticket, it’s probably not something the support team can help with.

And those people know darn well what they did wrong. Blizzard also states in the contract you pressed ‘agree’ to (but I assume didn’t read, based on this) that they may take any action against an account without giving a reason, if they so desire.

That, however, would be very contrary to business, so they do not run around suspending, muting and closing accounts willy-nilly. They rely on policies and procedures internally and player reports externally to decide if an account penalty is authorized and warranted. They can see the logs (which cover basically every single thing that happens in game) and their policies are set up in a very binary form. Was a rule broken, yes or no? That’s it. Intent never plays into it, or any other factor like that.

Quite simply; if an account is penalized, you can be sure they deserved it. Of course it is humans handing out the penalties, and they can make mistakes (though it’s rare in the scope of things). That is what the appeal system is for. It’s not for arguing one’s case, it’s for getting a second opinion.

Mostly meaningless as how text is read is mostly in the reader’s head. They all have feedback things you can use though, those reports would go to their superiors. But most of the SFAs really do try to be patient and polite. Vrakthris in particular I think has superhuman patience levels; he’s been doing this for the better part of a decade and he still hasn’t gone insane.

Overall this point is a little unclear. If you mean GMs, they also have a feedback thing that you can use, but again I’ve never had a negative interaction with them. And if you can’t see the wealth of blue responses to issues in CSF, then I’m not sure what to tell you.

This usually means one of two things:

  1. It’s a ticket for something a GM can’t help with.
  2. The ticket is far too long and complicated.

Regarding the second possibility, as I covered the first already, you don’t need to write a novel or a long post like this one I’m responding to. Be clear and concise. If you are, and it’s something that GMs can help with, then you’ll find they are indeed reading the ticket and interested in helping.

This ties back to the thing at the top. Though actually there are more ways than ever to contact a GM, but they are to be used for their intended purpose. In the past Blizzard just had generic tickets and the phone line. Both of these things were flooded with junk contacts; people just saying hi, people just saying ‘help’, people submitting suggestions, people asking for loot or gold, etc. Wait times would get blown out to 7 days at times. It was a waste of time for everyone, especially if someone put a ticket in for something that a GM couldn’t help with, waited 7 days, and then got “can’t help” as a response.

The modification in how contacts work was done to save time for everyone and make sure that people who can be helped will get that help. There’re also multiple self-help options that make a contact unnecessary.

We’ve seen this kind of stuff many times before, and it’s ill-informed and coming from an extremely narrow viewpoint as always. Simple solutions to most things too;

  • don’t break the rules and you (and/or your friends) won’t get a penalty
  • read those articles, or post in these forums if you’re unsure if something is worth a ticket. It’s literally one of the main points of this forum.
  • keep whatever tickets you do need to make simple and short, again, you can use this forum if you need help with that
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Also, if you wish to peruse more information concerning Game Masters, then Vrakthris wrote up a very good Spotlight post:

10

Just spotted this. SFAs don’t post in General because General is not for customer support. Only the Support forums are for that. General is for discussion, as are the rest of the forums, and for providing feedback. But they’re not for speaking to Community Managers. CMs tend to make discussions unproductive if they get involved, as people jump on either trying to run a Q&A with them, or hurl the nastiest insults they can think of at them. Neither of these things provides much workable feedback for devs (who CMs are direct liaisons to).

That said, they are able to sometimes hop in to provide clarification or stop misinformation from spreading. But, as they are not involved in, nor trained for, “customer support”, they have no obligation to be as polite and courteous as the SFAs do. They do have professional limits, as you would expect, but they are allowed more freedom in how they conduct themselves. Players spend a lot of time insulting them anyways, so they are allowed to take issue with perhaps someone complaining about “how there’s nothing to do” in the nastiest way, despite the person saying that having only done a minimal amount of content.

Players could also try keeping in mind that they are speaking to actual humans and being civil. But the internet tends to erode that quite quickly.

11

Those are all accessed via the ticket process.

If your issue is one that Live Support via call/webchat can be used, you’ll be given that option when creating your ticket.

If you don’t get that option, it’s not something that those who answer the phones (tech/billing) can help with.

Anything the GMs (not tech/billing) can help with is via ticket only.

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(I think I’ll cop-out and stop trying to reply point by point as I’m one person and there are too many points being made.)

I appreciate the feedback, guys, I’m learning a lot. What is the difference between a CM and a SAF? As for how SFAs conduct themselves, I’m of the opinion that we all should be courteous and kind to each other (namely when interacting with customers is part of your job). That’s just me. :slight_smile:

13

A Blue posting in threads in any of the other forums leads to the derailing of the threads. Why did they post in this thread and not this other thread? Why did they address this topic and not a different topic?

The forums are more for players to discuss the game with other players, not for players to have one-on-ones with the Devs. We actually have more communication now than we have in a while. The Devs made regular posts in the run-up to Classic release. There are regular Q&A sessions where you can post a question in the appropriate thread in General Discussion. The Devs have a collective Twitter account. plus most have their own.

It is still there, for Billing and Technical Support. It is not for giving feedback or suggestions or for filing bug reports. Nor is it for asking questions about quests. Those would all be reasons for the ticket system to direct you to the forums or third-party sites.

Some bugs with quests can be addressed through tickets to a GM, but they are few and far between. QA has to approve the manual bypass/completion of those quests before GMs are able to help with them. That is because sometimes the manual fix breaks things even more.

World of Warcraft Suggestions and Feedback - Blizzard Support
Reporting a Bug - Blizzard Support

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CMs cover any forum that are not under the Support heading. They read posts and gather player feedback to take to the devs. They don’t post often for the reasons listed above, primarily because it tends to derail a thread no matter what they post.

SfAs only post in the Support forums. While they can help sometimes to resolve certain issues on the forums, they primarily clarify policy to players and help point them in the right direction to get help. The do not forward suggestions to devs.

Keep in mind, both CMs and SfAs both have responsibilities that extend beyond what we see on the forums.

15

Discouraged? Definitely not. Redirected to proper resources? Definitely so. Sure, there will be times when we get lost in the support tree, or there’s an obscure issue that doesn’t have an obvious tree path, and we’re get sent to an irrelevant resource. But the vast majority of the time, if a ticket path doesn’t exist, it’s not something CS provides assistance for.

The sentiment you described above is borne from a misunderstanding that CS should unilaterally give a player whatever they want, literally; that they should be directly helpful no matter the situation. But that really isn’t feasible, for any CS department, anywhere.

As for a letter, there should be an email that indicates that a penalty has been applied that includes the general reasoning and directions on how to contact Bliz. It’s not the email that is the contact point; it’s the appeal system.

Rationale/explanations are intentionally sparse simply because by providing too much, people will/have learned how to game the system. They figure out exactly where the lines are drawn and learn to skirt them to prevent being actioned.

The forums by design are first and foremost player-to-player. They are not intended to be official contact points with Blizzard. Bliz may respond if they have the ability, but since it’s not an official contact point, it’s not required. The support ticket system is the intended official contact point.

Many times, especially via text, tone is misinterpreted. Providing no nonsense, matter of fact information doesn’t unequivocally imply salty or being bothered.

In an environment where there’s thousands of tickets of all types, the human beings that are trying their best to address them as quickly possible for us are going to make mistakes. It’s going to happen.

Remember that the unhappy are more vocal than the happy. With all the posts that make such claims, it may seem like the GMs commonly get it wrong, but that’s coming from a sample that rarely includes praise for correctly handling a ticket, which is far, far more likely than the mistakes. Personally, having a ticket misinterpreted has happened so rarely that I can’t even remember one off the top of my head.

Compared to the past, it’s far easier to contact CS now. Before the current system, before it was setup to funnel that which CS can’t help with to other resources, anyone could contact CS for any reason, even for issues that CS couldn’t help with. You mention 24 hours response times above; however, it used to be a week or longer when anyone could contact for any reason. Added all together, it’s vastly easier to get in touch than ever before.

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I can disagree with my bank’s CS policies, but that doesn’t mean they should support me how I want. But as pointed out above:

17

Ah, well thank you, Leviathan and the rest of you guys. You’ve cleared up many of my incorrect conceptions. I certainly feel foolish, honestly. Albeit, it’s difficult to feasibly begin responding to all that’s being posted (I’m heavily outnumbered). Although, I can agree with pretty much all of what has been posted.

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Don’t feel foolish. You didn’t know. Now you do.

You don’t need to. Just ask questions to clarify the parts you don’t understand.

19

Oh I just woke up, this should be good.

The CS forum has more blue activity than any other forum. It is intentionally left off of blue trackers as the responses are pretty well tied to, well CS issues, not news issues.

The ticket system is designed to help funnel you to things a GM could help with. It is designed to reduce wait time when people are requestung automated things like item restore, or things a GM cannot help with such as game hints. This is why you are referred elsewhere.

Just last night I had an issue and was directed with how to resolve it. Hint. It was not via GM and did not indeed need a ticket.

Players are suspended, silenced, and not banned btw for violations of the rules. Offensive chat, names, etc. Players agreed to these very rules when they clicked I accept. This is like your boss telling you not to leave early and you decide to anyway. Of course there are reprucusions.

As to chain letters, form letters ensure a consistent message across the board. If you feel an action was taken wrongly, appeal the action, via a ticket(something a GM CAN help with) and a new set of eyes will look at the data. I assure you it works. I have had a few overturned via appeal.

As stated above the CS forum has more blue posts than the rest of the forums. As to your salt, their posts are Indeed not salty. They will not, however, let players throw around blatant lies, and oft times correct said lies with ambiguous facts. Enough to show hyperbole, but not specific enough as to reveal account info etc.

Having never been the recipient of said “salt” I can say don’t exaggerate or make erroneous claims on CS and it will not happen. And yet here we are with posts like this.

Just to clarify, CS do not answer tickets. GMs do. And they are human. Sometimes they get it wrong. If you would like to properly show your displeasure of this, use the survey at the end. This goes to the people you actually want to see it. This forum, not so much.

People used to call in, clogging up lines for people that needed legit help. They would call in to suggest changes, ask how your day was going, complain, ask how to do a quest, just off the top of my head. If it is a legit issue, you can have a callback initiated. Or use live chat. They work really well.

In an effort to, and I am paraphrasing here, make it more difficult to contact them, they have cut ticket times from a week to a day on average. Often times quicker.

I truly do hope this helps clear up any misunderstanding you may have had about the CS forum and what the SFAs do here.

It is why we players are here. Clear up misunderstandings, help direct people to the proper venue, and answer questions to the best of our knowledge.

Edit. After reading responses I am getting the impression the OP truly had terminology truly mixed up for the lost part. It happens. I did too when I first came here. They seem to be soaking I. The information and adjusting a little.

I am goi g to not delete my post because it has a lot of general I fo about what CS does and common issues such as ticket path. But I am not so certain it is relevant for the OP anymore uoon goi g through the first few responses.

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No need to, friend. We can all certainly understand why you would feel limited in contacting CS in the first place compared to what it was.
I’m sure those who have posted here are glad to have helped to educate you on the philosophies behind the changes that have gone in over the years.

Quite frankly, there are still those that game the system in place to make crap tickets to troll or abuse CS, but overall the system is a huge improvement. The turnaround times on tickets–except in major launch situations–has rarely been outside 24 hours. Shorter, for triaged subjects like real life or suicide threats. Chats and phones rarely wait more than twenty minutes for contact–often less than five minutes. And they’ve always been friendly, polite, and knowledgeable in subjects they’re able to help with, in my experience.

And as others have said, if you’re not sure on a subject, ask here! We’re always happy to help out.