Customer Service(#115)

[Gretchan]

I find this article to be incredibly humorous given recent events within the Castle Marrach community.

That all goes to act as my credentials, because what I've got to say today basically amounts to Shannon Appelcline's dogma on how to do customer support right. Because, quite frankly, I feel like most support organizations do it wrong. If you're in support, if you manage support, or even if you think that someone else in support at your company might be interested, print this article off and get it to your support team. In my most humble opinion it'll make both you and your customers happier.

I have to ask you then, Shannon, where is the customer support from “Customer Experience” at? You place it as such an important thing for companies to do right, and yet I see a complete lack of customer service right here in your own playground.

Just to note, I myself have several years of customer service experience on many different levels, and I can say quite honestly without a single doubt that had I treated customers in the manner that customers are treated within the Skotos community, I would have quickly been out of a job.

Let me just go down the list of the “ten small, bite-sized chunks” here.

1. Set Expectations

That you did in abundance. You set expectations very high, but in my humble opinion, I don’t feel that you’ve lived up to them.

2. Announce, Announce, Announce

Yes, you did announce before you raised the prices, but I don’t feel that you adequately addressed the issues brought forth by the community. One being, where is the customer service? I am a paying customer, why don’t I have a voice? Why aren’t my complaints taken seriously?

3. Clearly State the Consequences of Actions.

I have to chuckle at this one. This may be a rule that you enforce somewhere, but I think it’s something that you’ve failed to point out to the staff of your games.

4. Never Take Back That Which You Gave

…

Clothes, food and flowers in Castle Marrach. I need not say more.

5. The Customer is Sometimes Right

Again, I agree with this idea but I don’t see it applied here. The customers are rarely ever treated as if they are right, especially when going to CE with problems they feel that the game staff can’t or won’t resolve.

6. Do not Overdeliver Value.

I think we’re all ready smack in the center of “the land of favoritism where the squeaky wheel really does get the grease.” At least when it comes to Castle Marrach. Why not ask several of your paying customers (and no, not staff) how they believe that people get promotions to things like Knighthood?

How they get items in the game, etc.

7. Listen to Your Customers

An email in reply to a complaint weeks later saying “We’ve forwarded this complaint to the lead storyplotter, or storyhost” when the problem is with said person is not listening to your customers.

Half of the bloody customers on the CM forums are practically crying, “revolt” because their complaints aren’t being taken into account. I’m sorry, but I fail to see how you can even pretend that you adhere to this suggestion at all.

8. Admit your Mistakes

Again, not something that I can see CE has too often been in the practice of doing. Yes, they have one time admitted that they shouldn’t have wiped out all the clothes, food and many of the flowers that the people had in the game. That, however, is the only time I can recall getting any admission of mistakes made.

9. Prepare yourself for Common Question.

Easy enough to do with a simple Q&A site. Though not so easy when the common questions become akin to “How can you blindly support such corrupt staff?” there is a problem.

10. Good Will is It’s Own Profit

Please, for the love of God.. Show the customers some good will. I think that after years of being ignored, they deserve it.

I’m not only talking about giving them a free month here or there (which is a kind thing to do, but there is more to customer service then a complimentary month here and there) but actually listening to your customers who are demanding your attention.

No, this is not an attack on the company, and no I don’t play all the games. In fact, aside from an occasional jump into Gang of Four, I rarely played anything aside from Castle Marrach. I speak from my experience as a player in that game. If you disagree or have seen better service in a different Skotos game, wonderful, but in my three-year experience here. I have not.

You can ignore this, remove it, ban me, whatever you like. It’s your game and your company. You choose how to represent yourself and if this is the face that you want to present to the world, be my guest, but please don’t preach the ideals of customer service if you cannot adhere to at least half of these rules yourself.

Have a nice day.

[Ryot]

I'd have to say that I completely agree. I like Skotos and I've also been here for over three years, but I see more and more people who feel as if Skotos ignores their customers.

There are constant problems in CM that can't be taken to the CM staff, because (save for a small minority) they're the ones that are causing the problems. And so when customers try to take it to CE; I keep hearing how they get absolutely no reply.

And so they quit. A whole lot of them quit. It's hard to retain that lost money every month when paying customers feel neglected and mistreated in so many ways.

-Greg?

[Zhentan]

Originally posted by Gretchan
1. Set Expectations

That you did in abundance. You set expectations very high, but in my humble opinion, I don’t feel that you’ve lived up to them.

I was given very low expectations and was still disappointed.

6. Do not Overdeliver Value.

I think we’re all ready smack in the center of “the land of favoritism where the squeaky wheel really does get the grease.” At least when it comes to Castle Marrach. Why not ask several of your paying customers (and no, not staff) how they believe that people get promotions to things like Knighthood?

How they get items in the game, etc.

I have to disagree with Gretchan here. I know I was told by jealous people (Corian, Lyds, are you listening?) that I was only given my promotion because of OOC concerns. "Oh, she's from China. Let's give her a promotion." That was the prevailing opinion of a certain breed of user.

But the fact is that I had five avenues of advancement opened up and working. One of them paid off. It's not that difficult to advance in the game. Maybe it's easier if you're a friend of staff, but I wasn't and I managed it anyway.

7. Listen to Your Customers

An email in reply to a complaint weeks later saying “We’ve forwarded this complaint to the lead storyplotter, or storyhost” when the problem is with said person is not listening to your customers.

People get replies? I still haven't received any kind of reply from my message to CE. Or, rather, I haven't reveived replies from the people running the game. I've received many replies from players (and ex-players). Two or three of them think I'm being unreasonable. The rest are being very supportive.

But from CE? Not a word.

As for the rest of the list, I have no meaningful opinion. (I have some suspicions based on what I've seen or heard, but won't voice hearsay.)

[Skout_]

I really believe Skotos somewhat rightly feels they have something akin to cigarettes in their products. Highly addictive, to the point where their customers as a general rule will put up with minor side issues like cancer, loss of life, etc. - and to be honest, by all appearances, they seem to be right in that thinking.

How else can much of their common practices be explained?

I know Skotos has money problems. It's obvious to most people that their business model didn't quite go according to plan. But the resulting efforts such as this (http://forum.skotos.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=27249) and this (http://forum.skotos.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=29457) are really just incredibly sad, in my opinion.

Skotos is a set of communities, I don't think anyone could really argue that, and perhaps a community overall in itself. But in reality, that community is a customer base, and the proceeds (or lack of, in this instance) go to Skotos and its partners. The "community" gets little to no say in how the community is maintained, modified, or managed - that's completely handled by Skotos-appointed figureheads.

For Skotos to approach its customer base and dictate what MORE they need to do for them, in addition to the already-paid moderately expensive monthly fees, would be suicide in any other business that comes to mind.

I was going to add more, but.. eh, making suggestions to Skotos has never really been proven to yield results by my thinking. I'm proud to be a part of the community, but I have to admit, I watch the company as more of an introspective of how NOT to run a company. It's been an interesting movie so far.

-Skout

[ShannonA]

I think my article pretty well addresses my general philosophy of customer service, and one that I try and get as many of our community leaders to hold to as possible. However, we also do have a lot of unique and self-sufficient communities, and they each resolve customer issues in their own way.

On Castle Marrach: over the life of Skotos it's shown the best user growth of anything at Skotos, which is the prime measure I can use, as an outsider, as to whether a game is successful or not. Nonetheless, I'm aware that staff are currently working to improve the player experience, and I look forward to seeing what the results are.

On CE Mail: As far as I'm aware, almost all mail gets answered within 2 business days. That's our goal, and it's usually exceeded. I will admit that the occasional email probably does get lost awash the piles of spam, but we try and keep spam filters up to date to offset that problem. (Recent articles I've read suggest that humans have a .56% false recognition rate for spam via visual scanning, so it's in everyone's best interest to install spam filters with a lower false positive rate than human eyes.)

On Skout's Comments on Our Effort's: Quite simply, we made the choice to appeal to our customers rather than close Skotos down. I'm sure that's the option most people would prefer, and it was ultimately a choice offered to our players. We also have, and continue, to do everything we can to make Skotos successful, through other means.

Shannon

[Gretchan]

I think my article pretty well addresses my general philosophy of customer service, and one that I try and get as many of our community leaders to hold to as possible. However, we also do have a lot of unique and self-sufficient communities, and they each resolve customer issues in their own way.

If I didn’t make it clear in my original post, I do agree with the ideals of customer service that you listed. I’m just disappointed at the lack of their application in this community.

On Castle Marrach: over the life of Skotos it's shown the best user growth of anything at Skotos, which is the prime measure I can use, as an outsider, as to whether a game is successful or not. Nonetheless, I'm aware that staff are currently working to improve the player experience, and I look forward to seeing what the results are.

Perhaps the problem with your ability to indicate whether or not the community is running smoothly is because you’re such an outsider, and rather then just rely on the numbers, listen to those who aren’t on the outside looking in.

Don’t rely on the staff of that game to be your only source of what’s going on in the community. Listen to the community. The players who pay the monthly fees and feel like they have no say whatsoever in what’s happening here.

I know the staff are trying to make changes, but when aren’t they? I’m excited to see these changes too, but I’ve been waiting for a couple years to see those changes happen. When do we reach the point that you don’t rely upon numbers and reports from people who many say are the source of the problems in the first place? What will it take? I’m not asking for an exact quote, but a general idea would be helpful.

On CE Mail: As far as I'm aware, almost all mail gets answered within 2 business days. That's our goal, and it's usually exceeded. I will admit that the occasional email probably does get lost awash the piles of spam, but we try and keep spam filters up to date to offset that problem. (Recent articles I've read suggest that humans have a .56% false recognition rate for spam via visual scanning, so it's in everyone's best interest to install spam filters with a lower false positive rate than human eyes.)

Will you believe me if I tell you that many people who write to you complain about the long delay for a response, if they get any response at all?

Don’t get me wrong. I do understand that mistakes happen and things do inadvertently get overlooked, but it seems to me this is more then the occasional error.

Add to that the feeling that when a response is sent, it is far from adequate. No, I don’t believe that you should reply in detail of every single thing you’re going to do in response to this complaint, but some indication that you ARE doing something rather then passing it on to someone else would be nice.

Disciplinary actions should be private (a lesson that some within the community should learn) but never letting the those who complain know whether or not anything is happening is just as detrimental. It leads to the feelings that their opinions aren’t valued and their continued business with the company isn’t desired.

I’m sure that isn’t what you’re intending to express to the community, but sometimes actions speak louder then words.

[Zhentan]

Originally posted by ShannonA
On CE Mail: As far as I'm aware, almost all mail gets answered within 2 business days. That's our goal, and it's usually exceeded.

I have never met anyone who got an answer of any kind from mail sent to ce@skotos.net.

[ShannonA]

All I can say is that, according to our outbox, we send between 5-20 emails a day in response to CE queries. At a quick glance, 6 have gone out so far today, which is a bit low for a Monday. The majority are responses sent since the last business day.

Shannon

[Ryot]

I've seen the same staffers be 'looked into' for abusing their staff powers by every head SP, half the SGs, and possibly even a SH or two over the three years that I've been in CM.

It makes me sick. Why? because I have logs of them abusing their powers. My own logs, from personal experience. Are these the only ones? No. If they were; I'd ignore it because I'd think of it as a single happening.

The truth of the matter is that they abuse their powers and customers feel screwed a lot. How much? I know half a dozen people off the top of my head who have canceled their accounts specifically because of those two staffers, and four or five others who mentioned them in their reasons for canceling their accounts.

I myself recently deleted my main character because it gets bloody old. Nothing is done. I've heard from staff that it's "being looked into" so many times that it makes me sick. Every time anyone has mentioned it to CE, we usually get the response that CM is a self-sufficient community and Skotos tries to stay out of their business.

Why? It's a Skotos game. Look at their forums. People are complaining about staff corruption on a daily basis. People are leaving. Customer service isn't about trusting fallible people to shephard the flock without supervision, and that's exactly what's being done.

-Greg?

[ShannonA]

Ryot,

To generally address your comments:

In the next couple of weeks we'll be rolling out a new "exit poll" system which will allow people to tell us why they've decided to leave Skotos after they leave.

Anectdotal evidence is often really hard to weigh, because it's such a small percentage of the whole. However, I'm hoping that we'll get good enough response on the exit poll to be better informed about what things we can do to improve the game(s).

Shannon

[John]

Originally posted by Zhentan
I have never met anyone who got an answer of any kind from mail sent to ce@skotos.net.
Actally, when I used to send e-mail I got a reply. If I wrote CE it was a responce time of one day, to a week.

[ShannonA]

This is probably my last comment on this thread, but I just wanted to say generally that I appreciate the article being brought back up because it's making me think about how my personal customer support work does or doesn't meet my own ideals for CS.

Shannon

[Ryot]

Originally posted by ShannonA
In the next couple of weeks we'll be rolling out a new "exit poll" system which will allow people to tell us why they've decided to leave Skotos after they leave.


It's a start.

-Greg?

[Gretchan]

Shannon,

I do appreciate your responses in this thread, and I do genuinely hope that changes happen. This is a community that I’ve been a part of for over three years and I would love to see a change for the better.

Here’s to hoping.

Jen

[Zhentan]

Originally posted by ShannonA
All I can say is that, according to our outbox, we send between 5-20 emails a day in response to CE queries. At a quick glance, 6 have gone out so far today, which is a bit low for a Monday. The majority are responses sent since the last business day.

I have, as yet, to receive a reply to my email of the 21st of December, 2003. Despite the contents of said email being made public from the 24th onward and the link to it being in my signature in this very forum.

What good is an "exit poll" going to do you if you don't read what's in it? I gave you a very detailed explanation of why I departed and you still have done nothing.