Customer Service Redemption

Some of you know that, like others, I have had issues with Bethesda/Zenimax in the customer service department.

Well, they finally got it all sorted out this week. It took opening a new ticket, but that did the trick. I got an answer within 24 hours (and an apology), and 24 hours later, had my Explorer Pack waiting for me. The total wait time for resolution: 25 days. But, I am glad that it is done.

Like Kaozz though, this has taken some of the wind out of my sails for the enthusiasm I had for the game. It seems a rule by now that every time you stop playing an MMO, it is harder to start up again. And after some number of starts and stops, you just lose interest. And its a shame that my first stop wasn’t a choice I made but through circumstances beyond my control.

I played last night and had a blast, but I know in the bottom of my heart its just not the same.

Longest Wait?

What’s the longest you’ve ever had to wait on a response from CS support ticket? I’m currently at eight days and counting. The crazy thing is that they asked me for information, I replied a few minutes after that, and here I am, eight days later, still waiting for them to tell me that they verified my account and we can proceed.

Even worse, they are already in the doghouse because they sent me a canned response that did not match my ticket, and that was dated as a response to an issue that included dates that were two days previous to my ticket. In other words, they not only sent me a script that didn’t match, they didn’t bother updating the script to even pretend like they cared.

The game is good, but so far the customer service center is setting new lows in the industry.

What Drives Gamers Nuts

Follow, if you will, the sequence of events here, especially those highlighted in RED:

SilverElf4,You have been added as part of the last wave of Alganon beta testers before its launch on October 31, 2009. Your MyAlganon account “SilverElf4” has been upgraded to have immediate beta access. You don’t even need a beta key! Simply login to your MyAlganon.com account and click the “Beta” button to get instructions on how to download the client. Once you are finished downloading, installing and patching the beta client use your MyAlganon login account name and password to login and play the Alganon beta.

******************************* 

Greetings,

 

I received my invitation to the last round of Beta testing before launch and was very excited.  I have downloaded the client from http://www.myalganon.com but when I run the client and put in my account name and password, it tells me that the information is invalid and will not download the installer.

 

I’m not sure what to do.  I used the same account name and password as I used to access the page with the beta client as supplied in the email.

******************************

Hi, 
 
In regards to your issue of not being able to download the client, we’d like for you do try and manually re-enter your beta key again on MyAlganon. To do this go to you profile page, scroll over My Account and select Enter Key. Right now, this will take you to a purchase page, so you need to click the “Already Purchased Alganon? Click Here to enter your game key” link found just about the Billing Information section. Enter you key and try downloading the installer again. Let us know if this works for you, and if not let us know and we’ll go from there. 
 
Regards, 
 
[censored]
CSGM 
Alganon 

 

Yeah…so I forwarded that original email.  That was about 30 hours ago…still no response.   Contrast this with Fallen Earth, who hit me up with multiple emails back and forth within 24 hours.  My issue is now resolved and I played the game last night (more on that in a later post).   Meanwhile, Alganon, who issued me this invite on Saturday, has emailed me once in 4 days, and has not resolved my issue, and indeed seems to have revealed a deeper issue. 

My only real question is – how does this happen?  Is this a case of game developer specific “left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing” syndrome?  Different departments not talking to each other, etc?  Does that also explain the poor response time as well?

Name Fail

Ever flubb your name in an MMO and then have to beg the developers and customer service to let you change it?  And they probably didn’t because they’re hard noses about it and have other things to do, etc. etc.

Well dont feel bad.  Apparently dorky gamers aren’t the only ones who sometimes don’t quite get their names right:

The NFL had agreed to let the player formerly known as Chad Johnson wear his new name on the back of his jersey this season. There’s one catch for the receiver: It’s not exactly how he wanted it.

Instead of Ocho Cinco, he’ll be Ochocinco.

…The league has agreed to let him wear his new name this year, but it will be rendered as “Ochocinco” because that’s how he wrote it when he submitted his name-change form in Florida.

“It’s his legal name,” AFC information manager Corry Rush said Thursday.