SOE has excellent customer service

[insomniac]

i lost 94% in the rollback.

I /petitioned about it. 12 hours later i got a response back from GM Alkathos. (i wasn't online at the time) He/She said to reply back with times i'm most on. Next day, late day at work. i get a message from GM Brioma. sorry we missed you, reply to this next time you're on and we'll assist you. (i love this part) "If you could leave your character logged in even if you are afk we would be able to return your experience even if you are not available" (how cool of them is that? ) So at around 2am est i reply (thinking everyone went home) and like 5 minutes later i get a tell from Brioma saying to brace for the experience impact...

There is nothing cooler than chilling in qeynos harbor being spammed with "You gain experience!" and watching your experience bar go from 30 to 100 in like 10 seconds.
--
SO, i'll say it again. SOE has excellent customer service. I dont get where the bad rep comes from. I still cant get over that they were cool with me just being afk and them handling everything. I couldn't have asked for a better experience. Great job guys =)
Speaking of experience, i've always found it amusing that rather than a csr saying "ok hold, on, i'll enter the correct amount of XP in our database, relog and you'll be all set" they pop behind you (or have uber range) and cast an in game spell on you. There is never any behind the scenes stuff going on, its always a gm popping behind you and pulling something out of thier bag of tricks. it always makes me smile, a rare few will ever get to see the "Experience Spell" in action =)

ding 21!

[insomniac]

Oh, and have any of you tried out the petition system? It's the email system soe was promising pre-beta. It works perfectly and needs to be opened to players NOW. They already have mail noify going (a message pops up like when you get better at something) you can reply to a message if a GM allows you to (aka email). My entire conversation was all on one page.. each message was timestamped with the senders name... It made communication flawless, no wait, it made communication POSSIBLE. without it i'd be complaining about never getting a response. This, applied to guilds/friends/traders would create a much more tightly knit community. I can't believe this works and they wont let me play with it!!!
[email protected]

[Kraki]

that's really cool! i'm glad you got all of your xp back.

i know a lot of people complain about SoE customer service, and i dont' think its that they have customer bad customer service. I think they have so many customers that if 5% is complaining about the service, then that's the 50 people who are extremely vocal on the boards and chat rooms. i've never dlet with them in EQ2, but in SWG when my jedi simply disappeared one day, they fixed the situation AND gave me a million credits haha.

and in case you were curious, i've almost figured out my eggdrop bot :-p there may be trivia in the channel soon :-D

[NetSapiens]

Very nice story Insom...

A little background on me.. I work as a business consultant in CRM (Customer Relationship Management). This basically means that businesses pay me on average $200 an hour to tell them how to treat their customers, using data, databases and basic common sense and understanding human interaction.

With that being said, I hope you'll take my advice and take the time out to inform THEM that you feel this way.. not just the GMs in question, but go as far as you can in locating the people in charge and informing them of your positive experience. It goes a long way, and it's all part of the customer/supplier relationship.
Also, as you said, that is exactly the way to handle such issues. It doesn't really matter if it's timely...all that matters is that you et feedback, which is why I was also impressed when they constantly had hourly updates during the outage this weekend. It's the best and only course of action to fix such an issue.

On another note, I used to be a so-called ARK in Anarchy Online, and we had a hoot roleplaying our assistance to players. We had teleport spells and we /emote'd our appearance out of thin air, did socials /contemplate'ing their predicaments and /cheer'ing when people were helped out.

I never had ONE complaint when we did it like this... it was pretty amazing.. people would log a complaint that they lost xp, had been stuck in geometry for hours and all other manner of things. Yet they would STILL enjoy us taking the time out to make their problem a personal and fun experience. We were part of the game world, and that made it special.

[insomniac]

Q. I have an issue about the game that doesn't fall under any of the categories listed above (such as praise for a Customer Service Representative, complaints about a policy, etc.).Is there anything that I can do to talk to someone? A. For any other general issues (compliments, complaints, general feedback, etc.), you may e-mail [email protected] and your situation will be forwarded to the appropriate department. You may also post your feedback on the EverQuest II forums, but please remember to read the Forum Rules and to keep your posts of a constructive nature.

good idea net, i'll e-mail them

[Laffs]

Yeh I fell off one of the platforms in the mage tower in Q and got stuck on a ledge lmao only way i could see to get back was to jump off and die again lol to get my shard, so of course I didnt bother lol , so I petitoned and the next day I was about to attack a tough moat rat in Antonica and knew it was going to be a long battle but I had a slight edge over the critter and thought I can win this just lol, so within the fist round of combat POP! heres the GM in front of me! Well to cut it short, the poor GM stood patiently about for what seemed like 10mins whilst I eventualy killed the rat and hey presto I got my exp back, I thought that was damn good cs for him to wait for me to finish up what I was doing

[jrmars]

You have been connected to CSR Syrus M..
CSR Syrus M.: Hello josh, Thank you for contacting Sony Online
Entertainment. One moment please, while I read your question. Thank You!
CSR Syrus M.: Let's begin by checking your system specs.

Please Click on START, RUN, and at the open line type in dxdiag. Hit
OK. That will bring up your Direct X Diagnostic Tool.
CSR Syrus M.: Please click on the Display Tab.
Please respond with the Information listed on the DISPLAY TAB:

Device:
1. Name
2. Approx. Total Memory

Drivers:
3. Version (i.e. Version: X.XX.XX.XXXX.)

Direct X Features:
4. Are all features enabled? If not, which ones are not enabled?
me: radeon 9200 series
me: 256MB
me: 6.14.0010.6483
me: all enabled
CSR Syrus M.: Thanks, please wait.
CSR Syrus M.: Please update your display drivers to 6.14.10.6490 or
higher. Please restart before and after the uninstalling old drivers.
me: what does this have to do with my game card?
CSR Syrus M.: Extremely sorry for the confusion.
CSR Syrus M.: Game card key please?

[kenwoodx2]

Yeah I'm not sure the "csr" on the online chat is as knowledgable as the people answering petitions in game.. I wanted to find out why I still don't have a server name reward in EQ2 since I got the Station Access Pass and play both EQ and EQ2.. so I used the online chat and the guy tried to tell me you had to have the collector's edition to get the title.. I know for a fact that there are people who have the title in game who do not own the collector's edition.. So I sent in a petition.. they responded indicating there is a known issue with some account types and to wait for further info in a news posting.. So I still don't have the title, I'm just waiting for them to get the issue fixed..

I think the reason Sony has such a bad rep is because of EQ.. I rarely ever needed assistance while playing the game, but of the few times I did, I had both good and bad experiences.. Also when EQ went from having a GM assigned to every server, to a GM farm thing, they really changed the feel of the game.. Anyone remember all the GM events they used to have? Or who your server GM was? I did see a GM event in EQ recently, but it was simply turning people into dragons in Eastern Wastes and having us fight giants..

[Euda]

Originally Posted by kenwoodx2

...
I think the reason Sony has such a bad rep is because of EQ..
...

Yah I know a couple who won't even touch EQ2 because of SOE and customer service, but they hate it from the Planetside side-..er.. side too. Seems they're getting smarter or adapting or whatever.

[gravlox]

The roll back dropped me down roughly 1.5 levels. I petitioned, and figured nothing would happen, so I went about my buisness. Redid a bunch of quests and generally slaughtered stuff. Later that evening, a GM popped up and asked me how much I had lost.

I had already gone past the previous mark- the GM spammed me with xp to make up for the loss! Given my previous EQ experience, I was very pleasantly surprised.

Gravlox

[Laffs]

Well I seem to keep coming across in game bugs lol and need to fill out cs forms,
This the latest, I needed to access the dojo in eldaar grove to finish my halmark quest, Well after about 8 atempts I made it back to the dojo with the pale of water only to find the door would not open , I asked a few others in game for some help but nobody responded, so I thought oh well maybe a spilt the water and misssed the message so maybe that why the door wont open?, so I walked back onto the access bridge to go get some more water and guess what I tripped on a loose plank ! and guess what , yes spilt the damn water ! Grrrrr , ok I go try the door again, nope still wont open "sigh" , quest bugged I thought try again well it must have been another 15 attempts at least to get back there with the water (if anyone done this they will know what I mean, running or walking makes no odds at all its pure random what happens at key points on way back), So I arrive back to the door at the dojo, it still wont open I thought ok I am not going anywhere, So I sent a cs off and sat down, in the mean time a guy logs in that was camped inside the dojo turns out he cant get out lol, he sent in a cs also, then logged out after 10 mins as he got sick of the wait, In total I would say 30 mins I get a tell from a gm , Telling me that they are working on the door problem, so she asked if I would like to be summoned inside to compleate the quest , Too damn right I do lol , so she did and she waited in there for me to talk to the master then he ported me off to kill some naughty monk, so I did that and by the time I got back the door was fixed so all was good...

The point is from all the hundred's of cs ticketts they must get I was real impressed that just after only 30 mins a gm turns up to help me progress in game due to a bug, and understood exactly why I didnt want to go do somthing else because of the water issue... All I can say is thanks and keep up the good pr in eq2....................... Where as in eq1 you sent in a cs, you may as well just pray to the deity of your choice as it had the same chance of getting answerd lol

[digitalchimp]

I never played EQ but came from SWG to EQ2 and while playing SWG I never understood why people complained so much about the CSRs (GM) in SWG. I always had positive outcomes from all of my tickets I sent in. I lost around 2000 credits due to a bug and the CSR gave me back 10k.

I've never head dealing with a GM in EQ2 but sounds like there are some good experiences so far.

I think some people get bad responses from Customer Services due to thier 'angry' or 'bad' way of informing the GM's or CSRs they have a problem.

I'm always polite in speaking to anyone be it in EQ2 or over the phone with my ISP. I find I get a better response than if I just started with "You bunch of morons I've got a problem fix it now" and throw my toys out of the pram.

Glad to hear good things.

[Laffs]

Yes I agree with that, Something I forgot to add was I always make the cs as clear as I possibly can and always polite about it no matter what, and add something like "Thank you for your help in advance" after all it's not there fault stuff go's wrong and there always will be bugs...... It's just a pitty there is not a moat rat someplace that is bugged and drops a chest full of gold lol, I dont think I would be in a hurry to report that one if it ever happens

[Kromel]

My first bad taste for SOE's bad Customer Service came with EQ1. Which didn't really matter anyways cause I quit EQ1 after a few months out of bordom.

However, the Customer Service in SWG and EQ2 have been a huge improvement over what I went through with EQ1.

My guess is that sine EQ1 was really their first big baby, they really couldn't handle that huge amount of customers. And this time through experience, they nailed it.

My only problem is that I wish they would get a bit more specific in what they are doing when the servers go down. Sure, I can handle a server that has gone down for 24 hours, but I want know know the specifics of that is being done. You know, to make me feel better personally. It would have been great to know that they were waiting for someone to fly in to help fix the issue. IMHO.

[Drumstix42]

People just need an excuse to avoid the best RPG out there (EQ2)

[sunthas]

Its good to hear some people are having good CS experience. I've had pretty bad experience so far, and so have my friends. My friend lost gold due to some UI problem (he doesn't have any mods installed) and the GM just closed his petition. The second time they told him they had no record of it and closed it.

For my issue I had missing items, which they said, make sure you didn't delete them. And closed my petition without talking to me.

So for the most part I've had a poor experience. I was impressed with how they handled the outage and I understand they use cheap outsourced CSR labor for this game and those people probably don't play, so it'll be a steep learning curve.

[Laffs]

Could be maybe I have been lucky and have spoke to either the nice csr guys or the one's that actualy play the game. The issue with the gold I wonder how many people have tried to get what they didnt have in the first place? Not saying that your friend was one of them, Just maybe thinking perhaps it happens a lot and they dont want to spend what I would see as a long time sorting the wheat from the chaff so to speak ?
Far as I understand they have no way to replace items that have been deleted or lost due to some bug etc so I was told, But I do know that they back up people's chars as a friend of mine by mistake deleted her trader on eq1 , and sent in a petition and got it restored the next day with all items and plat, apart from the few most recent items she had aquired on the day it was deleted, So I guess it all depends on how often they back up char data, I would imagine that when you are actualy playing the game yes they can pin point your location but I doubt if they can know what items or how much gold etc you have on you untill you actualy log out? ,, Just an educated guess thats all lol, dont flame me if I am wrong , But I would be interested to hear if that is correct or not if anyone knows for sure?

[monnie]

I'm actually always suprised by the customer service as a total of SOE in comparison to other games I have played. There will be those times when experiences may not all be good but as a whole I think SOE has some of the best customer support. I'm used to playing other games that have terrible customer service, especially Ultima Online.

[ArcLite]

After the problems I had in 5 years of EQ I was very worried about going with an SOE product. Although i have to admit the SWG system had a much improved CS than EQ ever did.

I also was a Guide in EQ for a couple years. So there is another perspective to see inside the CS service and form an opinion. I just made a post here in chit-chat that speaks of my apprehension.

I am very glad that you had such a good experience and from what I have read here and other places SOE has really stepped up and honestly, I'm happy to see that. I just ordered the full version of the game and am excited to get rolling.

Thanks for your post though Insom, it helps me feel a little better and leave behind some old nasty feelings I should probably really let go of.

[hirebrand]

They handle the easy problems.. er.. easily.

I asked how to speak in a different language one time and was told it was impossible after trying to get my meaning across for like 15 minutes.

Later I found the command is /set_language [x].