Free players are like for any other place of business an open house, pull the welcome mat, let them look around, ask question, try the rides. Staff be in your best behaviour, you are part of the sale effort, after all they are potential customer.

Anyone remember that one, because that is why the free trail is all about. 
 

  The main point is: There is already a line. You can let down a paying customer or non-paying. Why in the world would you let down the guy who's ALREADY paying? So tomorrow the other guy starts paying and next week he gets pissed off when someone give preference to a free player?

  As in the park example,is the park public?I mean,your city pays for it?if so,you're a paying customer with your taxes. If not,why in the world would the people own you anything in that park? They don't NEED neither SHOULD fix it for you. It belongs to someone else who is letting you play. Same on the mmorpg here. You can use the non-paid content as a trial,but that's it. You knew that from the beggining when downloaded and installed the game. You don't pay taxes for that game,you're not the publisher's best friend. You're a potential customer,and that's it. I played Voyage century as a full customer,and quit after i asked myself: I'm paying and i'm not seeing any upogrades in this game. No bug fixes,nothing. Now,if aside all that,the customer service let me down EVEN IF I'M PAYING...Man,i would be pissed off. Real bad. Of course,no problem waiting 50 minutes. Imagine 5 minutes. BTW,good luck losing your client to a paying wannabe that cries when don't get support after 5 minutes

Originally posted by Thanosxp

  The main point is: There is already a line. You can let down a paying customer or non-paying.

And just like I pointed out before... In Vegas there are different lines to check in, cash in chips all types of lines. There is a VIP line that gets you serviced right away, and the line everyone else has to use which usually takes 5-10 minutes. If you spend enough money, you get to become a VIP...nothing wrong with that ideology.

Customer service.. a tricky, tricky subject.

I would have to say that I agree with the editorial. Customer Service is the face of your company: the image that you wish to convey outside of your product. If you have a high-quality product that does not have faults, then perhaps a higher-level of customer service is required. Unfortunately, most MMOs are generally not well-tested products. Furthermore ANYTHING can break, no matter well built. It ends up a simple case of let the buyer beware. No matter how pretty the purchase is, if it's going to not work, and there's no way to fix it, then any wise person will not purchase.

In this case, without basic customer service to ensure a quality product, there's less of a need to really fix problems that plague the entirety of a playerbase. Consider this: most people paying for good customer service already like the game. You aren't paying for anything, in reality, and many problems that are inherent in the game will most likely, be ignored. This is counter productive to developing a good, high quality product. I cannot trust a company that refuses to service it's customers, regardless of the excuse. I will never give a company that does this money.

As far as premium-versus-basic customer service, it's vital that the differences between the two must be spelled out. Expected wait time for both premium and basic customers, for instance. The quality of this service should be blind, with only the priority being purchased, so that customers are more apt to purchase a better service feature. 'Hey! If I pay $10 a month, I don't have to wait an hour more for assistance' is certainly a viable option, but 'You can't request any help or include any comments if you don't' is not only poor service, but a detriment to the company.

In conclusion, free is free, yes, but to provide such a limited face for a company puts a spotlight on it. It brings into question the ethical characteristics of the business, as well as their financial model and brings to question whether the company actually cares about clients, or the client's money. While it can't be argued that a company wishes to make money, it can be argued on whether or not it does so with consideration towards it's clients, free or otherwise, and whether or not the product is worth the cost. Since they are selling something that should be free to consumers, the company's own image, the real question is..

Just how much does it really cost them?

Originally posted by Khorax2000
As far as premium-versus-basic customer service, it's vital that the differences between the two must be spelled out. Expected wait time for both premium and basic customers, for instance. The quality of this service should be blind, with only the priority being purchased, so that customers are more apt to purchase a better service feature. 'Hey! If I pay $10 a month, I don't have to wait an hour more for assistance' is certainly a viable option, but 'You can't request any help or include any comments if you don't' is not only poor service, but a detriment to the company.

Were that it were so/true Khorax. Most mmo trials are crippled in some way, for example. Either limited levels, grouping, chat/email usage, trading or other key features, generally make you feel like a 2nd class citizen until you decide to cough up. Not really the best way to get a potential customer onside. CoH was a classic example which I've played for many years & decided to start 2 new trial accounts with my wife recently to give her a go see if she liked it. We couldn't even make a team ourselves or see the new architect missions, big bleh, no subs, good going NCSoft! (yes, I know they do it to prevent spammers/farmers in some cases, but really, that's just a lazy-arse excuse not to have to police these violations more stringently)

F2p mmos are starting to do this as a kind of reverse discrimination, by giving you the minimum or base set of features & then trying to suck you into micro-transactions for the really nice 'extra' features, a lot of which are fast becoming less & less 'extra' & more & more 'must have', especially if you want to be competitive in the PvP arena (not my cuppa thankfully).

So, bottom line, treat us potential customer like gold (at least as good as existing ones) & we may give you some of our hard earnt money. If anything, we are the fresh set of eyes on your cash cow, which you may not get from your devs or regular subs who only have an inside perspective & may not always see the forest for the trees. We are also much better word-of-mouth initially than the die-hards, as our enthusiasm comes across as just that - a newb's fresh perspective, even if we may only pay to play for a month or two, not an addict's high-end/raid content views. Who would listen to more if you were just thinking about starting out a new mmo - the relative newcomer who's played for a week or two, or someone who's made it a major part of their life for years...?

I know which is more relevant to me as a newbie & I don't want to hear about crippleware issues & someone not being able to get superior customer service (among other features being unusable), just because they're part of a free trial or not shelling out the big bucks in a f2p mmo. That leaves a sour taste in your mouth before you even start, no matter how good the experience is after that. And as far as mid-high level content goes, I'll make up my own mind by then what it means & how important it is to me. Nuff said? ;)

Originally posted by Nostromo21

I know which is more relevant to me as a newbie & I don't want to hear about crippleware issues & someone not being able to get superior customer service (among other features being unusable), just because they're part of a free trial or not shelling out the big bucks in a f2p mmo. That leaves a sour taste in your mouth before you even start, no matter how good the experience is after that. And as far as mid-high level content goes, I'll make up my own mind by then what it means & how important it is to me. Nuff said? ;)

I agree 90% with that. The statement I made was a concession. If they were so hard-up on premium customer service, then it's important that people know what they are paying for.. or not paying for as it were. In many cases with 'free' services, the company keeps many of the details vague until the person is playing the game. This comes across as being dishonest and is a little unfair to the player, whom wants to see where his dollar is going. Yes, this will cause some people to turn away, but they'll certainly not stick around once they really find out from the game itself.

Originally posted by Khorax2000

Originally posted by Nostromo21

I know which is more relevant to me as a newbie & I don't want to hear about crippleware issues & someone not being able to get superior customer service (among other features being unusable), just because they're part of a free trial or not shelling out the big bucks in a f2p mmo. That leaves a sour taste in your mouth before you even start, no matter how good the experience is after that. And as far as mid-high level content goes, I'll make up my own mind by then what it means & how important it is to me. Nuff said? ;)

I agree 90% with that. The statement I made was a concession. If they were so hard-up on premium customer service, then it's important that people know what they are paying for.. or not paying for as it were. In many cases with 'free' services, the company keeps many of the details vague until the person is playing the game. This comes across as being dishonest and is a little unfair to the player, whom wants to see where his dollar is going. Yes, this will cause some people to turn away, but they'll certainly not stick around once they really find out from the game itself.

 I hear ya dude. It's an odd industry. In any other one the prospective customer would be getting showered with even better deals/offers than regular customers, just to come join the party. Oh well, I guess $0-15/mth really isn't worth any more than $15/mth lol! ;)

The reason treating potential customers as good or even better than paying customers is there is no incentive to actually become a customer.  If you can get everything for free, there is no incentive to pay.  Some of you may boast that YOU would certainly be willing to support and pay and blah blah blah but the reality is that 99.99% would not.

Subscription or micro-transactions or some other form, the company has to gather money for their efforts or they cannot stay in business and we will get no new games.

As I have heard my grandparents generations say:  "Why buy the cow when the milk is free?"

Some people in this thread got it spot on.

Lack of customer service for free members and plentiful for premium members somewhat encourages people to pay for the service. If you let free members get excellent customer support you are lessening the gap between premium and free members making free members unwilling to pay because they are satisfied with what they get and premium members wondering if they got their money's worth and believing their money is being spent to help these free people.

Also the difference between paying $50 in the cable analogy and paying $200 is far different than free and $15. If you cater to the free crowd you are catering to 12 yr old kids without access to their mothers credit card. There are probably 100 players to each paying customer and only 10 of those will even think of spending money. At least if they are paying $50 the company has something to lose and there is $500 vs $200 (5:2) ratio but when someone is paying $0, there could be 1,000,000 customers but the paying ones come first. Appeasing free customers and getting them to try your game is called Advertising, it's too expensive in most cases to do that through 1on1 customer support.

Great article, i will add free players bring a whole lot more to the table than just potential sales and thus their value to the company should not be measured only in terms of revenue.

LOL

Keep your Free Games in those....................other countrys, or go to there servers to play them. For me if the devs would like my money, make it P2P.

Games should all go with the WoW model....make everyone wait at least a day before they get GM interaction, and even then, get a form letter response.

It must work, everyone is treated the same, and they have many paying customers.

Yes paying players should get better service.

As for the amusement park example, if I got into an amusement park free and a ride was out of service, I wouldn't complain because I didn't pay anything to deserve the right to complain. That example just doesn't work for anyone who is level headed.

Also I have never, ever, even come close to subbing to a game because of customer service. Never has there been a point where I thought "Man I got good customer service, I should now start paying money to this game." Customer service can make you quit paying for a game, but it can't make you start paying for one.

I am pretty tired of the people who want quality products but don't want to pay a cent, and now on top of that they feel they deserve amazing customer service all while still not paying a cent?

STOP BEING CHEAP AND PAY FOR THE GAME.

Originally posted by SnarlingWolf

I am pretty tired of the people who want quality products but don't want to pay a cent, and now on top of that they feel they deserve amazing customer service all while still not paying a cent?

 

STOP BEING CHEAP AND PAY FOR THE GAME.

+1

There are 2 parameters to take into account: the ratio between paying and non-paying players, and the number of incidents you can expect. As an approximation I'd say 1 microtransaction can pay roughly the salary for handling 4 incidents (it depends on minimum wage, taxes,and so on, but anyway the following reasonning still apply even if you disagree on this number), if you forget about operating costs of the servers and salary of development to improve the game.

Now if the game is well-enough designed, you can expect something around 1 incident per year, including transaction problems, in-game problems, customer mail to answer, ...

And here comes the ratio between paying and non-paying: if you have 201 players, 1 of which is paying 1 microtransaction per month, you get 201 incidents and the money to handle 48.

It just cannot work. And you don't even included operating costs, new investments, and such. You need a 50:1 ratio just to handle the customer service !

So it's not a matter of philosophy or rightness, it's just that this business model leaves you with no other choice than providing almost no service to free players.

The analogies I read in this thread should take this problem into account. You don't have a 200:1 ratio in a store, so the salesperson can treat you with as much respect as the next fellow with the showing ovrergrown wallet. Analogies are nice, but must be used carefully.

If I have an in-game issue with a game that must be resolved by a GM... then it should be resolved, no matter my current paying state. While I understand as a free player, I may have to wait in a longer queue, it's still an issue that will likely affect any player, paying or not. Issues like that need to be seen and evaluated so they can be fixed for the betterment of every player.

Mind you, I'm not talking about issues where I get ganked. I'm talking about actual bugs/glitches. A hole in the terrain that drops  your character to a point where he can't get out on his own. A ore node that produces an infinite amount of ore as long as you stand there, etc. These are things that should be handled by the staff without question. If someone is reporting something potentially gamebreaking, their account status should not matter.  Yet, the tone I sense from many of the posters here, you're saying that for every issue, it should matter. Why? Bugs can exist for everyone. And that pit that just trapped me could trap you just the same.

Also, at casinos, sure there might be a VIP line to get your cash/chips quicker, but if someone walks in the front door with a gun, you can bet that it doesn't matter one bit who informs security. If someone goes into a store and loses their child, the staff there won't stop to ask if the parent bought anything first before reacting. They'll lock down the store and find the child. It's those sorts of services that these places offer to everyone who walks in through the doors, whether or not they spend one dime there.

 bad customer service is why I left WoW

I used to work in customer service. There are real service standards that I have seen and practiced. I have yet to see any game's customer service department meet those standards.

I agree with the "you get what you pay for" way of thinking. Seriously, if you don't pay for a product, you can't expect too much support.  My free things that I see may offer support on a limited scale (slower response times, email only, etc) and I think that is the right thing to do.

Free loaders get on my nerves, though. I remember when I was a waitress (I'm no longer one for this, among several other reasons) and the customer got their food for free because of a reason not related to me, like the kitchen being backed up or they just didn't like the food. Even though I provided great service, got the manager to give them free appetizers or deserts for their trouble or got their check for free, they left no tip. That took out of MY pockets after I did all that work for them.  If it was not for them, I could have had PAYING customers that payed their tip and for their food an not have their bills and free items count against my end of the day tabs.

That's how I feel about this issue.  The company is already shelling out money for the bandwidth, content, and so forth for this non paying customer. Now, man-hours are being used to issue CS. Getting unstuck could only take a few moments, but what about larger issues that could really suck a CS reps time. For that one free player, several paying players could have been helped.

Ok, I'm going to stop ranting now.