I won't bore you with the details, but last week I picked up a copy of SWTOR and I had some issues with my key.  So I called CS.  I got someone on the phone without being on hold at all.  I had to get transferred to someone else eventually spending maybe 7 minutes on hold.  After this all my interactions with CS were via e-mail.  Over the course of the next two days we were in contact repeatedly.  The longest it ever took for me to receive a response was an hour and fifteen minutes.  The average response time was probably closer to 45 min.

While I actually did not receive the outcome that I initially desired when contacting them, the CS experience was one of the best I've ever had.

so you cant play but you had a great conversation?

I had the worst CS ever. The guy didn't speak english very well. He didn't understand the problem so he couldn't solve it. The issue was my wife gets the security question every time she logs in. No matter how I explained it he kept telling me her answer to the question. :P

Originally posted by aleos

so you cant play but you had a great conversation?

 Actually I can play, but like I said I wasn't going to bore you with all the details because my post was really about my customer service experience not my problem or its resolution.

Customer service has nothing to do with whether I got the outcome I wanted.  In fact I think it speaks volumes that I did not get what I wanted and am still happy with the CS experience that I had.

Originally posted by Nephaerius

Originally posted by aleos

so you cant play but you had a great conversation?

 Actually I can play, but like I said I wasn't going to bore you with all the details because my post was really about my customer service experience not my problem or its resolution.

Customer service has nothing to do with whether I got the outcome I wanted.  In fact I think it speaks volumes that I did not get what I wanted and am still happy with the CS experience that I had.

Incorrect it sounds like a very good magic trick from the harry potter movies. Probably called dumbfoundousobliviousos

Originally posted by Wicoa

Originally posted by Nephaerius

Originally posted by aleos

so you cant play but you had a great conversation?

 Actually I can play, but like I said I wasn't going to bore you with all the details because my post was really about my customer service experience not my problem or its resolution.

Customer service has nothing to do with whether I got the outcome I wanted.  In fact I think it speaks volumes that I did not get what I wanted and am still happy with the CS experience that I had.

Incorrect it sounds like a very good magic trick from the harry potter movies. Probably called dumbfoundousobliviousos

See, to me it is the hallmark of good customer service if the customer doesn't necessarily get their way but still leaves happy.  The customer is not always right, but the customer service shouldn't flaunt the fact that they were wrong.   If you can get the customer to see the error and keep the customer happy, then that is win. (And for whatever reason, fairly hard to do).

Edit:  Though, I will say that the one time I had to call CS for TOR I couldn't hardly understand the person on the other line, and She couldn't understand me either.  This is what happens when you outsource call centers.  Its not the CS rep fault, it is EAs fault for doing it to begin with.

the best customer service ever is the kind you never need

Originally posted by SEANMCAD

the best customer service ever is the kind you never need

And luckily I didn't need it, because I unsubbed before they "accidentally" removed the unsubscribe button.

Originally posted by Quenchster

Originally posted by SEANMCAD

the best customer service ever is the kind you never need

And luckily I didn't need it, because I unsubbed before they "accidentally" removed the unsubscribe button.

NICE!

I get the price though, I didnt buy SWTOR (or RIFT for that matter)

hurray me!

Originally posted by Nephaerius

I won't bore you with the details, but last week I picked up a copy of SWTOR and I had some issues with my key.  So I called CS.  I got someone on the phone without being on hold at all.  I had to get transferred to someone else eventually spending maybe 7 minutes on hold.  After this all my interactions with CS were via e-mail.  Over the course of the next two days we were in contact repeatedly.  The longest it ever took for me to receive a response was an hour and fifteen minutes.  The average response time was probably closer to 45 min.

While I actually did not have a successful resolution to my issue the CS experience was one of the best I've ever had.

So what. Call up your city sewage department and they too will have great customer service.

Originally posted by Nephaerius

Originally posted by aleos

so you cant play but you had a great conversation?

 Actually I can play, but like I said I wasn't going to bore you with all the details because my post was really about my customer service experience not my problem or its resolution.

Customer service has nothing to do with whether I got the outcome I wanted.  In fact I think it speaks volumes that I did not get what I wanted and am still happy with the CS experience that I had.

I hate to break this to you but CS is all about resolving customer issues. If they didn't come to a resolution that you are both happy with then they failed no matter how 'nice' the experience was.

Bren

Originally posted by Brenelael

Originally posted by Nephaerius

Originally posted by aleos

so you cant play but you had a great conversation?

 Actually I can play, but like I said I wasn't going to bore you with all the details because my post was really about my customer service experience not my problem or its resolution.

Customer service has nothing to do with whether I got the outcome I wanted.  In fact I think it speaks volumes that I did not get what I wanted and am still happy with the CS experience that I had.

I hate to break this to you but CS is all about resolving customer issues. If they didn't come to a resolution that you are both happy with then they failed no matter how 'nice' the experience was.

 

Bren

 Oh I'm sorry I'm too stupid to interpret the events that happen to me in my own life.  Thanks for letting me know CS failed I was completely unaware.

I actually was HAPPY with the resolution.  it wasn't the outcome I wanted when I initially contacted them, but I was completely satisfied in the end.

The purpose of CS is to respond to customer complaints and have them resolved.  Not come to a resolution that everyone walks away from with smiles on their faces.  I can think of about a billion examples of where this would be the case.

While their overarching goal may be for every customer to feel satisfied about every resolution, that's simply not a realistic possibility.

*I edited my original post to make that more clear.

Originally posted by SkillCosby

Originally posted by Nephaerius

I won't bore you with the details, but last week I picked up a copy of SWTOR and I had some issues with my key.  So I called CS.  I got someone on the phone without being on hold at all.  I had to get transferred to someone else eventually spending maybe 7 minutes on hold.  After this all my interactions with CS were via e-mail.  Over the course of the next two days we were in contact repeatedly.  The longest it ever took for me to receive a response was an hour and fifteen minutes.  The average response time was probably closer to 45 min.

While I actually did not have a successful resolution to my issue the CS experience was one of the best I've ever had.

So what. Call up your city sewage department and they too will have great customer service.

 If I was as interested in city sewage as I am in gaming and MMOs and I had called up my city sewage department and had a positive CS experience, I might have posted about that on a city sewage forum. 

Seeing as how this is an MMO forum, discussing MMO topics, and horrendous CS from EA has been a topic of conversation here, this seems like a logical post to make and discuss.  My apologies for your lack of interest.

Well, I'm happy that you had a good time with EA support. I've had nothing but bad experiences with that company, to the point that I hesitate ever buying a game from them again.

Originally posted by Brenelael

Originally posted by Nephaerius

Originally posted by aleos

so you cant play but you had a great conversation?

 Actually I can play, but like I said I wasn't going to bore you with all the details because my post was really about my customer service experience not my problem or its resolution.

Customer service has nothing to do with whether I got the outcome I wanted.  In fact I think it speaks volumes that I did not get what I wanted and am still happy with the CS experience that I had.

I hate to break this to you but CS is all about resolving customer issues. If they didn't come to a resolution that you are both happy with then they failed no matter how 'nice' the experience was.

 

Bren

To be precise its about attempting to resolve any customer issues, within the parameters set by the company. Its not possible to get a win-win situation with every customer issue. As an example if I request sight of a will before issuing money to an estate and the customer rings up and refuses to send it in then regardless of if I explain why its required to his satisfaction hes not going to go away happy, the most he will feel is that he has no choice so will send it in anyway.

With that said, the CS from TOR is very hit and miss, I had a ingame response to a ticket at 11:07 PM on a saturday night and spent the 1st 30 mins trying to explain to the person what the issue was due to his poor grasp of english, he eventually said it was a database issue and he would pass it on the the relevent department and deleted the ticket...yes, it wasnt passed on, it was deleted!

I do get the impression, based on personal experience, that alot of the CS is offshore (aka India) where they have a very strict process map to follow that they are not allowed to deviate from.

Originally posted by DJJazzy

Well, I'm happy that you had a good time with EA support. I've had nothing but bad experiences with that company, to the point that I hesitate ever buying a game from them again.

I like playing the sims a lot (I know dont tell anyone!) and I have played the game on and off for nearly a decade and I have never had to call customer support. Now THAT is good customer support, the kind you never have to call.

Sorry you are thinking of not playing an EA game based on customer service that you usually never have to call but I am sure its worth it.

I've made 4 tickets so far. All closed after couple of days without any answer. I imagine you have this kind of CS in some f2p shite, not in an p2p MMO :) Until I don't have to deal with their CS I'm quite a happy customer though. Sounds almost like a paradox :)

Where CS seems to fail is it's knowlefge of nework issues, reporting latency issues, hanging, rubber-banding, frozen companions & mobs, huge lag-spikes etc will get you a "it's your fault, here's some stuff to try" response every time, no consideration ever that it's somewhere between and they'll even check it.

Typical response time to bug reports varies a lot, between a day & a week (one report was unanswered for close to 4 weeks, despite updates by me).

# Missing items apparently has it's own policy set in stone - so be aware of that, I felt that I shouldn't ask for the return of a trivial value item in case I use up one of my THREE item re-imbursements for the YEAR.....despite this having been caused by a fault with the game not my own ham-fistedness or accidental deletion, and I reported it as such giving a full explanation of what I was doing when the item simply vanished - pretty disgusted with that.

Overall my experience of SWTOR customer service has been poor, time to respond has been pretty lousy & policies like the missing item one I detailed above left a bad impression, it does appear to be getting slowly better but there is definitely a big need for improvement.

I wish I had customers that were stupid enough to call in with a problem, not get it fixed, and hang up happy with the result.  That's like a license to print money.

Viral marketeer cough cough