Sanya Weathers's MMO Underbelly: Inside The Pit
This week's column looks at MMO customer service, which Sanya considers the true underbelly of the genre.
The customer service pit is the true underbelly of the MMORPG world.
The nature of the job is slightly dehumanizing, as all shift work tends to be. A CSR doesn’t have his own space until he’s fairly senior. His desk is not his own, his computer is shared with at least one other person, and his every action is logged and reviewed. That’s for security reasons, and for the benefit of the customers, but psychologically speaking? Being treated like you’re going to be guilty of something at any moment is like acid on the human soul. But ideally he doesn’t have a soul. He is a machine, with quotas to hit, and he has to be as polite at the end of a shift as he was at the beginning of the day.
He is the lowest paid person at the company, and while he almost certainly took the job because it represented a foot in the door at a real live video game company, he is not usually allowed to talk to developers at all, thanks to that one dillweed back when the company was first in business who used to leave the CS area, perch on a developer’s desk, and ignore all the social cues in the world… for three hours.
;)
The pit never looks like this
Those providing customer service expect to be working weekends, holidays, and the wee hours of the morning. Just as our CSR’s body gets used to one shift, he’ll be reassigned, and try to learn to eat breakfast at 4 PM.
Like police officers and EMTs, your basic CSR does not see human nature at its best or even its average. No one sends in tickets because they’re happy, having a good day, or in the 98%... or less… of the game that is totally bug free and fully play tested. The CSR’s personality can either help or hurt when it comes to dealing with people who are in a bad mood. As a senior customer service manager told me, “The better the outlook, on average, the better the CSR. The ones that can endure the stress, confrontation, and the usual disappointment of players (or better yet, turn those interactions in positive directions) are the ones that can show others how to do so. Not everyone has this [ability] to start with. Everyone has the capacity to change their outlook, though not always the desire.”
The CSRs work in teams, and that helps with the isolation and the frustration, but those teams are constantly shifting. Between people leaving for the development team, and people leaving because if they take one more ticket they’re going to climb a tower and start shooting, the time a single team configuration stays the same is measured in days. By the way, I’m told that when a lot of people have been leaving for the development team, the number of people who quit drops, because the incentive to stick it out and get a shot at the brass ring becomes a lot more real.
The volume of the incoming tickets means that many responses are cut and pasted. Even the most enthusiastic CSR who starts with a sincere intention to never touch the CTRL-C/CTRL-V combination is broken within a week. There’s no way to answer all the calls without shortcuts, there just isn’t. (More on that in a second.) Of course, players can smell a cut and paste, and often demand a personal answer – even when the cut and pasted answer was the right one.
Finally, the few CSRs who got into the field because they love helping people (as opposed to because they wanted to work for a game company) find out that for a distressingly high percentage of tickets, they can’t help people. Not right away, anyway – a lot of problems in MMOs require pulling logs, checking with developers, or sending the customer up the chain to a supervisor. Solving problems delivers a lot more emotional satisfaction than “I am sorry, I cannot help you with that.”
But for all that gloom, a CS pit is… fun. Black humor and black coffee are staples, as are cigarettes and beer. Drinking booze on the clock is never really okay, but you’ll probably find a few drawers with a secret stash for the purpose of “one minute after shift’s end” shots. (If there are HR watchdogs nearby, the booze is probably stashed in the trunk of someone’s car instead. There’s no point in losing your job over a tablespoon of hooch.) Caffeine is the primary drug of choice, though you’ll find wide disagreement on the topic of the most efficient means of delivery. Of course, any answer that is not Diet Mountain Dew is wrong.
;)
It does often look like this
The pit itself is a shrine to all things bright and nerdy. The posters, the action figures, the toys, and the conversation are all things you probably love, if you were willing to work for hourly wages doing game CS in the first place. No matter what the season is, it’s warm from all the CPUs working overtime. The light level has more to do with the philosophy of the manager than anything else – both troglodyte dark and operating room bright have their points.
Admittedly, there is kind of a weird smell. Stereotypes aside, it’s got less to do with hygiene and more to do with people eating their meals at their desks, in a crowded room. And thanks to modern office design, the call center is either in a room with no windows, or in a room with windows that can’t be opened. If you worked in a small windowless room for low wages, forcing you to bring your lunch rather than leave the building for it, you might find that room taking on a certain aroma. In fact, you might find yourself ready to kill the guy who brings in leftover fish and broccoli for lunch.
Most of the time, the room is very quiet. The purpose of the pit is to answer customer tickets accurately and fast. Neither is really possible in a chaotic environment. Remember how I said before that a CSR’s every move is logged, reviewed, and judged? Any CSR racking up customer complaints is on a fast track out of a job. There’s no room in the pit for a slow worker, or a slacker that leaves a massive backlog for the next shift.
But this isn’t a morgue, and it won’t stay quiet for long. This is a room filled with bright people who love games and storytelling. And they want to be there at that company, or else they’d be making more money doing CS in the “real world.” You know you’ve landed in a good pit when there are lots of jokes and group events. You know you’re in a great one when the training is consistent and constant, when the staff changes but management doesn’t, and where joking about customers doesn’t become contempt for customers.
What kind of skills do typical CSRs come in with, and what training do they get before being inflicted on helpless customers? A customer service background is the first thing the hiring manager is going to look for. Six weeks taking abuse at the Mickey D’s counter doesn’t count – but six months does. Can you keep your cool and your job when people are flinging abuse your way, and can you keep it up for months.
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Very informative!
Helpful for us gamers who dream of landing a job in the MMO industry at some point :D
Thanks Sanya!
Interesting to know pre-generated responses get reworded evey know and then, but the one's i do like the most are the creative one's. Yeah it's a job that's on the business end of a donkey but does show the willingness to learn and patience in dealing with the players.
As a former CSR and (briefly) head of a CSR department for an ISP, I loved that bit. CS is an environment you can't really appreciate until you have been in it. It also cannot be overstated how much management attitude and policies can affect CSR people. Chances are the happier and nicer the CSR staff is, the better the management behind them is.
The manager I started working under (and trained under) was a paragon of CS; trained everyone thoroughly and enforced policies that stressed honesty with customers, actual problem resolution and even allowed the "spontaneous" 1min break after a nasty service call (complete with the company sponsored punching bag hanging out in the rec room)...heh sadly after he was fired and I eventually ended up as "boss", the suit I reported to was fond of such policies as resolve as many calls as possible, as fast as possible, lie to the customer whenever the company line calls for it, rigid clock time and call quotas...preferably enforced by standing behind the CSR and berating them when they underperformed...needless to say we didn't get along well.
Even at the best of times, it can be an incredibly stressful job. Constantly on call, late hours...called in on overnights. Caffeine was of course essential and I even fell back into smoking on my breaks. (managed to quit again they fired me though heh)
I enjoyed this article and I could relate to it in some ways. I worked at a retail toy store for nearly 2 years interacting with customers everyday. I lasted longer then most people did. The people who had it the worst were definitely the people in customer service who handled returns. You really began to see how bad people really are when they lash out at complete strangers for no apparent reason. I've seen parents lie in front of their children to my coworker's faces, just to save a mere $5. Of course, you can never ACCUSE a customer of lying, so you just report it to a manager and give the customer what they want. My friend was only able to last 6 days before she quit.
I was initially a normal cashier but then later moved to electronics. Customers were usually not rude, but when they were, it was tough to bite my tongue. I was called an asshole twice and did not retaliate either time. (One of the times the other customers turned on the person and chasticed her for being so rude)
Atleast the vast majority of my customers were adults with children, an expected sign of happiness in their lives. I couldn't image doing customer service with a bunch of angry nerds who's lives revolved around a videogame. It must be so much worse.
I hope people read your article and think twice before raging at those who work in customer service. It's a rough job.
The CSR route is very similar how I got my current role with DarkSpace. I joined the game Staff as a Moderator (mall cop), and slowly progressed to the point where I am now one of the head honcho's in both CSR and development. I would love to be able to define my role more clearly, but there is simply far too much to list.
The main difference with my position and the above article, is that this has been done entirely from home, on a voluntary basis, for less than peanuts, as a hobby, while trying to hold down various full time jobs. I may be a fool for this, but I do get a twisted sense of satisfaction in knowing that I have helped our service survive for so long, and it looks pretty good on the resume too.
You get to see the best and worst in people when dealing with CSR, and as for Tubgirl... that's not even scratching the surface of internet depravity.
Would I do this as a full-time job? I honestly couldn't say. I certainly wouldn't mind getting paid for what I do, but then that brings a whole new series of expectations and commitments.
It would be fun to find out, though.
fun read
CSRs are the soldiers in the trenches of MMO companies. Anyone who doesn't truly understand the awful, soul-numbing work they do is a heartless bastard who doesn't deserve the good treatment they think they do.
Good article. I hope people read it and remember it the next time they have to report a bug...
These places are exactly like call centers. There is basically no difference, the only performance measurement they use is how many calls you take, nothing else matters. If you think you can get your foot in the door in the industry doing this, the odds are highly against you.
I am never rude to the CSRs I speak to when I have cause to petition in-game.
I was a Guide in EverQuest for about 2 years, oh so many years ago now, back when Guides actually answered petitions. I remember a particular rant by a very frustrated fellow Guide on my server's (Erollisi Marr) forums that spoke to me in ways I could only enthusiastically agree with. <cough>
I only quit when what we were allowed to do was cut back so much that I no longer felt that I was actually *helping* other players...which is the only reason I signed up for the Guide program in the first place. I loved helping. I'm glad I was a Guide for a while, and got to do that. Sure, I wasn't in a Pit, I was working from home, but I still put in lots of hours and all I got was my sub paid for.
Still, I can say it was worth it. I have some great memories of players I helped, things I got to do, impromptu roleplay in Lower Guk or West Commonlands when I was 'just on for player interaction', and the fellow Guides I worked with.
Wow Sanya,
Thank you for another wonderful read. You truly are a tour guide into our industry and look forward to more of your articals.
Mmmm... Goatse.cx. It's been so long!
I feel for CS, I really do, I've spent more then my fair share as a dev (industrial applications, mostly robotics and ATE, not games) and even what dealings with customers I've had have often made me wish for recreational pharmacuticals and/or a loaded weapon. Dealing with customers can be difficult and maddening.
That having been said, calling anything that goes on in the average MMO "customer service" stretches the term past the breaking point and only really highlights how absurdly low our expectations have become.
Absolute truth, that is.
Sanya, your other articles were decent. But I was deeply satisfied by this one. Maybe because there's still a hole in the drywall left by my fist after dealing with customers at my store. So I can greatly empathize with CSR people.
But the quality of the work itself, the range of not just the nitty gritty, but the low brow fun, the reasons why people would do such a job in the first place, your own personal anecdotes, and words from someone who manages those people that touched back on why people would do it to begin with... felt like eating a decent meal, reading this article.
I know you've probably got other things going on in life, so devoting the time into every subject, every week, may not always be easy. But I know you do read the forum for your articles from time to time, so if your eyes are here, please continue to bring this amount of depth to the things you write.
Greatly appreciated.
another slightly more sane way of breaking into games is the QA (Quality Assurance) aka Test dept.
BUT
no customers to deal with.
Respond to this a bit and then add.
You could add in the new guy in charge for EQ1 was one of the first GM's in EQ1. It depends... in general if you think that doing CS work is going to get you promoted soon(tm) then you are probably in for a rough ride.
I was a "smurf" in UO from early 1998 until early 1999... Moved to the Interest team and was there until it and any other program that had volunteers involved was shut down. Then I did "quest design" as my last job for someone else... Went back to my roots and opened my own studio (no I don't make games ;p) after that. Which was 2005'ish...
So yes it does happen and there are plenty of examples out there. I think someone who is good at CS and has a passion .. well you know how to be persistent without being annoying (if you want to pursue something).
As to the actual CSR bit... yes you see the best and the worst of people. People who are grateful that you could help them...
Other people telling you they will kill you in real life and spew out every insult or shall we say creative speech you could imagine. Some of it you just ignore.. other times I'd be pulling the account ID and pushing it along to "up high" (UO player names weren't unique so when someone stepped over "the line" you had to pull the account ID from their character).
CS actually helped me a lot when I moved onto The Interest Team for UO... I remember the person who trained me was amazed at how easily I didn't react to people trying to distract me (they had people who would come in and screw with your training events to see how you would react..)... I was just so used to tuning out anything that didn't involved what I was doing... that I honestly didn't know they were there.
Wonderful article, Sanya, as always.
This brought back a lot of memories from when I worked in tech support for an ISP. Some good, some not so good.
Good Memory - Mind you, I worked for an ISP, not a computer manufacturer, although I have good knowledge of such things. One time a woman called because she couldn't connect, and thought it was her modem:
Me: "... Sorry, can you repeat that again?"
Me (Trying my best not to laugh): ".... No, ma'am, it probably wasn't the best idea to vaccum out your computer with your shop vac."
Everyone around me just about died.
Bad Memory - We had a guy that worked for us that was from Russia. One day, he got a particularly, well known customer, and not one known in a good way. He was a level 2 tech, I was a level 1, or lower level tech, working next to him. I had to go more by the script, even though I knew better, where he had the freedom to improvise and think things through on his own.
Anyway, he gets the transfer from some other level 1 tech, and you can tell he's getting agitated. He finally said, "Hold on, sir.", threw down his headset and walked way from his desk saying, "That's it, I'm not talking his call." I , being a glutton for punishment said, "Transfer it over. Make sure the supervisor is listening in." So he got on the line and listened in.
The customer was abusive, ignorant, and worse of all, convinced he was right. Finally, this exchanged happened:
Him: "You're a #*$@ING IDIOT! You know NOTHING about computers, NOTHING! I want to talk to your manager!"
I finally sorta Semi-snapped:
Me: "Although you make a compelling point, my Masters Degree in IT tells me otherwise. And I'm telling you, this isn't an issue on our end, it's on YOUR end, and it's a hardware issue, which we don't support. I'm looking at your account and your inbox right now, we've been over every software setting we can concievably cover, and my manager is going to tell you the same thing. So here he is. Please hold."
My manager came back to me later and said I was absolutely right. He thanked me for taking the call after the first tech gave up on it, and said, "Jesus, I never could have been that calm talking to that guy." Few days later, found out that he called back, and when asked about the previous call, admitted we were right.
In some ways, even though that was a bad memory, it earned me a lot of respect in that pit until I finally left. Half emtpy, half full I guess.
Great read. Thanks a lot!
Great atricle!
I always try to wait a while after I experience a bug or problem (and it's usually never with an MMO). That way I'm a little more calm and come off a little more polite. The only time I lost it was for the support on my laptop. I sent it in once and it seemed like they didn't fix anything. I had to send it in again (hoping it would get there before my warranty ran out) wondering if I was flushing mroe money down the drain. So many problems with it, mainly with games. Outdated drivers, crashed whenever it got a little heated, DVDs made crackling noises, it was insane. I was about to crack. Sent it in the last time. They replaced the motherboard (Including the sound card) and the video card.
I felt a little embarassed about my pissy email. I still won't be buying a computer from them again, though.
I totally agree with that.
My CS experiences, when dealing with an American CS, has been pretty decent. However, I cannot stand the majority of CS that is farmed out to india. I have to admit I have cussed out my fair share of barely english speaking CSR's that are serving a predominantly english market....it makes no sense to me. I know it's cheap labor and all that, but it provides horrid customer service.
fastest way to piss off a pissed off gamer is to hand him off to a CSR that doesn't understand what his problem is due to a language barrier.
I just wish that the csr's werent handicapped by the developers so much in what they are able to do for the customers. (yes Im looking at you Turbine) My cs experience usually ends in one of the following 2 statements...1) im sorry, we are not able to reproduce items ingame and therefore cannot grant you the quest reward....2) Im sorry, this quest/bug is a known issue on our forums and the quest/action will have to be repeated at a later date. I did CS for an airline for years so I know how fustrating the experience can be but at least I got to offer a real explanation than a canned response.
On a side note I thougth it was interesting to know that you can go from csr to the developemnt team in a gaming studio. In most organizations those sides are kept extremely seperate. CSR's can only get promoted up the csr chain...marketing up the marketing chain..field services up the field service chain etc.... Most companies in other professions dotn want to incur that training cost to switch ladders unless absolutely necessary....why promote a csr to developer and then hire a new csr and have to train 2 people instead of keeping your csr and just hiring someone new for development.
The company I work for has recently made it a condition of employment that anyone employed as a dev is to spend at least 3 months on CS to get a good working knowledge of the product in the first place. This has even been extended to one of the devs that was already here coming down to the pit to get said experience.
How can you expect to get the best from your devs if they've never used the product before they start 'developing' it?
I live it on a daily basis, for a business ISP in the UK. I could really do with a change of pace and break into MMO CSR'ing though (was a volunteer CSR for EVE a few years back but run out of free time to do the requisite hours)
I totally agree with that.
Me three - but some studios have caught on to this dodge, and QA is considered a promotion from CS.
Sorry to kill the buzz.
Thanks for the kind words, guys. Credit goes to some old friends from the pits I've known who proofed this baby for me.
I spent 2.5 years as a CSR for Comcast, 2 as a dispatcher (also a "pit" job), 1.5 in Activations for a now-defunct cellphone company, and my last 2 as a CSR in a call center for software support for pharmaceutical sales reps.
Every blessed word of this article has been 300% true. Thank you Sanya.
Two things she mentioned that I'd like to elaborate on here that might help you interact with customer service ANYWHERE if you have to call them.
1) The CSR does not live to make your life unhappy. They do not have a magic button that can fix your issue, but choose NOT to press it because making you suffer is Standard Operating Procefure. As a CSR, there's nothing I want more than getting you off my phone happy. I stop getting yelled at for something that's not my fault, and you stop calling in yelling at people for something that isn't their fault. I gain nothing by making you unhappy. So trust me, if there was anything I could do to make things better, I would. Sometimes there's rules you can't break. However, I'll be willing to try and bend them a little, if you're polite and understanding. I don't expect you to be super-nice, or happy. Just observe the basic common rules of decent humane treatment that should be standard in interacting with other people.
2) If the person on the other end og the line doesn't sound super-enthused, here's why. He got up 6 hours before you did. Ate a crappy breakfast of pop-tarts and coffee (if even that much), was in the office way before you were out of bed. His first call was someone screaming at him, offering personal abuse for something that was out of his control. As was the second. The third. So on. Oh, and you're number 84 of that line today. Or 85. He lost count. And he's had a full week of this, or has a full week of it to look forward to. Customer service is an unhappy job. You never talk to people who just called to say how great yuor software is or how much they like your support reps. You rarely get a sincere thank you, even when you busted your butt to fix a problem. The average turnover rate for most call centers is measured in weeks. Weeks! You're surrounded by other people encountering as much negativity as you, and the solidarity of a shared trauma is the only thing that binds them together. Oh, and despite you getting paid a pittance, there's always the possibility the CEOs could cut corners next week by outsourcing to India. Options for promotions tend to be few, and they tend to be like dangling bloody meat in shark-infested waters. So honestly, a thank you, or a genrally positive attitude goes a LONG way.
Hm, Im starting to note a pattern in Sanya's articles - seems like every job in a game company is damn difficult :) Cmon. I work at a credit card company and while im not exactly a CSR, I do answer several 24/7 phones, I also have to oversee risk charges and take responsible actions. And yet I wouldnt call my job hard, cause once you learn the basic rules and scenarios you have everything under control. Its almost the same with game support, if you are familiar with the game and if you have a basic understanding of some hardware/software issues. Actually in most cases you dont even need the last bit, cause the 'scenario' says you should trasnfer the ticket to the senior staff :P And unlike a real-world scenario, you can safely ignore a customer call or use 30 minutes to paste a scripted answer, the worst thing that can happen is to loose a frustrated customer. Now if I do the same, I can cause losses in thousands of $$$.
One other thing Sanya, I find your articles too general. As a person who has worked in the field for years, you do not seem to provide any detailed information for the inner workings of the industry. More or less, the things you write about are known to every seazoned gamer. And you always seem to miss well known facts which put the game companies in a more inconvenient position. Like for example the fact that most companies run the CR department on a sceleton crew.
Sanya wasn't saying other jobs aren't difficult. She was explaining what these positions entail for both those that are interested and those that feel game devs just sit around drinking and playing the latest console games all day.
I do have to hand it to you, though, that condescending section of inflated self-importance was pretty impressive. I mean, it takes a lot of guts to admit you're a phone jockey and then belittle someone else's career choice.
Good article. I think I would actually enjoy this job and be good at it. I'm a GM at a local pizzeria. Part of that is calming down, and taking care of customers that are dissatisified. Over the 10 years I've ran shifts, to assistant manager to GM I think I've developed a knack for taking care of customers who want to be satisified(which is 99.9% of all customers).
The only bad thing is that I don't want to be a developer or coder. I also don't want to take a huge pay cut, and never have a chance of making what I make now.
lol wow, i remember you...
o_O
Honestly, I feel for you guys, though I am no way in hell nearly as nice as any of you who work in the CSR department are.
I work at Starbucks. Most customers are pleasant people that I don't mind chatting with....however;
One day, I believe it was the 26th of December (boxing day in Canada), I had a customer come through drive-through. He got a drink, I gave him his change and apparently I was short 10 cents (both my supervisor and I knew it wasn't my mistake). I gave him the change anyway and then he proceeded to cuss at me and my supervisor. Both of us were pissed off but rather than just talking about it, I took a picture of his license plate. The next time he came though drive through, I asked him why he got a new car. =)
And, I still work at Starbucks.
Honestly, dealing with people online, there isn't really a way to get back a tthem but if you work at some other CSR place that involves face to face talking, screw them up outside of work. As long as the cops don't get involved; meh.
CS looks to be the exact same no matter where you are or what industry. I've been a tier II tech for @Home internet service and more recently a telepphone then email CSR for Hilton Hotels Corporation's HHonors program. And it's true, the vast majority of interactions with customers leave you wanting to smash their skulls in with an Acme(tm) brick. Whenever I got a customer that didn't start the call/email off as if I personally did something to inconvenience them and I didn't have to wade through expletives, I did everything within my power to generate and amiable resolution. Course, if you came off like so many of the folks I've seen on these forums talking when they talk about their latest interaction with CS, well, you got a "So sorry, deal with it" -esque response from me. In my phone days you could just call back and get another agent. In my email days, lol, if you emailed back it came to me most likely and if it didn't, it'd go to someone who'd see my response and come over and ask me what did I want them to do. Guess where that got you.