Over 100 employees of the Customer Service center in Cork, Ireland are voluntarily leaving Blizzard at the end of December, a move that has sparked concerns with EU customers. According to Eurogamer, the employees leveraged a voluntary program "that offers staff money to leave Blizzard". According to their inside sources, the offer was made several times over the past few months with the amount offered increasing each time.
More recently, we were told at least 100 agents, managers and back office staff will leave Blizzard at the end of December, and this, according to sources close to the office, has sparked concern about game support for Blizzard titles in the near future, with remaining staff left to pick up the slack.
One agent said, "It was too good to pass up. This is voluntary, don't get me wrong. But when you see a pile of cash in front of you, over and over again, you start to lose hope and cannot see a great situation ahead."
These same sources told Eurogamer that the amount offered equaled about a year's pay.
Blizzard issued a statement saying, "The employees who are choosing to leave the company later this month are taking advantage of a voluntary and longstanding program we offer in various locations around the world. This program, which has proven popular in the past, gives eligible staff the option to make the most of incentives while proactively pursuing other career opportunities. No one is required or encouraged to participate in this program, but for those who do, we work hard to make it generous."
In the past, Blizzard has offered 24/7 customer service coverage, though a recent Blizzard CS EU tweet indicated that callback and live chat services would close daily at 5:00 pm, something that some feel shows that the impact is already being felt.
On 19/12 our callback and live chat services will be closed from 17:00, please open a ticket request if assistance is required.
— Blizzard CS EU (@BlizzardCSEU_EN) December 19, 2018
Blizzard said that it has no "plans to close our Cork site and it will continue to be an important part of our customer support service in Europe".
You can read the full article over at Eurogamer.
