Overworked Game Masters

[AdamSavage]

Does anyone know just how many tickets these GM's have to deal during a shift ? From the sounds of this blue post, it seems these GM's just blindly reply to tickets without even reading it. Oh well the system says it's about this so I will just use this macro and mark the ticket resolved.

http://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/2195 ... se-ticket/

Similar to my ticket I made a couple days ago.

[Chrizesu]

I think they are using an automated system now to reduce how many tickets need immediate attention. Automated systems all share a common flaw in being automated, and thus are prone to mistakes.

Edit: I'm sorry that happened Teigan! I hope those guys get what they deserve.

[Teigan]

Their automated system clearly doesn't pick up on words it should. I had to open a ticket about sexual harassment today (two assholes decided to emote-rape my dead body in a dungeon then laugh at me) and the wait time on my ticket is 5 freakin days. Not happy. That kind of thing should be addressed immediately.

[Talaridan]

Jeeze, what the heck is wrong with people?

I hope that gets fixed fast Teigan.

[AdamSavage]

Their automated system clearly doesn't pick up on words it should. I had to open a ticket about sexual harassment today (two assholes decided to emote-rape my dead body in a dungeon then laugh at me) and the wait time on my ticket is 5 freakin days. Not happy. That kind of thing should be addressed immediately.

Edit your ticket and toss in keywords like Sexual Harassment, I use keywords when I want my ticket to be looked at quickly.

[Teigan]

Yeah, that is in there. I know about using keywords. So that makes its even more frustrating. And I know I'll probably get a non-chat form letter response about pandas or some crap.

[Boven]

As someone who was the manager for an email/online support team, I've long felt that there's not enough oversight in Blizz's support department.

It's kind of obvious that they're using an automated CRM system. That's not at all unusual, nor is it a bad thing. The way they work is that incoming email/tickets are processed through various sets of rules. These can range from very basic things such as what email address a message was sent to, to very complex combinations of key words, phrases, and other attributes. Based upon the rules, the message is eventually routed to a particular service queue. The various support personnel will be members of one or more queues. When they log in, they'll only see messages from those queues. That way, a ticket about a hacked account is seen by someone who is trained in handling those. One staff member can, of course, be in multiple queues.

Another thing the rules will do is try to identify what the gist of the ticket is. Again, it's looking at key words and phrases. Based upon what it finds, the system will suggest a script for responding to the ticket. Unfortunately, the system doesn't always pick the right answer. I was there from the inception of the one I managed and wrote hundreds of rules for it along with . No matter how many you write, there will always be some incorrect suggestions from the system. A customer could write in that they were receiving their issue late every month (I worked for a company that published health and investing newsletters and sold related products) and that if it kept up they would cancel their subscription. Depending upon how they worded their message, the system might think it was a cancellation request and suggest the support team member reply with an email saying they'd canceled the customer's sub.

Now what is *supposed* to happen is that a support team member will open a message, read it, do whatever fix/action is needed, then check to make sure the suggested response is appropriate. They'll then 'customize' the response (by adding a customer name and/or other pertinent info) and send the reply. At regular intervals, someone in a supervisory position will randomly select tickets and review them for quality control. That person makes sure whoever handled the ticket did what was needed and responded properly. I spent a good chunk of time every week doing that. It's boring and tedious, but necessary.

What appears to happen with Blizz is that some of the GM's are just opening the tickets and hitting 'send' on the suggested response, whether it's appropriate or not. They may or may not actually address the issue in the ticket as well. Either there is not enough random review of tickets or there's none at all. Odds are it's the former. I'd bet that there aren't enough people doing the reviewing so a lot of 'bad' responses slip by. The GM's almost certainly notice this, so some of them just start blowing off tickets and hitting 'send' when things are particularly busy or when they're behind. Support reps will have a set number of tickets they should be able to process in a day. Obviously this isn't a hard number since some tickets take longer than others. My staff knew to let me know if they had some particularly troublesome one that took a lot of time so I could take it into account.

Since it costs money to run a support department and more reps equals more cost, Blizz appears to be running theirs as lean as they can. Unfortunately, keeping things too lean means a good bit of slacking off by the various reps. This is manifested by tickets closed with an inappropriate response or without attempting to contact the player. I know I've submitted tickets in the past and seen an email appear in my inbox a bit later saying I couldn't be contacted in game, even though at the time I'd been just flying around farming herbs for raiding flasks and would've seen any whispers from a GM.

We do need to keep in mind, however, that (at least in my experience) *most* tickets are handled properly. The outcome may not be what we want, but they are handled and appropriate responses sent. Shoot, I've had some fun little interactions with GM's who were responding to tickets in-game. It's just the bad responses that tend to stick with us.

[Teigan]

Here is (part) of my ticket (sorta freaked out a little..edited for sanity), and the response I got.....*sigh* I guess its better than nothing. Even though I really want to kill those assholes. Here's hoping they get at least a temp ban or something.

[Melentari]

I apologise for the morons from my server, Teigan. MG is a joke to so many people that I always do my best to prove that good people play there too - but I can sympathise. I recently put in a ticket about a TOS-breaking guild name and got a response that included a bunch of emoticons. Kind of dumbfounding, but as far as I can tell, the guild is gone.

[Teigan]

Its not your fault that idiotic bastard is from your server. More often than not, people I run into from Moon Guard are quite pleasant. Somewhat eccentric sometimes, but pleasant. It had much more to do with the perv behind the character than where that character is from.

[cowmuflage]

I've personally never had a bad responce to a ticket.

[CrystalKitten]

I've had several. Usually I just respond (even if they send you an e-mail, you can re-open the ticket from the the battle.net website) with a very.. to the point message. Saying something along the lines of "That answer is BS and doesn't even remotely address my issue. Can someone actually READ my ticket please?" I then send feedback that says pretty much the same thing...

I get that they're just customer service employees, I've had to do those kinds of jobs before (though more on the cash side, in store) and I know how frustrating it can be and all that. But that would be like someone going to McDs and asking for chicken nuggets and being given a cheeseburger.. (that's actually happened to me >.<). Even if they're rushed, both the employees AND the supervisors should know that lowering quotas and making sure tickets are actually READ will speed the process up... If you take 1 minute to read the question and respond properly, then you don't have the person simply reopening their ticket and adding themselves back into the queues (often, depending on the situation, far more upset for multiple reasons).

[AdamSavage]

Even if they're rushed, both the employees AND the supervisors should know that lowering quotas and making sure tickets are actually READ will speed the process up... If you take 1 minute to read the question and respond properly, then you don't have the person simply reopening their ticket and adding themselves back into the queues (often, depending on the situation, far more upset for multiple reasons).

Try telling that to Blizzard..

[Talaridan]

Ugh. It always embarrasses me to hear about morons like that on Moon Guard.