Petition: phone service

[Camiie]

So the guy in charge at SE now cares less about the customers than the FFXI dev team? Wow, I never thought I'd see the day.

[Fistandantilus]

Yeah this is a terrible way to cut costs SE. The online version of customer support is clunky, and maddening. Sure phone support could be annoying at times as well, but cutting it out completely is a serious mistake. Cutting off your nose to spite your face.... This will absolutely result in a significantly higher rate of unsuscribers. Hoping that someone can put 2 & 2 together a couple months down the road is probably asking too much as well.

[Elizara]

Strangely I'd called phone tech support not too long ago via Skype..I had not heard they'd cut it completely off.

Square, It was long distance and a pain to get to (heck, you might have to find the number on Alla) but please keep it going. I haven't been able to GET at the chat support for a long time and it's better to talk to your customers when they have a problem. Bad idea to get rid of it! Please, Square. Find another place to cut costs.

[Sarick]

Well well well, seems like the XP support that no one gave a hoot about isn't the only support being dropped. I told you all about this cutting cutting cutting. Where does it end? Well, if they no longer offer phone support then it's their right to reduce the service value. They got to save money right?

The chat, email and web support is more or less a savings tactic to reduce overhead and limit the amount of support offered to the client. By removing phone support you can utilize less staff to fulfill request even one or a logic AI computer can save hundreds of thousands. This allows them compensate or maximize the funding they're willing to invest in support at the lowest denomination possible.

As example if you have e-mail instead of answering questions you can reply by robotic automated responses. This way the client can be effectively ignored or given the run around. It's much harder to do this if speaking to a live person because the person has to directly respond. Obviously, an automated response system is much cheaper if the client requires multiple stages to get a live person.

Simple right? With less staff a single click of the button a chat/email support service can choose from a few hundred automatic responses. There doesn't even need to be a human behind most of these. Technology today has reached a point where you could be communicating with a BOT in chat support and not even know it. It's much harder to create shortcuts if your talking to a live person over the phone.

Example of a working as intended email/chat support shown in this youtube video click here!

The subscription fees are more less a cash cow at this point. If you read the stocks and keep up with the busyness news you'd have noticed a company we're both very familiar with is restructuring because they're losing big bucks. I don't have to mention their name here. As a result most companies need to cut off as much as possible from their successful investments making the higher turn around to cover losses in other areas.

Phone support cost a lot because you need real people on the other end. Just like the recent orbit big packs. They used to have 60 pieces of gum. They now only have 55 at the same price. There was no announcement that they reduced the value of their product but 99% of the customers where too stupid to notice it and continued paying full price. Big companies see customers as stupid sheep, sadly most of them are. These types can easily get taken for a ride to the slaughter house because they don't recognize subtle product changes.

It takes a serious public response sometimes to set them straight, Take for instance the 80's when Coke changed its formula. People actually called back Coke to pickup the product for refund. Look at the recent rumor that Microsoft Windows 8.1 might include the option to boot to desktop mode without the metro interface. It's simple When companies start losing money because they upset the customers they either change their ways or cannibalize off themselves.

Hopefully after reading this there is enough knowledge to see why phone support would be dropped. Lastly, Before someone responds to this I'm going to say something I expect someone to say PS2 style.

If they drop phone support that'll give them more funding to improve the game! We really don't need phone support if it makes the game better.

Sorry, I just had to say that. I know someone would bring that up eventually anyway. People I've argued with actually think this way. Oddly, none of those zealous supporters have been defending their optimistic views.

[Sarick]

You bet they do.

~~~CUT~~~

Interesting article imo. i was particularly interested in the last paragraph. Looks like the financial black hole that is FFXIV is still destined to be one of the most important titles in SE's history. Either its gonna make things better or bring down the company imo.

Warning fella that post will probably get deleted. I posted links about this on general the day it was announce the whole topic was wiped. The only thing that I mentioned outside the context was those could cause LAYOFFS. I've heard rumors that they might even close the US offices completely in the restructure. The people off site made some rather interesting comments about this some even cheering his stepping down. I suppose those offsite comments from 3rd parties could be enough reason to erase the topic.

On a final note: that was a link I made in the topic using that exact address of the deleted topic. It list all the money lost and the cost involved.

[Elizara]

I just checked, took me two tries (I did NOT go past the menu) and they have HIDDEN the tech support number (they do not mention it) but it is still there.

You have to wait until noon EST but the number I called though Skype is still there and ticking (At least the menu will work, I didn't need to make a tech call so I didn't even try it, why waste their time?). The hours are Mon-Fri 9am-6pm PST; the missing number is 858-790-7529. I strongly suggest you use a phone card or put some $$ on Skype, but if the menu is still there, the techs are prolly still there. They proly HID the number to save money, if people can't find it they won't try to call it. (It's in a sticky on Alla outright, it's THAT hard to find.)

So I guess they weren't so stupid after all, tho making you jump though hoops to get to phone tech support sucks.

[Sarick]

You have to wait until noon EST but the number I called though Skype is still there and ticking (At least the menu will work, I didn't need to make a tech call so I didn't even try it, why waste their time?).

Nice find it's still hard to get the number. So why did the SE rep say they no longer have phone support?

The hours are Mon-Fri 9am-6pm PST; the missing number is 858-790-7529. I strongly suggest you use a phone card or put some $$ on Skype, but if the menu is still there, the techs are prolly still there. They proly HID the number to save money, if people can't find it they won't try to call it. (It's in a sticky on Alla outright, it's THAT hard to find.)

Glad I have unlimited long distance to land line for $30 a month those land line phone connections have gotten better deals for long distance since the internet.

So I guess they weren't so stupid after all, tho making you jump though hoops to get to phone tech support sucks.

Still don't get why they'd say no more phone support and no forum rep came here to verify or deny this.

[Elizara]

Neither do I. I noticed it MONTHS ago(When I called them about the expansion, actually..) they had hidden the fragging number, I literally had to go hunting on Alla to find it. They have this thread hidden in the stickies which tells you the number, straight up, no hoops to jump though needed.

Thing is it is still a nightmare to get to the chat support; it is easier to get to email support now a days. I'm not sure why they did this, and I'm not sure why the rep said "no phone support" other than the usual sometimes one support rep will tell you one thing and another will tell you another thing.

I do put in my hat tho for this to SIMPLIFY THE FREAKING PROCESS, gosh darn it, so people don't have to jump though hoops to get their game fixed.