Is customer support ever going to get better?

[Runespider]

Are there any plans at all to improve customer support? Most everyone seems to have negative reports of dealing with customer support and there is very real dread at having to have to deal with it.

So yeah, are there any plans at all to rework how customer support works to help subscribers? For anyone that has had the pleasure to deal with blizzard customer support it makes no sense how bad SE support is and it's quite depressing :/

The most fearful situations are if something happens where you are locked out of your account, bank problems, cc problems etc The fear of losing access to your account is there every time there is a change to the payment system or possible changes to region locking, pretty much anything account related. we should not have to live in fear of changing CC or have to have to change banks or other silly measures to play a game. There isn't even any preferable treatment to long time valued customers, as in if you have a account problem and you can't log in they don't care if you've been paying them for the last 7 years or not they are still very often really unhelpful.

For a little clarification I don't mean the GM staff (have never had a bad interaction with a GM), this is at the people that actually deal with things like account problems etc. Phone/chat support staff.

[cidbahamut]

This is a very real concern.

[Octaviane]

I have never has any issues with payment problems, but I do empathize with the hundreds of people that get locked out of their accounts every month for a variety of reasons usually all to do with PoL. If monthly charges coincide with a weekend/holiday you know there will be no Customer Support available. I really don't understand why SE is changing payment methods again when they could just as easily set up their own billing program to get paid directly. I am glad they are dropping PoL as their billing partner, but am wondering if support will get better or worse. Time will tell. For now it's a huge issue and has been for the longest time.

[Oddwaffle]

I have to agree with the OP on the customer support part. If you need something that can be done by talking to a machine such as activating credit card on the phone then SE customer support is exactly the same as that machine. If you have almost everything they expect you to have then you will get the support. I once encountered a credit card problem and the support said to retry it every 30min and it worked after 3rd try. If you are just a little out of the normal range and require actually talking to a person then you are out of luck. I once lost my token and I was unable to login, the support was so unhelpful and even though I can provide everything except my 'secret' question/answer on the page the only thing I could do was disable my account.

Now I have this permanent fear of losing my token or have it broken. I'm 95% certain that I will not be able to play ever again if that happen because there really is no help from SE.

[Ilax]

I also agree with OP, and don't forget mention "linkshell community" where there is just no option to get an answer at all. You can do like me and post 10 email, and you wont ever receive a feed back, not even 2yr later, and i find that also sad i got answered that i can't use this forum to talk about LS community, MOD also told me to email @ we.never.answer@playonline.com, something i did, still no feedback.

[Byrth]

I think the customer support has improved. In the past you could have made this thread and had a 0% chance of an SE community rep responding to it, with a low chance of them reading it. Now you can be pretty sure they'll read it even if they don't respond to it, which is also an option.

If you're wondering, "Will SE ever stop messing up billing and become helpful when it comes to resolving issues they've created?" then the answer is probably no.

They're better than they were for sure, but they aren't great. I have several friends still fighting the July billing snafu, and several other friends scrambling to change their payment method because apparently it's no longer valid. None of them have very nice things to say about SE's customer support at the moment.

[Runespider]

They are definately better in terms of communication yeah, in the actual customer help front they are the same terrible SE though. It's pretty sad that when you have a serious account issue and you can't get help with it, they are losing customers that are begging to give them their money and they don't care.

It's crazy really, they plan to run 3 MMOs but their customer support is just attrocious. They can't be taken seriously in such an endevour with this kind of system in place, FFXI players put up with it because we are hardcore fans of this MMO that probably won't be the case for games like XIV or whatever new MMO they have in the works.

[Luvbunny]

This is a growing concern - one that needs to be addressed by SE - ASAP. Sadly - progress will be very slow - if there is any at all. Best to vote with your wallet and spend your money somewhere else. Money talks - and prompted SE to take action - just look at FF14.

[Korpg]

I think the customer support has improved. In the past you could have made this thread and had a 0% chance of an SE community rep responding to it, with a low chance of them reading it. Now you can be pretty sure they'll read it even if they don't respond to it, which is also an option.

I still say there is a low chance of them reading anything on this forum.

[Alhanelem]

I have no problems with customer support. Other than website support often being rather slow, I have always had a good experience with them, and it has improved substantially from several years ago.