Does support really exist?

I think it's a legit question.

When the pre-order registration site opened, one friend went to register her code only to get "Error code 2: code already in use". This code, the 18 digit one, was the code she received from the SE online store on July 26th. On the 21st she spent 4 hours on hold for support only to have the "tech" hang up on her. It was still early enough for her that she jumped on and sat in the queue for live chat, this time getting to number 1 only to be removed from queue and her ticket closed with no explanation. This was roughly 4:30pm cst. Sadly, she has since canceled her pre-order.

On the 22nd, another friend got the same issue. He has canceled his pre-order as well.

Now this evening, the 23rd, yet another one of our group had an issue. He had actually managed to get his registration in and was set to play. However, he opened up the client to patch it only to find his account no longer had valid service. After logging into the account services it showed that his registration code was.. get this.. removed.

So I will ask this question again, Does the support center truly exist? If it does, it's obvious they don't give a s*** about the player base. Something needs to be fixed.

I'm pretty sure support has been bombarded with these problems all day. And they're probably looking for an answer as well.

I'm very hesitant to blame support for any of the issues, even if they are not doing their job correctly.
If anything it's the management it self and most likely the communication between Japan/US/EU.
When people at the support are rude/lazy or simply not trained ,it's still the management that hired these people and let them stay.
But it's also quite possible that they are over worked.


If you look at why things went wrong it's pretty clear.

- Allowing code registration at the very last moment, same goes for sending the codes.
They could have just sent the code right away and allowed you to register a month upfront.
No servers will be overloaded and it is not like they didn't had years to prepare.

When you do it on a short notice there is always the risk that if anything goes wrong the customer support will get flooded.

- Not communicating clearly with your customers, I don't consider twitter as a good source either.

- Having different codes for PS3/PC/US/EU

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sneakaboo

I'm very hesitant to blame support for any of the issues, even if they are not doing their job correctly.
If anything it's the management it self and most likely the communication between Japan/US/EU.
When people at the support are rude/lazy or simply not trained ,it's still the management that hired these people and let them stay.
But it's also quite possible that they are over worked.

If you look at why things went wrong it's pretty clear.

- Allowing code registration at the very last moment, same goes for sending the codes.
They could have just sent the code right away and allowed you to register a month upfront.
No servers will be overloaded and it is not like they didn't had years to prepare.

When you do it on a short notice there is always the risk that if anything goes wrong the customer support will get flooded.

- Not communicating clearly with your customers, I don't consider twitter as a good source either.

- Having different codes for PS3/PC/US/EU

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I agree with you on the short notice. The store I pre-ordered from didn't hear a thing about getting early access codes for people who pre-ordered, and they only found out about it yesterday(friday). And all the other stores further out I phoned seeing if they had any left said, that the store I pre-ordered from should have been given 20. I, and a lot of others have to wait until monday morning to find out what happened and if we will even be given a code.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sneakaboo

I'm very hesitant to blame support for any of the issues, even if they are not doing their job correctly.
If anything it's the management it self and most likely the communication between Japan/US/EU.
When people at the support are rude/lazy or simply not trained ,it's still the management that hired these people and let them stay.
But it's also quite possible that they are over worked.


If you look at why things went wrong it's pretty clear.

- Allowing code registration at the very last moment, same goes for sending the codes.
They could have just sent the code right away and allowed you to register a month upfront.
No servers will be overloaded and it is not like they didn't had years to prepare.

When you do it on a short notice there is always the risk that if anything goes wrong the customer support will get flooded.

- Not communicating clearly with your customers, I don't consider twitter as a good source either.

- Having different codes for PS3/PC/US/EU

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Agree! Plus it seems like their Front Line Staff (the ones we get to speak to via webchat or phone) do not have any authority to do anything...like they have Read Only Access to people's accounts.

If I was in the Customer Service Manager's place, I would have made sure there were no staff holidays for at least a week before Early Access (to ensure all customer service queries were cleared and sorted, and then for up to two weeks after Early Access.) And I would certainly push for hourly updates about all major problems just to keep the lines of communication open.

well... I don't know, they seem to have people updating stuff like announcing the start of early access, but they don't have people to make one post here. thing is, no one with access right now is gonna be reading the announcement - they'll be playing. I'm reading it because I can't play, they still haven't sent me the pre-order code yet. honestly I'm not trying to be an ass, but this is not acceptable.

If they are truly out of codes can one of them please update something, twitter? anything, sitting and entering a code every couple of mins to try to get access it getting old

Reviewing this has been tragic. And today is the real deal for customer support. I've seen at the most 5 answers from ONE staff member, being Bayohne. I haven't seen ANY other "tech support staff". - The forum should be full of them today. You have a tech support forum FOR A REASON.

I admire the users going so far as to TRADE CODES with oneanother. That takes serious trust in a most likely total stranger. This makes me furious. This should not happen. The communication with the customers has been HORRIBLE so far, and I expect a shutdown of this forum later today when all hell breaks loose.

I've experienced bad communications many-a-times before, but this... this may actually be WORSE than BioWare, and that is not a good thing, at all.

Although being a customer support reviewer, even I have been dragged into this wonderful game. I'm STILL waiting for my Early Access code which I am supposed to get through my order on a separate e-mail from the SE Europe store.

Edit: Now Gildrein is doing good work!

Think I am done waiting. Guess I will get some sleep and if they are still f-ing around with error 3 and error 3102 issues, I will let this game go by the wayside and never buy another SE product.

Ashamed, love FF franchise since FF3, but this has got to be the absolute worst launch/soft launch I have ever seen.

Got to play Beta for about 45 minutes before error 3102 kicked me. Spent an additional 30 dollars (on top of the 60 I spent on Version 1) to try and get to play this weekend, but now can't get registered for Early Access and the only help we are seeing is from other players, and most of those are bogus, and the advice they are providing does absolutely nothing, but at least they are trying, unlike the company that has been paid to provide this service.

Whelp, good luck and hope everyone gets in, sooner rather than later.