Customer Phone Support

[Summer87]

I just wanted to say that I have decided to never purchase another Square game again. I sat on hold with your customer support line for about 4 hours to get an issue settled with my FF14 account, since your email support is BEYOND useless.

I received a phone bill yesterday, a 418 dollar phone bill, the largest bill I've ever received. So I wondered what the hecking heck could have wracked up such a disgustingly large charge...

IT WAS YOUR PHONE SERVICE!

What the hell kind of multinational company doesn't have a tollfree number for their customer support line? Seriously, I've dealt with a multitude of game developers and publisher support lines and even for companies outside the video game industry and this is a first.

It really sucks that this had to happen, since I have been dying to get my hands on Kingdom Hearts 3 and Final Fantasy 15. That or I'll wait for the products you release to total over $418 and some cents before I ever decide to renew my sub to FF14 or buy another Square product.

Peace out.

[Officerfriendly]

They have a chat support if you are able to actually find it... I didn't receive a security token with my collector edition game and I have had the same experience with e-mail support. I have no clue why they even have e-mail support if their answer is to either choose chat or phone.... I responded to the e-mail with where is the chat and got the same canned reply back.

[Raist]

I agree it sucks to have to pay for long distance phone support, but....

did you not notice you weren't calling a 1-800 number?

Just saying... should have been obvious. Think they even have a disclaimer where the number is listed at the portal.

As mentioned, there is the chat portal option. Surest way to get there is to select issues about your account in the drop boxes. Going the way of compromised account gets you there.

[Lexia]

$418 for 4 hours that like $100 an hour what phone company do you have? Sounds like you should have bigger concerns with your phone company then SE.

[Cegiana]

Welcome to the online FF support reality. It started with FFXI, the customer service was (and still is) non-existent, even the people on the phone would say that they can't help you and there's nobody to transfer to that can help you when it came to most problems. Not only that, but you required the luck of the Irish to get someone on the phone that didn't have an attitude before you even said hello. Not to mention that if you had an attitude back to them, or even if you didn't have an attitude but the employee on the phone thought you did, they would hang up on you. Even went as far as to tell me that she's too busy to continue the phone call, when I asked her for any suggestions on how to fix the problem. CLICK! Call over... Not to mention that if you were lottery-number winning lucky enough to have them agree to transfer your call, it will be a dead end, they will not answer after they transferred you. I remember calling at 9 am, getting someone on the phone around 11:30 am and then after tons of begging, the employee agreed to transfer me to a manager, at 5pm the line I was on hold on went dead cause they hung up the line, never had any management answer at all. I was on hold a few minutes short of 8 hours...

Oh, just remembered another call to FFXI (PlayOnline) the guy told me that there was no solution to my problem, so I asked if there was anyone else that I could talk to, a lead or manager that might have the authority to help me. He said there was nobody, so then I asked him, "there is nobody above you that can do anything about it." He said no, then I said, "well if there is nobody above you, then you must own Square-Enix, and as the owner, it's your company, shouldn't you be able to do something as simple as correct a mistake that your own company made." He said, "I'm not the owner" then I said, "ok then, please put me on with the owner or at the very least your manager." Click. He hung up. For the record, I've been hung up on 3 times (although could be 4 times) by Square-Enix and that was the only time I gave attitude and it was barely attitude at that, not to mention well deserved since I didn't make the mistake yet SE refused to correct it (and still hasn't BTW, it's been years and nearly a dozen calls, all with zero results. It's against the policy to modify the account, regardless of who is at fault. One person went as far as telling me that I could just make a new account, ARE THEY FREAKIN' SERIOUS? Sure lady, I'll just throw away years of accomplishments cause you won't fix the mistake you made...)

Think it has gotten better? Nope, I had to call for a FFXIV issue, waited for over 90 minutes just to have the person say they can't help me (they can, it's their systems and their game, they CAN help you with ANY problem you have, but the problem is they won't because they have extremely non-flexible rules and the only time a problem will be fixed is if the problem is happening to tons of others. If it's a rare problem that only you have, then you will have that problem until you quit paying to play the game.) So I had to call the next day (I didn't want to wait 90 minutes twice on 1 day,) same thing, no solution, no help, no suggestions, no sympathy, no support what-so-ever and no, they absolutely will not transfer me to anyone that can help. At least he was polite when he said, "Sorry, we can't help you, is there anything else I can help you with today?"............

Super long story short, if you expect customer service from SE, you will be sorely disappointed, but if you accept that SE customer service simply doesn't exist and therefore never expect to receive any, then you'll be just fine. Look at me, years of being rational and reasonable with them has resulted in zero results, even when I'm super nice, extremely detailed and informative mixed in with some good ol'fashioned butt kissing, nope, still have the same problem I've had for years (which affects FFXIV too, unfortunately, and according to my last phone call to SE, they will never correct it.) YAY. Oh and never believe the people on the phone when they say that they best way to get support is to post it on the official forums. They claim it's the best way to get help and that has never worked for me, not once in DOZENS of topics I've created over the years trying to get a solution to a problem caused by a Square-Enix employee.

Sucks about it costing you $418 phone bill, but you have to understand, a company the size of Square-Enix couldn't possibly afford an 800 toll-free number. The little bakery on the corner where I live can afford to have an 800 number, but not a giant multi-national company. Duh, that's common sense...

I just wanted to say that I have decided to never purchase another Square game again. I sat on hold with your customer support line for about 4 hours to get an issue settled with my FF14 account, since your email support is BEYOND useless.

I received a phone bill yesterday, a 418 dollar phone bill, the largest bill I've ever received. So I wondered what the hecking heck could have wracked up such a disgustingly large charge...

IT WAS YOUR PHONE SERVICE!

What the hell kind of multinational company doesn't have a tollfree number for their customer support line? Seriously, I've dealt with a multitude of game developers and publisher support lines and even for companies outside the video game industry and this is a first.

It really sucks that this had to happen, since I have been dying to get my hands on Kingdom Hearts 3 and Final Fantasy 15. That or I'll wait for the products you release to total over $418 and some cents before I ever decide to renew my sub to FF14 or buy another Square product.

Peace out.

[Xetyline]

Greetings,

Here at Square Enix we strive to bring excellent customer service to each of our players. While we encourage discussions like this to happen in other forums, such as General Discussion, the Technical Support forums is for people who are having technical support issues to discuss them with the community in order to come to a resolution. Unfortunately, due to this thread not being about requiring Technical Support, I will be locking this particular thread. We appreciate all feedback and constructive discussions about ways to improve our services and policies. If you wish to have a constructive discussion about ways to improve the support of Square Enix, we welcome you to start a thread in the appropriate forum.

Regards,
Xetyline