Tip.It Times Presents: The Nightmare of Customer Service

Oh, it was a post first.

I wondered why it sounded familiar =D

It was good regardless that I read it before.

I REALLY REALLY wish that I could direct users of the Runescape forums to this article :(

Pity about the whole "Other websites are evil, and we are not to acknowledge their existence" policy... Maybe that can be the issue for the next article :)

I think some of those ignorant people mentioned in the article have already posted here... :wink:

Most excellent. I don't work in customer support, but I do work in an Electronics Store (Radioshack), and some of the reasons people get upset...I can't imagine what it must be like for Jagex. Totally agree with this week's Times. As it stated, humans are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. We make mistakes. It's part of life

Personally, I have had great success with Jagex's customer support. Twice I have been scammed of my password, and twice my account was returned promptly and with nothing missing. Never have I had a bad experience with them.

Keep up the great work!

Most of Jagex's team are university students looking for a part time job. They don't got any previous knowledge of the game..

http://www.jagex.com/corporate/index.ws

Link to Jagex's corporate website, it's amazing how people don't think at looking there.

If you look at the job requirements for customer support, I can figure almost anyone can work for Jagex.

Great article. I have never used the customer support and hopefully will never really have to do so. I am always keeping my eyes open and I have only been hacked once. (Fortunately, it was when I was low lvl and only had a few items of value.) Even then, I did not visit customer support. I simply picked up the pieces and continued on. Now I'm more cautious, but more experienced. Most players don't understand: this is a game. If you were playing any regular, single-player console game and died and lost things, who would go to to whine? There is no customer support in those games. They seem to think that if there is someone to report it to, then they go talk about every little indecency in the game. Listen, it's one thing to report a person who scammed you out of full dragon. That's fine. But reporting a person for scamming because they picked up your arrows is just stupid.

I can only imagine what customer support will look like when the crowd has died down, and Runescape is down to its most loyal supporters. I'm sure that will be the cushiest job at Jagex then. Listen to a couple bug complaints a day. No problem. It's coming people. The question is: When?

I have yet to use customer support either. The few problems I had didn't require their help, though I imagine some less paitent souls would have gone their first.

I've heard jokes over the years about real cases tech guys get such as "the coffee cup holder on my computer." Not sure what the RS equivalent is.

This is a good article, at least I think so. Since many people who play Runescape use a help site, like tip.it, some people who do what was described in the article (complaing upon every small detail), may end up thinking over their complaints. Most probably won't(I'm being realistic here :D ) but some may,and that could make all the difference for the customer support people :D .

Great article, but one thing I don't understand is how many people get hacked. I'm not trying to put anyone down here, but just don't give out your password. My little brother gave out his password to all his friends (the only people on his friends list are the ones he knows in real life, so it should have been safe) and got hacked. Is there some way to get hacked if they don't know your password beforehand?

Some of the mods they have arn't good at all, it seems as though they have to report and mute people in order to stay mods, so they mute and give blackmarks to people for no reason. Like me:). I dont see any other customer service, except the random automated messages you get back.

The article was indeed good, it even made me think :P . I can now understand, what the poor Jmods feel, when they show up in-game... phr33 st00f pl0x etc.. Thats why i've never seen one :lol: But the customer support is good, i've always got an answer (not an auto-message), if i asked somethink good, not just spamming CS for not having any maple trees at f2p, but under WC showing that f2p'ers can cut em. The maple thing was the only one that did not got an good answer.

But yea, almost everyone can work at Jagex, and if u feel that u can do better, go join em :lol:

Jagex corporate wrote: Tired of slaying goblins? Fancy making them instead?

This article is one of my favourties as it might stop the threads about customer services, but there actually is definate room for improvement from jagex.

Some of the mods they have arn't good at all, it seems as though they have to report and mute people in order to stay mods, so they mute and give blackmarks to people for no reason. Like me:). I dont see any other customer service, except the random automated messages you get back.

It has got to be the other way around. If you think about it the player mods don't get paid, so jagex will have no reason to stop them being mods unless they are unfairly muting/reporting people. And also why would jagex want their staff mods to ban inosent players if those players are the back bone of the game. I see that you could be angry though, my friend got temp banned for according to him "no reason" he was very angry.

I think this article is some what total garbage itself.

The research behind it is some what poorly done

 

RuneScape had already by then become a game which had had over 1 million accounts created over 2001!

A clear indication that the game most definately has more than 2 million players, also the article said its self there are hundreds of thousands of players that get good responces from customer support there is a very minimal amount how recieve the poor service

I mean theres about 100 posts about poor service a day over all the major rs related forums, compare that to the thousands of questions etc they recueve in a day and its a very small percentage.

Jagex have also said throuhg thier forums etc they are constanlty expanding thier customer support team to make it more efficient.

The whole "demon you can't feed" embargo is total trash too.

When creating something that is truely great you cannot control its creation according to your resources, time etc. You have to elt it grow and change in a free manner, free of control; and then you react with time and resources to sustain it.

If they tried to control runescape in that way they would have to cap the number of accounts they could have, then until they got more staff in keep it capped, aka it wouldn't work

And as for your dreams of what they thought rs would be, that also is easy to see via research

The base jagex site, shows the kind of thing Andrew was originally doing with Java and it also shows how Runescape was msot likely expected to be another minor game like them as Jagex the company (founded by andrew, paul and constant tedder) was not created until atleast a year (if not 2 i nvr rember whihc yr rs came out) after runescape was launched, by whihc time it had already gained over 1 million accounts.

I normally find these articles intersting to read, but this one is juts plain irritating it accepts the concept that more good work goes un posted, yet proceeds to still whine about the poor service. Over my time on rs I have never had a single problem with customer service and out of all my rs friends (theres about 100 of them in total) only 1 has ever had a problem with it, juts to give it further scale of the problem:good ratio.

and as for the main content, if you want to write something so ahrd hitting atleast do the simple research that will give better perspective. I mean My facts are all from the Jagex co-porate site, I didn;t even go to wikipedia whihc has a hell of alot more

Very well written.

By the way though, there are 6 million active RS accounts, not 2 million, making it 3 times as hard for Customer Support than the article suggests.

Well written article but in my opinion was just waffle. If you've been around rs for a while, you understand and know everything that was written in this article. Just seems like another way tip.it is covering their bums.

Indeed.

Jagex rely need to hire some more people in he CS department. It is a joke. I havent had a reply since mabe November. They have forgotten all of the old veterians of RS. Like me. I have alot of issuies. Like players with obscene and offensive names. Also I have some in-gam questions wich only Jagex can help me with. I have been muted twice but I have to appeal against this. I have been banned once but i DIDNT SEE PROOOF. I relly hope Jagex gets there act together. They dont care about the players anymore, its the cash. I remember 2 years ago Jagex were great. And the players went so bad either. Players are getting better. Most players have learned their lesson now nad have stopped the childish rul-breaking. Jagex need to do their part now. Help their customers before more quit.

What Jagex Could Do:

Hire more people to work in CS

Have a personal Jagex mod who you can talk if you are conserned with something

A fourm were you can talk in private with a jaggex mod or dissciuss issuies with them.

I would lke to hear some more suggestions.

Hopefully Jagex will read this and crack down on rule-breaking as rule breaking it will become an issuie soon.

EDIT:

It would be a difficult job at times but someone has to do it. Im sure Jagex could find hundrads more workers if they relly tried.

I have mixed feelings about this one...i think the making excuses for customer service is ridiculous. The part that talks about how Jagex needs some help with their company is good (they need more CS).

The whole "you pay $5 and expect $5000 worth of service" is just plain ridiculous. You know why we pay $5? Because that's what they are asking. Bottom line is, we are purchasing what they are selling and therefore they should offer decent customer support (regardless of price), easy as that.

Lol you people need to think about this. $5 a month is $60 bucks a year. That is more than a ps2 game costs. Companies that produce ps2 games have a MUCH higher overhead than Jagex. The, ehrm, more professional companies have MANY more employees, and they have to pay for advertising AND they have to pay for the cost of making the game CDs, manuals, jewel cases, etc. Now, Jagex does have to pay to keep their servers up, which is a significant cost, but it doesn't compare to the corporate overhead and production overhead that other companies need to pay. The point is, Jagex is coming out incredibly well with the "only $5 a month".

I've said it before, and i'll probably say it again. If Jagex is going to play in the big leagues then they need to play professionally, and at this point they aren't. Sure, they are happy to take more people's money, but they aren't willing to pay for improved Customer Service? That's not a professional business model. They've been called up to the majors and they are still playing bush league. You either adapt to new circumstances or you go bye-bye...

The core of the game is great, no doubt. But the game is not a professional product at this point. The game needs polish ( the many glaring spelling and grammar errors, naming inconsistensies, etc), the customer service is lacking, the lack of communication with the community on important issues (ex. proof for banning) is unsatisfactory, the website is clunky, the chat censor is hands down the worst i've ever seen in my life, obvious old bugs should be fixed (ex the moonwalking, especially since they banned some guy for mentioning michael jackson, haha), reaction time to banning autoers is way too slow (after they've already flooded the market with their goods), etc., etc.

They need to stop releasing pointless quests every week and spend that time polishing the game to professional standards. They need to revamp their customer service: They need numerous mods available 24/7. The mods need to actively seek out rulebreakers and use this super cheat detecting technology that Jagex tells us they have to ban them (or at least kick them until proof can be established) right on the spot. Players should be able to communicate with these mods directly while playing. They should get rid of ambiguous rules that allow for banning with no proof. When players are banned the proof used to justify the ban should be presented to them instead of just telling what rule they supposedly broke. Appeals should be taken more seriously. If an appeal is denied still without sufficient proof, then the appeal should be allowed to be presented to a "higher court" so to speak. This is just where they need to start... there are many more things that need to be fixed.

I know someone is gonna say "you're just made cuz you got banned!" But that's not true, i've never been banned, muted, locked, hacked, anything like that. I have had to (try to) communicate with customer support in the past though, and it's been a terrible experience. I have only received automated responses from them, and sometimes the responses weren't even relevant to what i sent them. Plus, the current paranioa about being banned from innocent things like one sided trades for letting someone borrow an item or giving gifts is unnacceptable too. I have business experience and experience with the game industry and i am simply objectively discussing problems that i see and i am also suggesting solutions to them.

Is it just me or have the last few articles been foucused on how hard Jagexe's job is how or how they can do a good job? Now I'm not dissing Jagex I've actually learned that Jagex arn't so bad, contuary to what I used to think, but ever since Andrew made that post on the forums the articles have been about Jagex. Thank you Jagex for making such a awsome game, but Tip.it arn't these articles supposed to be about Runescape and not Jagex?

That's all I have to say.

Customer service is part of runescape.

As a player i must say thank you for this article. Customer support is at most times really great for me on runescape. Although they have messed up a few times they are usually happy to fix it and sometimes even admit their mistake,

Having worked an IT help desk for a short period (i couldnt hack it to many stupid people) i can relate to this article and say great work. it should be required reading b4 anyone can message customer support.

RockyMaivia

I agree with you 100%. Whilst I am not anti Jagex in any way what so ever, I do believe I, and anyone else for that matter, should be able to express their views without the fear of retribution.

Unfortunately as it goes, I am only able to express my views on this and any other RS fan site, since any rants regarding Customer Support on official RS forums usually get locked. I also find it unbelievably frustrating because any complaints about Customer Support on RS forums usually fall into category of 'complaints against Jagex', and are therefore not allowed.

Some of the Jagex's policies and their position regarding certain issues clearly confuse many people. Like the neverending Customer - Customer Support issue for example. When a person who has a problem and requires a genuine support from CS receives an automated response, it is quite clearly frustrating. Many of us understand the pressures and work loads faced by Jagex CS, and therefore are prepared to wait. However when CS clearly isn't able to deliver, we turn to the only place we think that may result in a positive outcome - RS forums. There in turn, we find our rant or query post locked, and once again we are reffered to Customer Support.

So I ask you this - who do we turn to when CS fails???

Biggest problem is that Jagex fall short of admitting that there is an actual problem. And based on many long term player's opinions, they are doing very little to fix those problems. Also Jagex seems to take great offence to any criticism that comes their way to the point where people have been warned and their posts removed, something which I find totally bizzare.

Based on past Jagex's actions and their automatic assumption that a person ranting is anti Jagex, only fuels the fire and the desire to debate the topic even further. Even when people are unable to freely debate the given topic on the RS forums, they will clearly continue to do so in-game or on RS fan site forums, and the issue will still be out in the open.

In the past, having found myself debating a widely discussed topics on RS forums, the ultimate debate killer was a J-Mod turning up and making a post stating that the issue is being looked at, rather than a forum Mod turning up and locking the whole thread. However these days we rarely see any positive actions, and most of the time people are frustrated by the 'Hitler' type regime which Jagex seems to have implemented.

I guess what I am trying to say is that not all criticism is actually negative. And if Jagex were prepared to actively participate in debating some of the issues, instead of just doing their best to make them 'disappear', they would find much more support and less ranting.

A brilliant article, very well written and presented. I couldn't agree more. My younger brother had an incredible 2 week strop when he got scammed. Just the kind of behaviour Jagex CS must fear. They have about 15k reports a day (so I've heard please correct me if I'm wrong.) Thats 1 in every 400 players getting scammed or cheated etc. a day. Can't they be like the other 399 in 400 a day and get on with the game. It is after all just a game isn't it?

Can we have something less dreary next week (no offense). The last two weeks we've just had rants.

Great article. It does a great job of showing the other side of the story, just like Andrew wanted. It explains the Tech/Customer Support side of a buisness. WELL WRITTEN!

abomb67