Constructive criticism

[Dawnseeker]

Being constructive appears to be the requirement imposed on paying customers here. So be it.

I have more money than time, so I kicked in a good chunk of cash to help get started. As a customer, when I pay for a product, I feel that the product should perform at least roughly as advertised. I do understand technical problems; however, I also understand technical support and the value that it brings to a product.

So, I ran into a problem. I was in the Cretan Labyrinth when I lost synchronization with the server. Now, I cannot play the game at all on the server I put my cash into because it goes to a black screen that says "Loading" and sits there forever.

No problem, I'll look for technical support contact information. I couldn't find any. All I found was this forum. So, I start reading and searching only to find that this problem has been reported multiple times before with no reliable solution, and if a forum member complains or is in anyway impolite, then the thread is closed.

I find this interesting. I've worked in the support division of Microsoft Corporation for fifteen years, and let's just say I'm not exactly what you would call entry level. I found myself asking a question. I asked myself what the likely outcome would be if this scenario played out:

1) Hundreds of dollars are paid for a software package.
2) It's very crash prone right from the beginning, and within three days the software has a fatal crash that cannot be recovered by any known means including rebooting or switching to another machine.
3) No telephone, email, or chat based technical support can be located.
4) Technical support provided is by a forum which only provides useful solutions once in a while.
5) If the paying customer does not have the proper attitude, being both constructive and polite, the thread is closed, the customer is publicly chastised, and this chastisement is left in public view for the world to see. It's essentially the electronic equivalent to a public flogging.

Very good post Stormyweathers, I'd like to address each of your points as you definitely have some legitimate concerns. First, thank you for being a customer. We appreciate your patronage and your trust in us.

There are indeed connection issues with the game from time to time. This is a new game and all the bugs and glitches haven't quite been ironed out yet. We've made some improvements and we've fixed the Cretan Labyrinth problem you mentioned.

We do indeed provide game support, and there is a direct link to support on our home page. However, in your case it was a bug related to the game and not a technical support problem. As I said, the bug has been fixed. We appreciate you and others who helped make us aware of it.

1) Hundreds of dollars are paid for a software package.
2) It's very crash prone right from the beginning, and within three days the software has a fatal crash that cannot be recovered by any known means including rebooting or switching to another machine.
3) No telephone, email, or chat based technical support can be located.
4) Technical support provided is by a forum which only provides useful solutions once in a while.
5) If the paying customer does not have the proper attitude, being both constructive and polite, the thread is closed, the customer is publicly chastised, and this chastisement is left in public view for the world to see. It's essentially the electronic equivalent to a public flogging.

I suspect the paying customer would stop paying, which as it so happens is exactly what I'm going to do.

1) Thanks. Really, we appreciate you and all of our customers.

2) No server and no game has 100% uptime. Things do happen on the internet and we do our best to mitigate their effects and correct them as quickly as possible. We did this with both the Labyrinth bug and the login issues we've had. Those are both fixed now (sorry you ran into them both) and while I'm sure new problems are always on the horizon, we'll fix those as well.

3) We have a support link on our homepage. Sorry you didn't see it. Here it is: http://tynon.support.ucool.com/

4) We have a technical support forum for users to help other users solve issues. This is in addition to game support, not instead of game support. We don't have the resources or personnel of Microsoft, so we are trying to put as many tools in the hands of our players to figure things out as we can.

5) We don't have any rules governing attitude. We welcome all feedback, even if it is negative or critical. All that we ask is that the issues are addressed honestly and that it is kept in a constructive form, so that we can actually process it and learn from it. Your feedback is very critical but its also very constructive, and we really appreciate it. It helps us to improve.

We don't ever want to have a dissatisfied customer. We would much rather our players continue to play for free as long as they like, and only make a purchase when they are confident in us and in what they are getting. I agree that you should not make any further purchases until or unless all your concerns are addressed.

I hope that everyone will follow your lead and not make any purchase unless they are 100% confident in us and in their purchase. It is a very reasonable and intelligent approach.

1) When customers pay for a product, and it malfunctions, they tend to become upset. Anyone who plans to accomplish anything in technical support would be well advised to grow accustomed to this reality. Angry customers are usually not constructive. The effective technique is to be diplomatic and gently steer the conversation in the direction of the technical information you require to resolve the issue.

2) Abusive customers should not be tolerated as the employees or volunteers working on behalf of a company are entitled to be treated with decency. Obscene language, verbal assaults, threats, and similar behavior are always inappropriate; however, if a customer is filing a complaint in the only forum available to him, and you tell him that he is making a "useless rant", silence him with moderator privilege, and then continue to display this in public, odds are you've lost not only one customer but a lot of others who simply read what you have written and are offended that paying customers are treated with such uncommon disrespect.

3) There is an internet cultural norm that the moderators of a forum are entitled to regulate content and speech in any heavy-handed manner they see fit. However, when your forum is used for product support, you will best serve your company by treating your customers with the same level of respect and tolerance that you would show were you working a retail job and a customer walks up to you face to face.

4) Customer support should have a service level agreement. If a question is asked, it should be reliably answered in a reasonably timely fashion, not ignored if it is in some fashion unpleasant or inconvenient. If you don't want to have these conversations in public, then accept questions in email instead, and post the solutions to problems in this forum including keywords and a search mechanism that is effective and intuitive enough to reduce the volume of duplicate questions.

5) If you suggest an action plan to a customer, and it does not resolve the problem, then suggest another action plan ...

6) Always keep in mind that your customers are paying you, not the other way around.

1) Good points. Really this forum is intended to be user-to-user help, and the staff (usually me) collects reports and tries to pick up on any trends so we can get issues fixed. Because this is a browser-based game, most technical support involves players clearing their cache and reloading the game. Anything beyond that is probably a bug with the game that can't be fixed on an individual basis and needs to be corrected by the Dev Team.

2) It seems like you're referring to a specific situation, but a quick search didn't turn up the conversation in question. If someone is having a legitimate issue, I hope that they weren't accused of "useless ranting" as that is not the courtesy that we should treat each other with.

3) The moderators are instructed to be polite but we can't tolerate the wound-up hate speech that I have seen dominate forums for other games. It becomes a nasty cycle and really a melodramatic overreaction to what are generally minor problems. This not only makes the forums a nasty place to visit, but it creates a subculture of vicious whining and makes it nearly impossible to tell when a major problem actually arises, because everyone has already cranked their Whinge-Meter up to 11. As such, these forums might be a bit more tightly moderated than I would generally like, but I think its better than the alternative. I understand that you disagree, but this is really a judgment call on my part that I am sticking with for now. If there are specific instances of things getting too tight, then that is a problem as well. It's really a balancing act.

4) Not to harp on this point, but the forums are not for staff to provide technical support to players. They are for players to help each other out and for staff to get an idea of any major issues going on in the game that need to be addressed by the dev team. Personalized support is available here: http://tynon.support.ucool.com/

5) I agree!

6) I hope you don't think we've forgotten that. We truly appreciate all of our customers as well as non-paying players. Both are important to a vibrant and healthy game. We're just getting started.

I'm sorry if its too late to stop you from leaving. I do hope you'll give us another try. We're not bad guys. We're just a small company who have made a game that we think is really fun and we hope it keeps growing!