Originally Posted by Traderjill View Post
This 'fix' was patched to Test Live on June 19th and to the live servers on June 24th and you're JUST now posting some sort of explanation? The start of your post should have read "Guys, I apologize for not properly communicating with you sooner about the plans for the Detonation Matrix fix." Anything short of that is really yet another slap in the face to many of your paying customers. To see how many people on the forums and in game are upset by this change and not, at least, acknowledge their concerns and show some empathy is ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE customer service.
I won't insult your intelligence by detailing why you need to exhibit excellent customer service skills as a Game Director. What I will do is tell you how your failure to do so affected me personally. When you sat in Newland Desert yesterday morning, still with no reply to many pressing questions on the forums I was floored. As a paying customer for many years I did not feel valued. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that I almost felt mocked. That got followed up by a stream that did not addresss any issues/concerns while people were literally complaining in the streets of Borealis about the DM change (in your presence, same as in Newland Desert).
Maybe some people on the forums express their outrage and disappointment in a less appropriate manner but the fact remains that YOU need to do something fast to improve the way you communicate and/or fail to communicate with YOUR customers.
If you don't want it to haunt you later, then don't say it, don't post it on facebook, don't tweet it, don't text it, don't e-mail it and don't say it on IRC. You are the Game Director of Anarchy Online. If you want the luxury of casual speech then start saying things under another name other than the one we know as Game Director. When an ARK is communicating under their ARK name there are standards for said communication. If they want to be casual, they go to their play toon name. You are Game Director, it is even more important that you have a similar policy but apparently you don't.
No one expects you to be less than human but somehow you seem to fail to realize what successful department heads and business owners already know. As long as you are speaking as Genele you will be considered a representative of the company you work for (Funcom) and your words will carry the weight of the Game Director of Anarchy Online. There really is no excuse for irresponsible communication coming from you because you have a luxury that managers and business owners in other industries do not-- You can just hang up your 'work hat' by simply CHANGING NAMES.
On that note, I'm going to leave you with some customer service quotes to think about
:
The more you engage with customers the clearer things become and the easier it is to determine what you should be doing.
-John Russell, President, Harley Davidson
Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business.
-Zig Ziglar
Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.
-Bill Gates
In the end, the customer doesn't know, or care, if you are small or large as an organisation. She or he only focuses on the garment hanging on the rail in the store.
-Giorgio Armani
Customer service is not a department, it’s everyone’s job.
-Anonymous
A customer is the most important visitor on our premises, he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so.
-Mahatma Gandhi
Every contact we have with a customer influences whether or not they’ll come back. We have to be great every time or we’ll lose them.
-Kevin Stirtz