Should LL stop bothering to communicate with their residents?

It's either black or white, all or nothing, one extreme or the other, hmm?

I love hyperbole.

hyperbloe and vitriol make the forums go round. Complaining about them is very much akin to going to the Indy 500 and complaining because the cars are loud and go too fast.

I don't mind them going fast, I just wish they'd quit going in circles. (Much like the forums.)

Snarky, ill mannered and rude am I? Hmmm. I'll obviously have to work on my communication skills too...

Chip, wake up and smell the coffee - LL is crap at communicating with their customers!

hehe, at least you're consistent.

I am not sure anyone would actually know if they stopped.

So far my expereince has mostly been, show up at LL and they will talk to you, and treat you wonderfully. For which I am thankful. But I vary rarely ever see Lindens in world, and several enquires I have made have gone un responded to. I don't think this is me being singled out, just that customer service below the concierge level, has suffered from rapid growth.

Clearly, LL should communicate with residents. However, they clearly should speak to more than just a handful of regulars in a private person's IRC room. Why not have an IRC room that is open to all residents? It would be like asking, should the president speak to the citizens of his country?

Of course, but he shouldn't merely speak to the people in his country who are most like him, most near him, most likely to agree with him on all topics. The president should speak to a wide sampling of residents in his country so that he can better serve the residents as a whole.

I agree that LL needs communication with its customers. That's simple quality management. But to insulate itself only harms LL.

So LL is still more fairly run than the Bush Administration? *ducks*

*curls up into a corner and rocks herself* must have IRC...must have irc...

You are right there - when I send a support eMail my 'attitude' is that I expect something other than an automated reply promising to contact me, followed by NOTHING, which is standard LL customer service.

Yes! by about 17 billion miles. IMO anyway.
I'd also say they have far greater experience with terrorists. (oh except that I forgot that the CIA actually trained a few terrorists, so unless Linden Labs is training asshats these days...)

Of COURSE I'm consistent.

I've found that going through 'channels' with LL gets you precisely nowhere.

Just like you and the rest I've found you need to know the right people and go to them directly to get service. Then it's pretty good.

And I think that stinks. Because I'm reasonably honest I say so. And I'll keep saying so. The average player suffers abysmal support and customer service from LL, and it's not right.

Neither is it right that individuals with the right contacts can get better service (though that won't stop me taking it!).

As for communication... Customers have to rely on rumour and the odd fact slipped to favoured individuals and repeated on the forums. Hence my original comment.

I think LL are possibly the worst company at communicating with their customers I have ever done business with - and considering some of the companies I've done business with that is saying something!

The problem is, why are those Lindens sitting in a non-LL chat channel, when we have an official Hotline sub-forum right here?

Your poll should've been more specific; Do you think Lindens should communicate to their residents on the SL forums, or on a third party forum that only a handful of residents are aware of?

Hey now, Adam Zaius invited everyone on March 31st to the IRC channel via this very forum (10% of SL frequents the forums). Since that time over 1100 people have viewed that thread. That is hardly a handful, Mr. Edison.

When put in perspective, do you think that the posters who resurrected that thread today and did the mocking "yea, real secret, huh?" dance all over actually believe their own bad selves?

Because not all Lindens are created equal? It's not llPhoenix, llKelly, or llBen's jobs to answer requests in the Hotline; they're codemonkeys. Hotline posts are generally answered by Robin, Philip, or Altruima, and they get the codemonkeys when they can't answer specific questions. When they're not elbows-deep in the client's spaghetti code, they occasionally hop into the channel to make some random comments, typically things that have nothing to do with SL. Oh noes, slacking off at work, someone fire the lindens immediately for not fixing all teh bugzors.



No, I'm quite serious. Any attempt by the Lindens to communicate will be seen by a sizable percentage of people as either inadequate, favortism, elitist, or just plain wrong. Maybe it's time they just gave up and left us to invent our own conspiracy theories, rather than fueling it with unofficial hyperbole?

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not half the time.

Regardless, the link to the flippin' IRC channel is now on my sig. It will be posted at least three times a day on average, thanks to my prolific posting habits.

Is that enough? Do I need a skywriter to announce it over 90,000 people's homes?

Maybe a bullhorn?

Smoke signals?

How about a billboard in space?

How about over every impeach bush sign?

There is such a thing as overkill.

we are a long way from that point lol

As opposed to other people in this thread, I happen to think the Lindens are GREAT at communicating. This is possibly because I spent three years talking to the wall that was EA.

Now I'm not saying that the automated e-mails you get back when sending things (I haven't sent such a thing) are good. But except for possibly that, the Lindens are more accessible than any game people I ever dealt with. Maybe there are some somewhere that are better, more accessible, more friendly, more open, nicer, and/or more polite, but I certainly haven't run into them.

I believe most of the problems I see with LL and have talked about on the forums are precisely BECAUSE of this accessibility. It is accessibility without policy. It is what Pendari loves so much. But, see, it is the friendliness, laid-back ease, and accessibility to anyone and everyone that she likes.

And so do I. But it is the lack of a sensible policy governing it, in a game of 90k (and 35k, was it, when I joined?) that will not work in the long run. That's why I say they need policy that prevents problems such as the one with the IRC channel. Adopting a sensible policy that will NOT make lower-class citizens of some residents, at the decree of other residents, will not cripple that accessibility whatsoever.

coco

You believe that customer service would improve if the Lindens stopped communicating? Interesting.

How would that work then?