could they like even pretend to try?

Interesting post and response in Second Life Land Management.

To my reading, the customer has tried Live Help to fix what seems to clearly be a bug that affects her entire private island, has received no response there so posted a civil request to SLLM which was responded to with "I can't do anything, why don't you mail support?".

Now, reports of [email]support@secondlife.com[/email] being a black hole are almost certainly exaggerated. But why couldn't the response have been like "gee, I can't help you but I'll pass this on to someone who can" or "I'll yell down the hall to the person who can fix it".

Instead, the third brush off to someone paying US$2340/year for the "privilege" of "owning" a virtual island.

Mr. Rosedale, I know your committment to SL is passionate, but it was hard to find these resources so I thought I'd pass it along.

I agree. I have seen several threads in the new section, as well as the old Hotline section, where the poster specifically says they have tried many avenues including emailing, without getting help. Then the response is to contact email support. I remember one post I read a few months ago where the poster had mentioned several times that they had sent in bug reports and emails without hearing anything back. The response was something like "I'm sorry you are having a problem, please make sure to send in a bug report or an email so we can better help you" I sat at my desk for quite awhile on that one.


Sometimes I wonder if the entire post is actually read and taken into consideration or just answered...

I think it goes into a database and when so many people fill up on complaints it is more noticable?
Not sure on that but some online games use that system.
Same with abuse reports I thought.

can't say i'm surprised. this has happened to me on more than one occasion. there seems to be a rather large disconnect between sending an email to support and it getting to the right LL person. i like to think of it as a giant black hole where emails dissappear and responses are few and far between.

The few times I have emailed support, a had a reply no later than after 2 days. And if you actually call LL, they will deal with your problem on the spot. Or at least they have with me. I know everyone has had varying degrees of success in resolving issues by contacting support but I can only comment on my own. Nova had clearly looked into the problem or she would not have writen this:


Well since the Outside Scripts box is checked, this is something you need to email [email=support@secondlife.com]support@secondlife.com[/email]

There seems to be a problem with the sim in question that can only be dealt with by someone who has access to the server's phu-phu valves and ringlay sprockets. I would have responded the same way. That's what support is for.

I've emailed support and got responses within an hour or 2 and a few times within a few minutes.

Kinda like where socks go when you put them in the laundry...you may or may not get a full pair back...

Why not call?

8am-6pm PST, Monday through Friday.

1-800-860-6990 (US and Canada)
(00) 800 722 00010 (UK)
(0011) 800 722 00010 (Australia)

Then you will get an answer for sure..

You are not the first to have said that, and everyone I've read seems to concur. Why then the redirect to support@secondlife?

And also how hard is it in a technologically savvy company to open up your mailer and write
Really now.

If she owns a sim, they should e-mail their concierge (spelling?) instead of support no?

By the same token how savvy is a person that invests several thousand dollars into a product and they dont even bother to look up the support number? Much less already have it beforehand.

In addition to rather than instead of. Also, phone them; whichever 1 of the 3 channels helps first wins.

Same here with my Bettger is a Dead Zone message in the Land Management forum. I *did* bug report it. Twice. So did two other members of our Sea Mist Association. But since I'm not able to reply to Nova's reply...<sigh>... Just how many bug reports are the magical number to get something done?

I mean it's really simple. I'd be more than happy to take any Linden on a boat and pass over in the Bettger zone since obviously they don't seem to step foot into the game themselves since it's so easy to check out.

Once you cross over to the Bettger sim in boat or plane you stop solid. It's been bug reported twice by me in two week intervals, and also bug reported by two others. So there's FOUR bug reports even before I wrote that message in Land Management as pretty much a last gasp measure of desperation...just to get the answer I don't know what you're talking about, you should bug report it. HELLO???!

Yes Lee and Cyn are terrific and very responsive, even though they are busy!

I've had absolutely first-rate experiences with LL over the phone. The Linden on the other end was kind, speedy, and effective. When a support phonecall takes only minutes and works the first time, I'm happy.

You aren't requesting that I compare the differences between the terms "customer" and "service firm", are you?

Also, the aforementioned service firm directed the customer to send the request to support@secondlife, not to call the customer support telephone numbers.

Just curious, how do you know this is a private estate island? I read the SLLM post, and there was no mention of it being a private estate.

As for the problem itself, I've seen it happen once before on a mainland sim. I could be wrong, but I believe it's part of the new global-attack safety-valve. When a script appears to go awry in a non-sandbox mainland sim, the sim shuts down script execution. Scripts aren't re-enabled for that sim until a check can be made to ensure that no scripted attack had been attempted. Again, I could be wrong but that's my guess.

I derived that from the named sim "Sala" and the fact that the map would not show it, which is an option to island owners.

True, it could be either a typo, or a map bug, or something else, but I think my points exclusive of the annual revenue still stand if I jumped to a false conclusion as to whether it was an island or not.

A gentle reminder to LL and to advocates of phoning in - Many of us are on other continents. Not only are there time zone issues, but the cost of an international phone call (esp. where you have no idea how long you're gonna have to sit on hold, or waiting for things to be checked out) makes email vastly preferrable.

What are the issues with email support? Is it a "black-hole", and if so why? If not, how can we correct the perception?

And a big stamp of approval to Intro's "present a unified front" - It should be far swifter and more accurate for a Linden to redirect a query to the correct Linden than to send a nak back to the client. This is not too say I haven't seen Lindens do this before - I have. and it seemed to get good results - just asking that it happen more often.

*EDIT* and immediately after posting this, I find Robin Linden has already answered someone with I'm checking with the scripting gurus to see if anyone can help you out. Way to go!

Someone I know was not able to open an account with Second Life. She wrote to support and it took no less than five weeks for her to get a response.

I seem to be hearing more and more horror stories about customer support. This is an area that is very important, and I feel it should be given a higher priority than it has received to date, even if it means resources are taken from other areas.

string SendSupport(string sType)
{
  if( sType == "email " )
    return "Please use our contact phone # for support.";

  if( sType == "phone" )
    return "Please send an email to [email]support@secondlife.com[/email]";

  if( sType == "in-world direct" )
    return "Sorry, I can't help you with that, send support an email or call them";

  if( sType == "all methods" )
    retuurn "Sorry, our privacy policy prevents us from discussing that.  We can't even tell you if it exists, much less if we did or didn't do something about it";

  if( sType == "secret handshake" )
   return "Your request is being handled, please log into #secondlife on irc to retrieve your results.";
}

- Newfie
(ps: all the above I have actually received at one time or another. Except for the secret handshake, which I'm still working on.)

It's one thing to gripe about support, which as I mentioned, I have personally had nothing but good service from, but to criticize this particular linden (as the original poster did) for directing a resident to the appropriate channel so that they can have their issue resolved doesn't make any sense. And as for the phone number at LL, it's on the website, and it's probably also included in emails from LL, it's available by asking Live help for it or a liaison in world.

I have nothing against criticising LL when it's warranted, but targetting this particular Linden for just doing her job seems mean spirited and innapropriate.

If someone has repeatedly experienced problems and been redirected, as has been the complaint of a few (I've even heard someone say they called and where told to email), there is a high level of customer service that would encourage the company representative to not let go of the person until they have hooked them up with someone that can help.

I deal with this at work quite a bit. I have nothing to do with customer service, but for whatever reason routinely get client calls about various issues. It is standing policy that, once having been connected to a client, it is now my responsibility to either solve the issue or (most likely) determine who can and make sure the customer is connected with that person. This is a huge hassle for me, but it is imperative that the customer have a level of service that I would expect myself and that problems are resolved with as little consternation on their part as is humanly possible.

I have had no problems with LL. This is not a rag on LL. It is purely an examination of how customer service can be handled across the board.

Perhaps you're talking generally, and yes I agree with you, but in this particular case, all the resident said was "Live help has not responded to our questions" which doesn't indicate that they have been continually redirected.

Indeed, I am.