Concierge progam

Ok lets try this again, without mentioning a name

Ok hopefully this one doesnt get locked... ugh , I really need to find a better way to word things.

Thanks Sensual, much better.

I voted for the Other, Explain. But I did that in the other thread. I haven't used it enough to really warrant a completely opinion, but they've done great the 2 times I have called.

Regards,

-Flip

OK here I go AGAIN...

I am in the UK, we don't get a concierge here, sucks.. blah blah... blah d blah, really if your gunna market your goods to the world you need Customer Service Peeps all over the world. I could call the US number, but i'd get turned on by the yank accent and that wouldn't be good

Thankfully all my problems are dealt with via IM,

Arghhh alright editing my post.

The concierge system remains a bit of a mystery to me. There isn't a place on this website where you can click on it, and you have to sort of "know somebody" to explain to you how it works to actually call up the LL 1-800 number (it doesn't cost anything in the US anyway) and actually try to get live, RL person.

I'll simply recount my own experience, take it or leave it.

The concierge was one of the first Lindens I ever contacted when I joined the game in September 2004. I contacted him about all the perplexing bugs, flaws, horrors in the group-land system.

He was very helpful and explained a lot to me, taking time he didn't need to take when he could have just dumped me on Live Help or a wiki. He was the first one to explain to me in no uncertain terms that it was a terrible risk to make another human being an officer in your group if it had group land in it. I am eternally grateful for his advice in that regard, because while I've been savaged by certain treacherous officers, I've been generally able to see it coming, take measures to do damage control, and recover fairly easily.

The concierge struck me as a bright young and patient guy. My entire experience of the Lindens was shaped positively at the outset by my early encounter with that Linden.

Then things began to go south here and there. The first problem was this bug in the group land purchases (you can find in a past version some fine print in the liner notes that tell you this bug was fixed -- an admission it existed) that made the group tier not update in time. Therefore, you'd put it in, and think, ok, it's there, and you'd go to make the purchase. In the old version, it didn't give you a warning message if your group didn't have enough tier. It just took you to the tier-up page.

And there I sat, to my horror, after putting in the tier, thinking I had it covered, and now faced with a web page that was telling me to *pay double* the tier in essence, because it wasn't reflecting the tier I had donated from the group already, and was asking ME to put in more tier to cover my purchase I'd already clicked on, of my own land, merely transferring out of individual into collective ownership.

I didn't know what what I could have done was back out of that page, and juggle that tier endlessly in tiny bits of 100 or 1024 or whatever it took to get that av situated straight again. You only learn things like that the hard way. So thinking I'd lose my land in 3 days if I didn't pay that double tier, and figuring it would be an easy thing to do to show the Lindens the mistake, I double-paid it. Then I spent weeks and weeks trying to get those nice, friendly Lindens to pay attention to me. They all dumped me back to "billing@" and "billing@" didn't do squat, not even answering my mail. I finally just had to give up and eat that $75 charge. Boy was that harsh. I then felt I had to sell off half my land to make good on that mistake and got considerably delayed. It took a while to recover.

Months later, I acquired a new set of problems -- a sim where I owned almost half the land which was constantly crashing and having poor FPS despite our strenuous effort to clean off the scripts and try to figure out why it was lagging -- and other assorted problems. I called up the concierge in person and found him decidedly different in RL than in SL, not surprising. That is, somehow younger, more arrogant, and less sympathetic. Maybe he was having a bad day due to the current problems they were experiencing that day with some new patch horror.

He treated me to the same kind of barely-patient, barely-restrained-anger kind of dump-out of tekkie info that one often finds in the the Technical forums here on the FPS issue and other issues that get very technical. There seems to be a hell-bent crusade by some to get people "off" the use of the FPS and some are zealous on this point.

The concierge default, accordingly, isn't "How may I help you, major land-owning customer" but "How can I in near-exasperation explain the technical realities of this game to yet another yahoo."

From seeing tekkies themselves duke it among themselves in Land and Economy and Technical, I have acquired a more sanguine notion of SL tekkie issues and relative levels of expertise and disagreements that reasonable experts can disagree on, and novices can comment on. I continue to maintain, for example, that FPS-watching -- it's a good rule of thumb. I continue to maintain that it is wrong to try to break people of the habit of looking at it, even to the point of threatening to take it out of the game. (!) That's insane. A marker of the product's performance shouldn't be hidden.

I couldn't get any clarity on why my sim was crashing or how to stop it from lagging because I kept getting that exasperated long lecture about how "lag" is just one of those terms, oh, I dunno, like "ethnic cleansing" that means all things to all people but has no legal basis in international law per se.

But we all know what ethnic cleansing is, especially when our relatives experience it, and we all know what lag is. Lag is when your avatar moves choppy and you can't type and the world goes by like a slide show not a stream.

I didn't expect any Linden to say to me "oh, wow, here comes a big tier-paying let me fall all over them." I figured they wouldn't know me from Adam, and it's such a big place that they'd adopt a distanced but professional and helpful manner. What I didn't expect was this zealotry about technical performance, overdosing on tekkie issues, and a face-full of tekkie-wiki, basically.

It dismayed me. I had gone nearly six months never bothering with Lindens on major problems, but solving them myself. I saw they were generally useless. I finally got so frustrated I *did* call them. Then I realized it was pointless because they don't get our issues. I won't be wasting my time or theirs again in that fashion, that's for sure.

I still try to figure out why I experienced this disappointment.

After all, I'm not personally challenging any Linden's personal manhood pr womanhood by saying their sims lag. I'm not personally challenging them as human beings who works their asses off just because I've noted their sims lag. I know they work their asses off. I just feel they need to be less identified with the tekkie functions of their sims -- I will still care about them as human beings even if I trash their sims.

I think they've chosen the wrong people for some of the customer contact jobs. Maybe they don't have a lot of smart and good and dedicated people and they need to use up them up on customer contact -- but is that really the case???. I think they they've thrown the wrong set of skillsets at this job desk.

I think -- God forbid that this sounds sexist -- rather than a standard-issue tekkie hetereo male, they need a female or gay male of the non-tekkie persuasion who is very warm and cuddly for this job and chats people up and remembers their names and even says stuff like "OH, wow, I see you just tiered up and bought all this new continent land, hon, how's that working out for you?" That kind of more chatty personality who's strong suit is more the "people person" kinda touch might be better for those who call utterly exasperated with the company given the level of tier they're paying, and the level of lag and crashing and just general crapola they experience in this game.

There are few areas of life where one pays the kind of bills one pays for SL -- and that is for medical care often involving critical situations, or car repair which can be very costly. And I expect when I pony up that kind of money that a doctor will listen to me explain the patient's symptoms and nod sympathetically and have a pleasant bedside manner, and if a car repair, the person will be honest and efficient and pleasant.

I'm thinking probably they need even more than one Linden and they need not just a "concierge" for big-time land owners, but a group liaison person who can deal with groups, i.e. clubs, malls, projects -- group land where several people have banded together to attempt something in the game, whether entertainment, a game-within-game, a mall, or whatever.

I think what the Lindens have done is done in good faith -- they've taken their best, tekkie, knowledgeable, bright people and put them at his really great challenge of dealing with customers who mainly call to complain about crashes and lag, I imagine (what else would it be). They figure crashes and lag are such technical problems that they need really sterling technical help, but often the issues at hand are really people problems -- hog-asses who grab all the resources on a sim, and leave everyone helpless because the Lindens won't effectively control griefing or find ways to deal with player resource disputes on a temporary or permanent basis.

What I'd like to see when I'm calling about lag is a brisk, no-nonsense first-aid kit. I'd like a Linden to say "Here's a device that will help you track the scripts on your sim to see if they are the "bad" kind that by themselves lag a sim regardless of the overal number or the "Good" kind that aren't so bad one by one but when they get into huge numbers can lag a sim. Then let's work together to think of ways to approach the owner of that script to see if he might climb down from some of his fuck-you hedonism, shall we?"

I'd like the concierge never to say "that's in the next patch" because that's never a solution -- it being in the next patch is actually a sign more often than not that you will see a terrible further bork-up of that issue for weeks to come LOL. What would be more appropriate is "I understand the severity of your problem, let me take that all down and let's see if there are things we can do to work around it."

I'm willing to bet that the whole Linden Labs enterprise is seriously overstrained right now. They say they're hiring and need more help. They seem to be on overload. Maybe tempers are a bit more frayed than usual when they have a thing like most of the world unable to log-in for 3 days.

I imagine the game dev world is the kind of place where you burn out horribly and just hope to polish your resume well enough to level up to the better-paying, better-conditions gig at the end of the rainbow.

I think it would be good if they took some non-game dev kinda folks to serve as some interface between their largely non-tekkie mass customers, including some high-end payers of tier, and their FIC.

God forbid...dare I say it...does Second Life need a...a...Tigger??? *GASP*

Sick, very sick.

No, there are other people just like me who have the exact same experience. There are more of us than you realize. And we're normal.

You're the ones who are sick by questioning the validity of other people's experience.

Not everybody wants to be in the tekkie wiki.

Get help.

Everyone needs a TIgger ! Don't knock Tiggers till you tried them.

Got one of the bouncing ones on my desk. Marvelous stress buster. LOL

I want a tigger!

40 acres ain't enough for Anshe...

...and poor Kex still hasn't gotten her mule.

*Calls Willow on the phone*

Oh My!!!

Go to the stalker thread, you WILL be needing it

O goodness now this thread is going to get locked and it;s not even my fault this time!

Yet another thread falls victim to Prokofy's drive to make everything about himself, and a bizarre need to turn any and all threads into a personal blog about the "horrors" of SL.

Nolan, the thread isn't closed yet, and it shouldn't be, from what I can tell, unless YOU start acting up again with personal attacks, disclosures of RL info, and such.

What my overlong essay for the record boils down to is this:



And that's my perception. I stand by it. It isn't a personal attack. It isn't some slam on a person or a game company. It's *just my experience*.

Normal companies hear stuff like this and they say "Hmmm...Houston, we have a problem." They get it. They make amends.

They don't stand idly by while their junkyard-dog beta-testers attack you and make lunch meat out of you.

Look you meatball. I didn't say it was locked.

I said it fell victim to your BS, which it has. You treat these forums as if they were your blog. You rarely, if ever, have anything good to say about SL or its playerbase, unless it's one of your sycophantic cronies, the proverbial blind leading the blind.

MY personal attacks locking a thread? You are a paranoid hypocrite. Figure it out. I don't get threads locked, unlike your own 2 or 3 a day. My god you're blind.

I'm curious, does the staff become rude and unprofessional before or after you do?

I ask because I have been in the field of customer service for a number of years. I find there is a certian segment of the population that feels the ruder they are, the better service they will get. I am not making the suggestion that you are or are not like that but it is something to consider.

Being in this field I should mention that this is far from true. Customer service people are generally so abused that they fall over people when they are nice and polite even when they express that they are frustrated. Something to remember is that the person you are talking to isnt the sole cause of your issues, but rather are placed there to assist you. A little kindness goes a long way.

Thats nice and all.. and I am not sure who your question is directed towards... but I am assuming me since I started the thread.

I managed an accounting team for 4 years... A/R, A/P, and payroll... and customer service is a great part of the job from myself and the other employees... NEVER once was there an irate employee dealing with an irate customer, or they would certainly would not have a job...
50% of the people "customer service" deals with are irate and unsatisfied customers... "Customer Service" gets PAID to handle the situations in an appopriate and professional manner.... They SHOULD/ARE trained to handle these situations... not yell back at a customer if a customer yells, not curse if a customer curses, not to show frustration, and no matter what do your best to listen and understand the customers problems/concerns and seek a solution.

The wonderful thing about tiggers, is tiggers are wonderful things. Their tops are made out of rubber, thier bottoms are made out of springs....

I wasn't aware having an american accent was an asset.

Tis if your a horny brit chick

Well then I am glad to posses one genuine american accent, slightly texan and a sligthly colored by living in So Cal. Interspersed with Brit colloquilisms garnered from a year living in London.

I suppose with a skype account I have a genuine accent asset!

Its lovely to think I might give good voice to Horney Brit Chicks. especially because well, I find thier accents all that and a bag of chips.

LMAO!!

I hate my accent, but I sure love all your accents over in the US , and anyone anytime can gimme good voice on Skype... Wizzy21

I'm shy tho >.>

LOL Only Prokofy could find a way to work ethnic cleansing into a post about the Concierge service. BTW, I agreed with your previous poll, Sensual, named name and all - it was my exact experience with that person time and again.

FOR THE LOVE OF PETE, DON'T SAY ASSET!

I'm a dual citizen, US and UK. During high school, female friends of mine would call my house just to get the answering machine to hear my dad's British accent on the machine. So I guess the whole "exotic accent speaking the same language" has two-way power. What was frustrating when one would call during dinner, we wouldn't answer, so they'd have their friends call back!

Wow, this was a pretty blatant hijack. Sorry Sensual, I should pay attention to my own advice more often. </TANGENT>

Regards,

-Flip

Honestly now, who wants to read all that.