This is in response to blog entry http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/10/07/customer-service-week/#more-395
The reason I'm posting this here, instead of the blog is I have no desire to jump through whatever hoops exist/create my own blog just so I could respond within the "official" SL blog. Really. What were you thinking? Did anyone at LL ask about the parameters your new hosting company would require of us (your paying customers)? Did anyone at LL set up a "dummy" account to test this out before you signed the contract with your new hosting company? Did you put any safeguards in place? What prevents someone from setting themselves up as "JohnDoe Linden", just so they could respond to a really choice blog entry and cause more pain and aggrivation to the community at large? I don't know the names of all the "real" Lindens.
So "Customer Service Week" has come and gone. Personally I hate all the made-up holidays and appreciation weeks, but hey, if it made LL wake up and realize they're in over their head from a customer service standpoint, I'm all for it.
You're not in Beta anymore.
I signed up for SL this year. I'm not part of the troupe thats been around since the early days. I don't view Lindens as my buddies/pals. I don't care "they are people too". Linden Lab is a company selling a product. I'm currently buying the product. When my frustration level gets high enough, I'll stop buying the product. What is that frustration level? I honestly don't know. But be clear. I've lived several decades of my life without SL. I can continue my life without it.
So how do you provide customer service? First, provide a stable product that I can depend on. I don't see Google going down once a week for hours for an update that I have to then download to my computer. I don't see Microsoft or Yahoo or Amazon.com offline for hours at a time, or with limited functionality. Yes. I know, they are all "big companies with deep pockets/LL is small, barely paying their bills, scaping by week to week". Give me a break. Those companies all started out small. I started ordering from Amazon.com almost as soon as they rolled themselves out. I never once had a problem with their web site or their service.
Second. Have a clear/easy method to communicate with your customers. I personally don't care if it is a blog/forum/e-mail system/something new and different. Make it work. Right now, you have a blog that doesn't tie to my account if I want to respond. You have a one-way only forum (we post/LL answers). These aren't working.
Third. Really listen to your customers. I am personally offended with this blog entry: http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/09/26/thoughts-on-lindens-joining-resident-groups/#more-352 Jean Linden wrote and asked: "Was it a problem?" Over 200 responses. Some for. Some against. Lots of discussion back and forth. This is OBVIOUSLY a topic that created a lot of strong feelings. So, after about 20 responses does Jean (and all Lindens) drop all groups. NO. Jean (and other Lindens) are accused of joining more. Lindens are accused of meeting paying customers who are against Lindens joining groups inworld with "Obey Jean" buttons. This is insulting. It smacks of high school behavior. I'm sure there is some sort of sandwich shop near LL that a lot of people go to for lunch. Or a coffee shop where people pop in for a snack. How would you feel if all the employees started wearing buttons that said: "Grey Goo 451 - Linden Lab 0" or "1,000,000 screen names by Halloween/900,000 are alts". Would you want to continue to purchase from them? It's just a joke. Why would you be offended?
Second Life is on the radar screen. BusinessWeek. Wired. The Economist. You're out there. Like it or not. 1,000,000 different AV names taken before the end of the year. I truly hope you make it. This has been a horrible week for you. All this great publicity. And a crippled system that is constantly under attack.
Lots of "old-timers" are blaming unverified accounts. I'd like to remind everyone that correlation does not equal causation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_implies_causation As posted by lots of people. Anyone can go to a store and purchase a pre-paid card with cash, then go online with SL and create a registered account. They could be 50. They could be 12.
Yes. With increased traffic to SL, it would make sense that grid attacks would increase as well. Don't blame it on unregistered accounts. Maybe all the attacks are through unregistered accounts. That doesn't mean that all attacks will cease if unregistered accounts are taken away. I've never played any of the online games like WoW. I find it difficult to believe they have never had a hacker attempt an attack. Whatever they've got going, it is either better resistant to attacks, or is easier to recover from an attack.
Customer service is hard. There's this saying that customer service trainers like to use: "Provide the best possible customer service/wow someone and they'll tell less than 10 people. Provide inadequate customer service and they'll tell everyone they know."