Blog: Coming your way soon: the Second Life Support Portal

Read the whole thing here..

I thought this was the juicy part...



Anti-Strife line: So.. what do we think? This sounds like a good step to me!

sounds like a sensible solution, taking care of those who pay the most. the are running a business after all

applauds!! finally!!something everyone(hopefully) can agree on!!

Finally premium accounts get recognized as having more value than basic as far as support is concerned. I would say this is a move in the right direction.

Like it.

I just wanna make sure that the live-chat I get at concierge level isn't just some guy reading computer-generated generic answers from India.

I want to be able to talk intelligently with someone and skip all the garbage stuff.

I think it is a HUGE and most welcome step inthe right direction. I even posted a comment to that effect in their comments section. Its #16. I SWORE I wouldnt post on their blog again after they DELETED my very civil, but critical "March of Folly" Post after theTown Meeting, but...when they do something right they need support and encouragement. If they delete this one, well..they delete it.

ANYWAY Good move LL!! [applause]. I just hope they staff it adequately, but this is a very smart move on LLs part.

Thank you

Certainly /sounds/ good.

As usual SL intentions are frequently in the right place.

We'll see how well the implentation goes. Every time I say "horray" for something I usually end up eathing my words

sounds like a decent plan i'm just wondering about abuse reports are those like "tickets" ? and if so does that mean that a free account can't report abuse? hehe this is what was puzzling me because I seem to remember them saying something about streamlining that into this system as well. Course maybe I"m mixed up which is not unheard of

I don't mind the idea of a Premium member getting the highest level of support. But from the sounds of it, except for a very limited range of specific issues, if you're NOT Premium, you get virtually no support AT ALL!

That is alll well and good for "free, unverified" accounts. What they propose for the "Basic Level" is what I would expect for a trial account that someone didn't pay a cent for and that they didn't provide any valid ID for. Someone who NEVER paid anything into the game doesn't deserve much support.

But those of us who are not Premium, but who ARE "Payment Info USED", or even "Payment Info on file"... Those of us who own land that happens to NOT be mainland... We deserve to at least get access to submit a ticket to the help desk system for submitting any normal trouble report. For Gods sake, if something is BROKEN I shouldn't have to upgrade my membership to report it so someone can get it FIXED. Let the Premiums get the hand-holding and live chat to help them on how to use a feature... No problem... But to say that a problem in-world can only get reported by a Premium member is insane.

And does this also apply to abuse reports? Or is that a seperate issue?

What if there is a problem that is affecting a whole sim that is NOT a "restart the sim please" situation? What if there is a griefer attack or some other issue where I need a Linden right here, right now? Sounds like even a Premium member can't get that type of support.

I am a Basic member. Payment info Used. I'm also a very active content creator and an estate manager for 5 sims, and I own over 6000 M2 on a private island estate.

I have absolutely no need for the weekly Premium stipend. I earn more L$ in-world than I can possibly spend, and the L$300 a week for Premium would hardly make a blip in my weekly income. The only time I have had to buy L$ in the last year was to fund a land purchase, and then I cashed out that much and more less than three weeks later, all from my in-world profits. I cash out L$ just about every week. So why do I want to pay more to LL to get an L$ Stipend that I will just turn around and sell?

I don't WANT to buy mainland property, EVER. I will not buy un-managed land where land extortion and ad farms and rampant griefers are a way of life. I will only pay for land on private sims, where the sim owner and their estate managers regulate what goes on and stomp flat any would be land griefers. I'll never want Mainland while the Lindens refuse to police it in even the most elementary of ways.

So the ONLY value to me for being Premium would be to get a decent level of support? That does not seem right.

Can I subscribe JUST TO BETTER SUPPORT? Subtract the value of the L$ stipend, and don't give me any right to buy mainland, but DO give me full-service support? I might actually pay for that. I'm not asking for the live chat hand-holding. Just to be able to report what is broken and expect a reasonable resolution, or to be able to report trouble when it happens.

Incidentally, my first post to the blog, which covered pretty much what was in this post and was in no way nasty or abusive, apparently was deleted by the moderator. A second post by me later, with just the three most critical questions in it, sailed right through. Isn't it wonderful how a moderator can skew the results by ignoring anything the least bit critical of their position?

You're not paying LL for support, you're paying the sim owner. If you have a problem with your land or the sim it's on, then the sim owner is your support contact, that's what you pay them for.

Premium is only $6/month, if live support isn't worth that much to you, then you probably don't need it.

I wonder what this will mean when payment verified/unverified goes away to be replaced by adult verified/not verified? Since it appears that the vast majority of the payment verified people will not be submitting their personal information to the data mining company I guess that only leaves a few people who will be getting the enhanced support.

If all I want is a Coke, why do I have to buy 20 complete full meal deals and agree to keep buyying them every month? Why can't I just pay for the drink?

Form the sounds of it, the only way to submit a help desk ticket for support is to go Premium. I repeat, I am not talking about having some person in India handy 24 x 7 to hold my hand and walk me through the process of creating a prim or changing terrain settings on my land. I am talking about the ability to report that something in SL is BROKEN, like, "All cash transfers and inventory transfers in the Atashi sim are failing!", or "We have thousands of kareoke singing Mickey Mouse heads replicating all over the sim!".

I don't want or need someone to hold my hand. But I do want to be able to report problems and expect a resonable resolution.

this is the good before the bad.
just you wait for tomorrow evening's blog announcement. =D

Read it again. Under this plan, if you aren't Premium, you're dirt on the floor, along with all the griefer free/unverified accounts.

LL makes money from me every month, in Lindex transaction fees. They make money from me every month in the hundreds of upload fees that I pay to create the textures that I sell. And that sim owner that I pay my monthly fees to is able to pay his tier to Linden Lab each month because of my maintenance fees that I pay the sim owner.

The sim owner that owns the sim my home is in can't do squat for me if I am in someone else's sim when the trouble happens.

I think it's a positive step, I do have some sympathy with those who paid an initial fee and are treated the same as those who created a free account but I don't see an easy solution to that.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if LL limits their support to adult verified only. That way they can cut their staff back to one person to take care of the 4 or 5 customers who sign up for the new identity theft program. Remember..."It's all voluntary".

Bloody hell Susie even I'm not that cynical and I'm very much anti adult verified ... in fact you've got me at it now becuase if they're providing extra support to premium accounts why do those accounts need to verify?

Ooh and I was in such a good mood after my land sale too

ehh.. those linden transactions don't amount to anything but a few pennies to Linden Lab. Miniscule Lindex charge, and your upload fees don't equate to a single penny of real money to Linden Lab.

This is the norm for any business - you pay a premium for premium support plans. Many if not most technology companies earn their bread and butter, not from selling the product, but selling support for the product.

While sympathetic and understanding of Ceera's plight, I have to say that, in my opinion, shemay be mistaken on this one. As I read it, the free account people do get some support, the premium account people [I am a premium account holder] get more and the people who pay over $125 per month intier get even more.

In the real world, the more youpay, generally the more services you get. The help ervices will cost LL more money. Those whose premium payments or large tier payments should get better service.

The cost forpremium is actually quite small. I pay somewhere around $22 every quarter. If some of this money goes to improve customer service, then I am delighted to pay it.

I understand Ceera's criticism but have to respectfully disagree on this.

I still think this is amove forward on LL's part.

Perhaps this represents a change in business model for them. Because stuff is going open-source, perhaps they are shifting to making their money offering support of the open-source software, sort of like Red Hat with Linux.

At any rate, this may mean I need to upgrade to premium. Although I'm paying lots to LL, both directly for my classified ad and indirectly paying tier to another person, I'm not sure any of it counts for this support levels thing.

this must be the "Make premium valuable" thing

One thing - you can sell lindens to pay your premium fees - I always have. The stipend pays much of the lindens back.

The details are important - but also the thought counts, they are making an organized effort at a customer service system. SO Ill give credit where credit is due.

I think this is GREAT! Way to go Linden Lab!

WOOT!!!

I think this has been a while in coming, Johan.. Digging thru the blog, I find this...

It could be that they're changing the business model to make support more profitable but I think they're just trying to deal with the world population exploding.

could be

they are cutting back on the support non premiums get Technically - though for practical purposes will be close to the current level for non premiums due to current slow slow reponse -

And focusing on Premiums and especially Landowners in the bigger brackets

LL sees a difference between someone who pays a one-time fee of $9.95, and those who pay that every month.
LL also sees a difference between those whose tier payments WOULD STOP going to LL (lost LL income) if the resident left (owning on mainland), and those whose island rent payments to a 3rd party doesn't equate to any EXTRA money payed to LL.

As a mainland owner, my tier goes directly to LL to help pay for support and things. (LL income)
"Tier" money from island renters only REPLACES part of the sim owners tier money. (NOT LL income)

Makes PERFECT sense and I'm ecstatic they got it right!
It's not "you get what you pay for", its "you get what you pay LL for".