Want Better Customer Service ?... Have your say now !

Want Better Customer Service ?... Have your say now !

Topic : Support Portal

Hi all , I just wanted the good people here from this forum to maybe have a chance to make LL's customer service a bit better .

Myself along with a few other's have been chosen to attend meeting'S with Cyn & Fritz Linden regarding ways in witch LL can Improve the system they have now .

Or some might say " The system they DON'T have " I know many of you have had huge problems in the past with getting a answer to a question or help with problems you may have in SL ,
I'm told things are about to change .....o_O ..... But i think LL needs to hear from the people that count ... Us .

"we will be discussing the Support Portal itself, how it is being used by residents, and how we can improve the experience. Other meetings will be with other support team members, and will include billing, technical support and concierge issues, and will generally be scheduled the last Thursday of the month."


I want you to have a say and let them know what you want .
This is not about tech issues ...so please no questions about fixing stuff

This is about how do we get better customer service .

What would you like to see happen ?

If we can compile a few idea's here ... I will raise them at the meeting , I'm not saying things will change over night ...Or even that anything we ask or tell them will even matter .... I'm saying ...Have your say ... Who knows ?

Thanks to anyone who takes part .

Here's one:

When they withdraw live chat (and its equivalent, such as telephone and inworld chat) from general support cvhannels and concentrate staff so that only support level customers have acess to live chat support, they should then be as good as their word and actually have said support channels staffed the entire time they are advertised as being staffed.

Seems they already solved that one:

Wait, so is that included as part of my concierge-level support (as it is in theory already), or do I have to pay an additional fee on top of concierge level fees just to get them to log into their end of the help lines?

A support ticket open for 18 days is completely unacceptable. A billing issue that is unresolved for over 25 days is completely unacceptable.

So, cast my complaint: "Turn around and completion time on support tickets stinks".


Oh yah! Support staff that closes the ticket without confirmation from the customer that the issue is resolved is insanity. That's my other complaint.

Thanks! I have no answers to these because the answer is blatantly obvious. Every support portal I've used I am always asked "Do you consider this issue resolved so I can close this ticket?" and I confirm I agree then the ticket is closed. Every problem I have had with software, hardware, my TV, my toaster has always been completed in reasonable amounts of time. I think I remember the longest time I had to wait was 7 business days because it was the week before a major holiday and my washing machine broke. I accepted that because it was reasonable considering the circumstances. (I was lucky I even got that) 18 plus days is UNREASONABLE unless there are hurricane, fires, or other mass disasters.

I don't know anything more than that snippet, sorry . It was supposidly sent to people in the "Developer Directory".

My guess would be that it's an extra fee for support on top of what you're currently paying for the service. Regular support would mean "when we have time to squeeze you in, maybe" and paid support would be prioritized over any regular support ticket and would get "instant/true ASAP" attention.

(Edited to add that I actually do have a question regarding the OP: "Can we finally get some real information on what exactly caused LL to have to reset the passwords for anyone that used the support portal a few weeks back?"

An SLA doesn't mean a fat lot, it looks good on paper though. A response can be an automated response and meet the SLA. A response doesn't have to mean a fix.

I'd like to see Live Chat hours extended, I know LL are based in the US but they have an office in the UK, if they could offer Live chat from there then the hours could be extended. I'm not sure about the Boston office in the US as I believe that's more of a development team but if it were possible to offer Live chat from there that would again extend the hours.

Live chat should be available from the first page for those who need it. The knowledge base is there for those who would rather go down that avenue, all support options should be available up front.

Did you get no answer at all in that time, or just unhelpful ones? They've answered all of my tickets to date within one or two business days, although not always in a useful manner. And they do seem to like 'Final Solutions' that solve nothing...

Considering that kind of priority is what I am (officially at least) getting anyway, watch me not rush out to pay this extra premium for premium service.

I would like to see LH reinstated, we were all volunteers and most of us enjoyed helping.

We couldnt solve all of the problems that arose but, we would help to the best of our ability.
Just knowing that there's someone that is a IM away and will do the best to help is a huge plus that is now gone.

Please, if you have issues about the layout/usefulness of the support portal go ahead and address them too. I've got my list started, which I'm going to type up for easy cut/pasting during the focus. (Good idea, Lostmedia!)

My biggest gripe with the portal at this time is not only the slower response times, but the confusing layout. You have the quick search on the left and 4 buttons on the right. The quick search, knowledge base and solution finder all access the same information!

People instinctively use the quick search, which is what had me so annoyed back when the portal became 'live' because the quick search does not lead you to the submit ticket/live chat options. There's nothing that says it won't lead you to them. Knowledge base and Solution Finder.. the knowledge base accesses much of the same information, again without the option of being able to submit a ticket/live chat. The solution finder is just the knowledge base with the options.

I could see having the two buttons if the knowledge base was for the tutorials and clarifications, while the solution finder would focus more on the diagnostics and technical self support. As it stands, there is no reason to have the two buttons, except to make the page look 'pretty.'

How about just taking some notes on "ALL" the issues discussed here in this forum? Then submit a book !

Well rusty thats what im trying to do ... gather as many thoughts here as we can .. and then go about getting them herd .

Try and keep on topic here guy's .... what do you want from the " Support Portal "

I have a feeling that that will be the only subject we will get a chance to address ... all other subjects will be delt with at a later date

SO ... focus ... inplut

My main concern is quick turn around for griefing attacks on sims, huge prims, etc., crashing sims and extreme lag, any problem that makes SL unusable.

I would like to think that there is adequate staff on duty to cover SL at all times.

And it should be clearer that inworld issues and billing/web issues are handled by different parts of LL.

The Webpage needs to be a lot clearer about how to find help for different situations. It still reads like they are trying to make it hard to figure out how to let them know when something is going wrong.

It's fairly obvious, to me, what LL is attempting to do. They want to streamline the process and direct problems and issues that are common for most people to the "knowledge base" or other written tutorials. Much like the automated answering systems we all deal with when using a phone for support from almost any business we deal with in real life. That system only works though when, at the end of all the button pushing we get an opportunity to actually speak to a human being. Instead LL leads you in that direction but then when all that "information" is read and found not to be of help they just drop you........submit a ticket!! Then sometime later (we have no idea of how much later) someone reads that ticket..........or so we are told anyway. Then my impression is that that person is supposed to help you get your problem or issue resolved. But with all the complaints of 2, 3 or even more weeks passing without ever hearing a word from the Linden who is "helping" you it appears that one of two things take place: 1. The Linden reads the ticket as sent and gets the idea of what the problem is and "fixes" it........files in the infamous round file. 2. The Linden reads the ticket finds it something that he/she considers silly or maybe something that is similar to a grid issue that was fixed earlier.........tosses in that round file. I'm pretty sure that is not actually what happens but it does have the appearance of happening.

My solution? I have a considerable amout of experience of dealing with customers and know first hand that you cannot "shun" them.........and ignoring even the most simple, silly "problem" is shunning them. If it's a big problem you better be sympathic. You cannot imply that they are stupid, lazy, or unreasonable in their demands. AND........very important!!! NEVER, EVER LIE TO THEM!! You tell them you are going to get their problem resolved you damned well better resolve it..............and if you told them their problem was resolved it better be resolved. And you can never resolve most problems without actually communicating with the customer some way..............communicating human to human. Canned answers programmed into some computer data base is not going to get it done.

Linden Labs needs to hire a competent staff of customer service representatives......train them well. Put as many as necessary for the demand at computer terminals and/or phones.........give them the resources to actually do things that "fix" the problems. A chain of command that if necessary could be climbed to the bigger more complex issues being resolved. Areas of responsibilities.........billing, tech support, general information, etc. And staff that department 24/7. Expensive? Yeah............good CSR's are hard to come by. It's a very hard job that often is very much abused by the customers.........it's not fun sometimes. The experienced CSR's need serious pay.

That is the price of being a good customer oriented company. All successful companies have such a department..............and it's a well looked up department within the company and customer arenas.

Thank you for thinking about us!

Here's a possibility to be on the watchout for: Someone, I forget his name, explained on another forums that this is about LL's plans to offer a special support tier for corporations. (He made it seem like that was ALL it was about.)

Now that person may be completely insane, but just in case he's right, I'd like to caution against letting them do this without at least hollering about it.

Because I can envision them charging more for *real* support than anyone but corporations can afford, while the rest of us limp along with hardly any. It could be a high amount the corporations wouldn't think twice about spending, but that would kill us to try to pay.

coco

Coco.........that would do nothing but come back and bite them very hard on the butt. Corporations will abandon SL in a heartbeat without us tiny people to read the literature, visit the sims (sites) and buy something from them. LL giving special service to them? Probably. It happens all the time in business. But ignoring the reason for the Corporations being here in the first place.......that's suicide.

And we know what savvy business people the Lindens have been up to now.....

I've worked for many years (too many probably) as a customer service agent for a big company. Customer service is not easy but its the only communication customers (the reason for any company to exist) have with any given company to get support, to give complaints and even suggestions. Big responsability, as you are the face/voice/spirit of your company.

Linden Lab have forgotten the Bible any business has: "Customers are first" ,and you can constantly feel it both in world, in the Blog (when they leave comments on) and here, in the forums.

I think they need basically one thing, communication with their customers (us)

They close all communication channel because "they get depressed by our bad comments" (read it here somewhere). If this is so, they need to get a thicker skin, and they need to come out more often, get the opportunity to listen and consider the suggestions we all make.

If one person complains about "No more updates, please fix the bugs I have before upgrading", it can be unheard, could be a personal point of view. But when hundreds of people say the same thing..... I think they should listen and take it to their discussions and think that maybe we're not whinning but giving them feedback.

Communication is always a 2 way channel, if you close one of them, the other will probably never get to the other side either.

I feel they also are understaffed, we're 7 million (?) ok..... lets say 1 million users, they have like what? 200 employees? probably less...... that means they have 1 employee per 5000 customers!!!! The load is too heavy. They need more employees per customer, but how can they get more employees if only a minimum of those customers are paying? Yes, this is a business, so they must get a profit, each "resident" must have a cost for LL, but if there's no payment, they have to cut costs on other things..... maybe customer service???!

So, we ALL need to help out, if we want customer service, we should all PAY, yes, I know I'll get non nice responses to this, but dont you think its totally logic? We all demand service, we demand that the software works beautifully, we demand the hardware doesnt fail, we demand instant solutions to our problems through customer service, we demand a live person to answer our mails, we demand a better report follow up....we DEMAND only, but only a small percentage is willing to open the wallets to pay a small fee for all that, yes, small if you consider 10 US to be affordable to get you all the wonders we have in SL.
LL can do only so much with whatever money they get from us. Yes, I know tier fees are high, I pay quite a lot, yes, I know they are getting money from big corporations, yes I know they dont refund us for down time, but hardware is not cheap, electricity isnt a gift from heaven, and so on. So why dont we honestly think that if all of us paid for using SL, we might be getting better service? For one, they could hire more customer service agents instead of pulling the ones they have like a rubber band.

My opinion only.

As a pragmatic business decision, I can see a case for dropping all but the minimal (how do i set up an account/register?) support for the freebie users. The next tier is those who have payment information on file. Unfortunately, LL didn't keep a searchable record of how regularly this group contributes to the bottom line.

The first level at which LL can reliably say, "yes, these guys contribute to the bottom line regularly every month" is the premium accounts. That's about 80,000 verifiable regular customers. Split over 200 employees, that's one staffer per 400 customers. That's still a tight squeeze, but a far more realistic way to view the staff:customer ratio.

Well an easy to find & use "report sim down/bjorked" ticket option would be nice, instead of the current one which explainns what a sim is first and 20 other things you already knew................

I sent a Support Ticket Saturday. This morning I received a response saying if my issue was still outstanding, please submit a ticket via the NEW Support ticket channel.

Ummm... How hard would it be to clear your queue of existing support tickets before you flip over to a whole new method?

I actually have to give a thumbs up for the current Support system.

I had my reservations and was involved in a Support Group meeting with Cyn and Robin back a few months before LH went away. Discussing what would be needed and what would be wanted (usually two widely varying things).

I have submitted various Tickets since the conception and have had every one of them answered within 24 buisness hours. I don't expect 24/7 support except on Grid/Sim outages, DoS attacks, and Exploits. These reports already tag specific "red flags" in LL.

Not all my Tickets have been answered in a mannor I wanted (Can't always have my way. darn it! ^.~) but every instance has been acted upon and the open ones, while they may take some time to resolve, have been updated along the way in a mannor I felt was very professional (Yeah, I know. 'professional' in a sentences about LL 0.0 lol).

My only concerns would be TRAINING. Both for the Residents on who to use teh new Support/Ticket system (preferably with pretty pages and step-by-step examples, as well as some examples of what to, and what not to, report), and with the Lindens using the system to answer. I've run into son slight....hiccups with the asnwering Linden apparently clicking the wrong button and "Requesting more information" instead of "closing" a Ticket they answered completely *Grins* Seems we're learning on both sides here.

I beleive the Support system was pushed into place a bit too quickly, but was done due to nessesity to keep up with the growth of the community. The techs and Support persons are still catching up, same as we are. The Support has smoothed in the last weeks and I feel this is due to the Lindens involved becoming more comfortable with the system themselves.

In closing, while submitting suggestions and ideas is always a very good thing, I would also advise patienence and to watch very closly for the improvments that are happening. They are small in the grand scheme of things, but each one adds to the whole, making it just a bit better day by day.

~Jessy

No answer- nothing. nada. In fact, I'm just going to write another 'note' on the ticket. I didn't want to appear anxious, but already my husband contacted someone 'inworld' he knows so I was waiting on that before making a note in support again.

Creating a good Customer Support System is a complex job and takes time and, once one is in place, a programme of continuous improvement should be embarked upon.

I would like to see LL adopt (as far as possible and wherever applicable) the industry standards - such as ITIL. I don't wish to elaborate details in this post because it is all on the ITIL website.