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Poor customer service
Crushinator
✭✭
in The Bridge
On Wednesday at about 12:30 EST I bought an event 10 pack like usual at the start of an event. There was no event crew in it. Instead it had Ardra from the prior event so I assumed they forgot to do the right event pack. I immediately put in a ticket hoping to get it fixed in time to level the event crew before the event. Hoped to get the 5* Jake Sisko and do double up offer. No answer until the next day when rep wanted proof I bought the pack and it had no event crew. Figured they could easily see it bu5 I had a screen shot so sent it. Another day before they answered again by saying they were refunding me the 650 diitium. No apology, no offer of sorrytons, no extra pack, no nothing. I cannot wait to answer the evaluation question (getting used to the follow up since DB seems to mess up more and more). Really angry about the way they dragged their feet for 2 days and acted like I did something wrong.
Believe it or not, not too long ago there was not an event EVERY weekend. I really liked the game and like my fleet but DB is making me feel more and more like an atm cash machine for them and less and less like a valued customer. They keep promoting VIP points but I maxed out almost a year ago. Keep hoping they will offer more levels but I guess once they have milked that amount of cash they lose interest in the customer.
Anyone else having similar experiences?
Doubt this will be allowed to stay up very long though.
Believe it or not, not too long ago there was not an event EVERY weekend. I really liked the game and like my fleet but DB is making me feel more and more like an atm cash machine for them and less and less like a valued customer. They keep promoting VIP points but I maxed out almost a year ago. Keep hoping they will offer more levels but I guess once they have milked that amount of cash they lose interest in the customer.
Anyone else having similar experiences?
Doubt this will be allowed to stay up very long though.
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Comments
I must admit though it is extremely hard to get any good resolution with event offer mistakes.
First off you need a urgent response. Because you are dealing with time of event starting.
Second you also need speedy resolution.
However, I have to say if you are using dil. and have extra on hand assume when they give you the wrong crew for an event pack (or the wrong one is there when you are expecting the new one) that they will refund that dil. and take the crew back. So buy the right one when available.
I do not know why we have to document this with a screenshot. If they cannot see what we got when we are trying to buy the new event pack, us having to have a screen shot is a problem. They should know that the wrong event pack was on screen and look for that pack pull it is almost always the previous event pack.
If you are still unhappy you can escalate to a supervisor.
Keep in mind you get to keep your original 10x pull and get 650 dilithium to make another pull. That is at least 500 honour and some schematics.
It was correct in the portal screen just not the event/splash screen. Mildly annoying that I had to go to it for the 10 packs I got after the $100 purchase but was easy to find. A refund was fair as I think you can see it was the Red Tribble and not the fine looking Jake.
I've learned two things about customer service that seem to have been helpful for me:
1. Screenshots whenever possible. For some problems, this is difficult, even impossible. I discovered a bug in one of the Tuesday cadet missions where Seven in Blue's Borg bonus on one node was the same on all difficulty levels; it didn't scale upwards like they're supposed to do. I only had six tickets for a weekly thing. Taking a screenshot on my phone of the exact second that the bonus value popped up was extremely difficult.
2. Use a specific subject header instead of the default generic text. For the OP's problem, I might have written something like "Event Pack Dropping Wrong Crew".
I've filed quite a few tickets over the last two years, and I would guesstimate around a 95% satisfaction rate with the resolutions that we reached. To be honest, in the situation described by the OP, I think I would have been contented to have the 650 dilithium refunded.
If you get the wrong pack in a pull it does **tsk tsk** but at the end of the day getting your DIL back is an acceptable level of compensation for the problem.
Do people seriously expect a legendary character every time there is a minor issue?
The end result of CS is that you should not be out of pocket. Anything else is a bonus
But noo, you want one Jake Sisko legendary card and 2 * event pack as a compensation. That is a little overkill.
In fairness, if I’d have received an Ardra or ales, I’d have raised a ticket. Did you keep the extra Ardra? If so, it’s a bonus
Oh. My. Yes... I had been waiting for Captain Killy... Was ridiculously excited... Had been saving up my meager funds to purchase the $100 Captain's Bundle. Was made a squad leader, because I'd be able to provide a FF/FE Event 5-star to my squaddies.
However, what transpired turned out to be a nightmare... I'll try and be brief, but it's hard:
what transpired:
* Noon EST, Wednesday May 16: I purchase $100 event pack; iTunes debits account for the purchase, but none of the pack items appear in-game, even I restart/reset on every available platform; File ticket at 12:34 pm EST.
* 01:56am Thursday (5/17): DB Customer Support agent responds, says they have added pack items to account; However, agent did not provide the 1,000 chrons that were part of the purchase.
* 06:14am Thursday (5/17): I advise the agent in a follow-up ticket that only the shuttle boost items have appeared and the 2x of Killy have been received. The event packs and chrons are still not there.
Event begins with no further word... I did not use the 2x Killy because, since key items of the purchase were still outstanding, spending resources to level, when a purchase refund was a possible, seemed like a bad idea.
*00:54am Friday (5/18): CS Agent responds that Event Packs were resent.; Additionally, Agent levels the 2x Killy to L60 and sends 300 dilithium.
*09:49am Friday (5/18): I acknowledge the receipt of the packs, but again inform the Agent that the promised chronitons still aren't there.
*15:39pm Sunday (5/20): I still have received a response to my ticket reply at 9:50 am EST on Friday... Event chugging along. I request at the ticket be escalated to a Supervisor.
*03:19am Monday (5/21): Agent acknowledges escalation request and informs me that the Supervisor will be in touch.
Event ends... I miss out on a Personal Best ranking. Life goes on.
*02:30am Tuesday (5/22): Supervisor responds to ticket escalation, finally sending me the chronitons. Adding insult to injury, the Supervisor tells me that there is nothing in how this situation unfolded that warrants additional escalation beyond their leveling the Killy card to 50 and sending me 300 dilithium. Supervisor also warns me that I must pull the event packs before Wednesday at Noon EST or I will lose them.
Epilogue: I contact Apple directly, they refund my purchase. I instruct Support to remove the 2x Killy card, shuttle boosts, 1k chronitons, and event pack... Lesson Learned: Be EXTREMELY wary of buying these packs from DB before an Event as if something goes wrong and you don't get the right agent from the pool, you very well could go the entire event without receiving all of the items promised, let alone any sort of meaningful additional compensation. This experience has led more than a handful of fleetmates to dial back and pack purchase and spending on the game.
I'm not a beggar... But this was the equivalent of going to a really nice restaurant, pre-paying for my meal, and then having the staff bring out bits and pieces of the meal, hours after I sat down... I'm sure there are better analogies.
I will say that Shan was incredibly apologetic and assured me that she would pass along all of this to the mgmt folks she is in contact with. I appreciated her comments and support, as it was, as it has always been, genuine.
Anyways, thanks for reading... Apologies for the long reply...
GoT Chief Communications Officer
Maybe there should be 2 different ticket systems - one for time-sensitive situations and one for routine situations. What would be time sensitive? Event pack purchases (but only event packs, not others). Stalled voyages (the no-dilemma bug). Account lock-out issues. There are probably a couple other things that others can think of. DB would have to re-vamp the ticket dialog to enable this, and there would need to be consequences for players that abuse the system (i.e., not every problem is end-of-the-world urgent just because you think it is).
In addition, there are often issues with CS not even understanding what they are responding to. (see the Surak mega event bonus tickets) and CS has to turn to outside resources often (I've gotten screenshots from the fan made and maintained wiki in cs tickets)
I think the CS agents are fine, but the time difference, lack of resources provided to them, lack of proper staff levels, and lack of urgency flagging makes for a very uphill battle for them. Most Agent related issues I had on tickets came down to them obviously rushing through not reading tickets and copy pasting responses, which is a workflow issue more than an effort issue I'm sure.
Second, this is not as much about the event pack as it is about the poor CS. I have had good experiences with their CS before but those were many months ago. It seems to get worse and worse.
<snip> Do not name a Support Rep and do not copy/paste content from a ticket exchange. ˜Shan Wow! I do not think he has idea what courtesy means. Nor understanding of all purchases are final. No purchase is final when the WRONG product is delivered. I purchased a current event pack. They delivered an event pack from last event. Either giving me the pack I paid for or refunding my dil is the minimum responsible response. Nothing “courteous” about doing the minimum.
I have asked for his supervisor but who knows how long that will take or if I will hear from the supervisor.
Someone menti9ned an “expedited response”. There is no way to request that as far as I know. I agree there should be one.
Seems like they let you keep the honor/last event crew AND gave 650 dil. Seems fair IMHO but always have a goal when you contact CS; I'm sure they would have given an Archer or Kim in exchange for last weeks crew if asked. Certainly not a Jake though unless you pulled a Killy. Always ensure the splash screen pack is right, the portal had the correct pack as I pulled 2 Jakes from it after buying the $100 deal that came with 10 packs.
By contrast, I bought a pair of headphone from my phone manufacturer last time I bought a new phone. The left ear started cutting out after seven months. It took over a month to get even an acknowledgement from their CS that they'd received my ticket. Another month has gone by, and all they've done is create an escalation. All I asked about was if there was a under warranty and if so, could I get a replacement and no one has answered either question yet.
I had the exact same situation as the OP. I even had the same CR. It took a couple days but they refunded the dilithium and let me keep the contents ( which became honor) of the incorrect pack. He didn’t say anything about a one time courtesy because I provided screenshots upfront of the event splash screen showing the wrong pack and the results of my pull so he knew it was an error on their end.
I think the CR handled it well and I was satisfied with the result. I wasn’t expecting some freebie hand out. And as far as it taking two days, I had no problem with that at all because I’ve been around since the beginning and remember back when you were lucky if you got a response in less than two weeks.
I had no idea that expecting to receive what you paid for was being entitled.
And just because you haven't been duped by DB's bugs doesn't mean that others are not.
Exactly. The CS response was to refund the DIL. Which would allow the OP to get the pack if he still wished AND it appears they were allowed to keep the pack that they got in error.
They are not out of pocket and probably have a chunk of honour as a bonus.
The problem is that the OP seems to expect more compensation
The OP felt they should have gotten some compensation for not having gotten the pack before the event. And if they did let him keep the contents of the wrong pack, he would rather have some other compensation.
One: in this case you need to explain to CS you lost the opportunity to receive this pack before the event.
Two: explain to them what you feel would be adequate compensation.
Three: let them respond to this and see if they agree or not.
If you are looking for 100 Chrons. I really do not think they would have a problem with that.
From my understanding of the first post in this thread, what would have been better is some event crew to use during the actual event, not receiving them when it's over/almost over. Reading between the lines, I expect that he didn't have surplus dil to just buy another pack in the meantime. His main quibble is the length of time it took to be resolved. He feels that the time factor was not addressed at all in CS's resolution. His event performance is what mattered most to him, not receiving crew from an old pack as bonus.
So I can understand why he feels aggrieved, but I also agree with what @WaldoMag proposes: explain to them, calmly and clearly, why their response did not satisfy. If half the forum readers didn't get it, then a CS rep might not either, unless you spell it out.
I've had a majority of positive experiences, but there have been times when I've felt like CS is begrudgingly paying me out of their own pocket (like if I win, they lose) , and it should NOT be like that.