Steam support

[frawz]

Am I the only one who thinks they should hire more people to deal with the support issues?
I've encountered several issues over the past couple of weeks that I'd like to report, but chose not to since the wait time is ridicilously long.

Wat do?

[76561198105753408]

not only you !

[76561198106020123]

I agree.

I bought the humble origin bundle, which is no longer offered. Then my hdd stopped working (mechanical failure), so I bought a new hdd. Steam Guard thinks I have a new computer now for some reason, and my email account associated with my steam account no longer works.

I sent a support ticket with as much proof as I could gather to show that I am the rightful owner of the steam account that I can no longer log-in to. If I knew this was going to happen, I would have never enabled Steam Guard.

$500+ worth of games...gone. :(

So yeah, in short, I agree with you. For as many people that use Steam for services, there needs to be a *lot* more people handling the support end...however, it's almost impossible to get a job there for some reason.

[The Rock God]

I was going to make a post about how the support system is overwhelmed with tickets from people who cause their own issues. Glad I refreshed the page first for this gem:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von crouseb:

I agree.

I bought the humble origin bundle, which is no longer offered. Then my hdd stopped working (mechanical failure), so I bought a new hdd. Steam Guard thinks I have a new computer now for some reason, and my email account associated with my steam account no longer works.

I sent a support ticket with as much proof as I could gather to show that I am the rightful owner of the steam account that I can no longer log-in to. If I knew this was going to happen, I would have never enabled Steam Guard.

$500+ worth of games...gone. :(

So yeah, in short, I agree with you. For as many people that use Steam for services, there needs to be a *lot* more people handling the support end...however, it's almost impossible to get a job there for some reason.

Not having a working email address is hardly Steam's fault, so you just have to wait for them to get around to your ticket. Wait, what's that you say on your profile?:

yeah my steam account doesn't work.

was it the fake profile information I made up with my old email? Probably.

Does Steam Guard prevent against hackers? Maybe, sure.

Does Steam Guard also lock the legitimate owner out of their own account? Yes.

Ooh, good luck with that. It's probably going to be a bit difficult to prove ownership of an account that doesn't match.

And people wonder why the support system is overwhelmed.

[2point4]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von bu_chengshi:

I was going to make a post about how the support system is overwhelmed with tickets from people who cause their own issues.

I find it to be quite embarrassing to suggest that Steam support shouldn't consider improving itself because of issues caused by the user, but I see this daily both here and on SPUF. Dare I say that most computer related issues are caused by the user. It's the nature of the industry. If you are unable or unwilling to support these scenarios efficiently then at best it means you don't care about your customers.

Exactly why Steam support is overwhelmed is neither here nor there. They have a job to do and they are doing pretty terrible at it. The "high ticket volume" notice on the support site seems to have become a permanent fixture. That they haven't done anything that has made a visible difference is actually more embarrassing than someone suggesting they don't need to improve.

[KillerKoala78]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von 2point4:

That they haven't done anything that has made a visible difference is actually more embarrassing than someone suggesting they don't need to improve.

How would you suggest they improve? It's not logical to hire more staff because people can't handle their own account security. Security issues are why they are so backed up. If Valve put any more restrictions on accounts to prevent or avoid account hijacking or item trades with stolen steam accounts, people would be more upset.

[2point4]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Killer Koala:

How would you suggest they improve?

This is another typical response. It's as if to say that if I don't have any suggestions then my comments are no longer valid. Valve makes a lot of money and so does everyone that works there. I'm sure their collective genius that everyone always goes on about can figure something out without turning to free help from their customers. Problem is, customer support is red and Valve increasingly only takes notice of black.

Also, it's not logical to not hire more staff when people are waiting weeks upon weeks for a response and when your ticket volume becomes increasingly high for months upon months at a time. Valve has a certain culture on campus and they're so afraid to change that culture by hiring more staff that they don't even seem to care how bad customer support suffers. And on the rare occasions when they do publicly respond you're likely to hear just how lucky you are to get a response because if they have to take the time out to actually talk to people then it takes time away from them doing whatever work it is they're doing. Those are the words, that are seen all too frequently, of an understaffed company. It might be true, but it's incredibly patronizing. But if it's the developers that are also doing PR then there is clearly a problem that needs addressing.

Security issues are why they are so backed up.

Source? I'm not saying this isn't factual but has Valve publicly stated this anywhere?

[Silicon Vampire]

Only my opinion but I think a progressive monetary charge for account hijacking issues policy would go a long way to deterring people from being so cavalier with their account information/security/habits...

Something like:

1st time free
2nd time $5
3rd $10
4th $25
5th $50

after that just permanently disabling the account should be an option.

Make this policy widely known, warn about it every step of the way starting at account creation and you'll see the hijack rate drop to nothing.

Please remember this is my opinion and I seriously doubt Valve would ever do something like this.

[Laptop]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Silicon Vampire:

Only my opinion but I think a progressive monetary charge for account hijacking issues policy would go a long way to deterring people from being so cavalier with their account information/security/habits...

Something like:

1st time free
2nd time $5
3rd $10
4th $25
5th $50

after that just permanently disabling the account should be an option.

Make this policy widely known, warn about it every step of the way starting at account creation and you'll see the hijack rate drop to nothing.

Please remember this is my opinion and I seriously doubt Valve would ever do something like this.

Would scare people a lot and force them not to lose their account. Although some circumstances are out of people's control. Not everyone is an I.T. specialist.

[Tito Shivan]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Silicon Vampire:

Only my opinion but I think a progressive monetary charge for account hijacking issues policy would go a long way to deterring people from being so cavalier with their account information/security/habits...

Something like:

1st time free
2nd time $5
3rd $10
4th $25
5th $50

after that just permanently disabling the account should be an option.

Make this policy widely known, warn about it every step of the way starting at account creation and you'll see the hijack rate drop to nothing.

Please remember this is my opinion and I seriously doubt Valve would ever do something like this.

Not wanting to argue with you ;) but...

I think a better policy would be Support treating account hijacks just like they do with Scams.
Simply Don't return hijacked items.

IMHO people consider the 'items will be recovered once' policy on hijacks as a 'free out of jail' card. People see a hijack as a lesser threat because 'Steam will recover my items'

Recover the account -that is a matter of minutes- but if you lost something, thought luck.
That also cuts the time Support devotes following and chasing trades.

Putting a paywall would mostly turn as a 'recovery fee' most would gladly pay, instead of a deterrent.
Which reminds me a excerpt i read on the book "Freakonomics"
Kindergarten is sick of parents getting late to pick up their kids, so they start adding a fine for parents picking late their kids.
What happened is that the number of parents picking their kids later multiplied.
Sometimes, a fine has the opposite effect.

[2point4]

But we pay for our Steam accounts. Account recovery is also a part of what we pay for. They would be effectively taking away something that is included in the fee, which would dig them further into their customer support hole.

[Laptop]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von 2point4:

But we pay for our Steam accounts. Account recovery is also a part of what we pay for. They would be effectively taking away something that is included in the fee, which would dig them further into their customer support hole.

Uh no you don't. It is free to register a Steam account.

[Laptop]

A lot of the time an issue with a game can easily be solved with a Google search...

[2point4]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Laptop65:

]Uh no you don't. It is free to register a Steam account.

Oh, woops. I guess Valve must have stopped taking a ~30% cut of every game sale on Steam and whatever cut they take of every other sale (DLC, in-game purchases, etc.). Your Steam account with 0 games is free, sure. But as soon as you invest in a purchase of any kind, a portion of what you paid is paying for the Steam services you use or don't use...including support.

[Laptop]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von 2point4:

Oh, woops. I guess Valve must have stopped taking a ~30% cut of every game sale on Steam and whatever cut they take of every other sale (DLC, in-game purchases, etc.). Your Steam account with 0 games is free, sure. But as soon as you invest in a purchase of any kind, a portion of what you paid is paying for the Steam services you use or don't use...including support.

You don't pay anything when you register a Steam account, nor to use their Support system, or their forums. Whether you use their services is up to you.

[ KARR™]

More staff would be nice, but then you have to train them up, which means taking people OFF support to train them. Then they have to be monitored to make sure they are doing things right until eventually they are up to speed. By that time, the issues may be over.

I don't believe the time delays are due to the fact accounts are hijacked, it's the fact they are going through dozens of trade logs to return peoples item's after they have been taken. The longer it takes to deal with a ticket, the more of a trail to go through and the longer it takes. The recent 'can't trade from a new login for 15 days' would seem to suggest they want to stop the trade history from becoming so problematic. (and hopefully reduce time to resolve tickets)