USER reviews for steam support

[EmotionallyBroken]

because quality of support matters

for clarification, I mean for individual issues, though an overall rating is an interesting idea too that could probably benefit valve greatly, and their company image if they had that as a resource for decision making about their support performance.

EDIT:
This thread is NOT here for the purpose of talking about me, I am not a review system
This thread is NOT here for the purpose of trying to disagree with everything (including yourself) for the sake of creating conflict and going off topic.
This thread is NOT here for the purpose of projecting that everyone is attacking people simply for sharing an experience they've described.

This is not here to create conflict, this is here to suggest creating a review system for people to read and make constructive actions to improve the support of steam and steamclient.
Thats it, thats all its about. No fighting required. No malice required, its not a fight, stop trying to make it a fight.

[Yzal]

"They didn't refund a game that i bought 5 years ago and have 2000 hours in, 0/10"

[crunchyfrog]

Diposting pertama kali oleh EmotionallyBroken:

Diposting pertama kali oleh crunchyfrog:

Good reasons, indeed, but utterly trumped by good reasons why they don't work either.

And also still doesn't address teh fact that Valve already may have this data that they need.

Yes, Im sure everything is flawless. Its so evidently that there is no need for feedback or improvement that people seem to have a strange need to vehemently resist the idea of constructive criticism ,learning, and improving.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oBx7Jg4m-o

Stop strawmanning. I never said anything like that.

I said that YOU cannot know what their metrics are - you are assuming that this needs improving =- demonstrate your evidence for that. Not more repeated assertions. EVIDENCE.

And again, all you've suggested thus far is prone to the same old problems we've pointed that are borne in every single helpline in every company that has them.

Of course, I don't know what I'm talking about. I only set the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ things up.

[EmotionallyBroken]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Tito Shivan:

Diposting pertama kali oleh EmotionallyBroken:

That is absolutely true.
Though more customers with more satisfaction is win win, right?

It's also a surefire way to run yourself into bankrupcy. Like for example satisfying customers who want a refund regardless of how long ago they bought the game or how many hours you played it.
Lots of satisfaction amongst support customers? Sure
Loads of money lost to achieve that? Absolutely

Is this the only way to increase customer satisfaction through support?

Diposting pertama kali oleh Tito Shivan:

Diposting pertama kali oleh EmotionallyBroken:

Hence importance of specific and detailed feedback.

The kind of stuff you get with CS metrics but barely never with user's input.

Thats an interesting thing to hearconsidering about 50% + of the time I talk to support they seem to be very unaware of the details when its clearly explained in the user input. (At least to anyone who knows basic computer terminology)

[DC-GS]

Diposting pertama kali oleh EmotionallyBroken:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Tito Shivan:

The kind of stuff you get with CS metrics but barely never with user's input.

Thats an interesting thing to hearconsidering about 50% + of the time I talk to support they seem to be very unaware of the details when its clearly explained in the user input. (At least to anyone who knows basic computer terminology)

Its not the supports job to know computer stuff.
1st level should be able to read and follow a checklist. Because most tickets are from people who dont bother to read a single line of faq and send tickets.
2nd level should have some financial knowledge for refunds and payment issues.

Putting devs on the line is waste of his time and money.

[Start_Running]

Diposting pertama kali oleh EmotionallyBroken:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Tito Shivan:

It's also a surefire way to run yourself into bankrupcy. Like for example satisfying customers who want a refund regardless of how long ago they bought the game or how many hours you played it.
Lots of satisfaction amongst support customers? Sure
Loads of money lost to achieve that? Absolutely

Is this the only way to increase customer satisfaction through support?

perettty much. The sort of people who complain about support seem to be those who get told a correct answer they didn't like.

Answers like:"No" and, "Contact the developers".

[TKOdarkshadow]

I’d be down to add individual support staff feedback. I’ve had varying quality of support from two support staff members on the same issue.

[crunchyfrog]

Diposting pertama kali oleh EmotionallyBroken:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Tito Shivan:

It's also a surefire way to run yourself into bankrupcy. Like for example satisfying customers who want a refund regardless of how long ago they bought the game or how many hours you played it.
Lots of satisfaction amongst support customers? Sure
Loads of money lost to achieve that? Absolutely

Is this the only way to increase customer satisfaction through support?

Diposting pertama kali oleh Tito Shivan:

The kind of stuff you get with CS metrics but barely never with user's input.

Thats an interesting thing to hearconsidering about 50% + of the time I talk to support they seem to be very unaware of the details when its clearly explained in the user input. (At least to anyone who knows basic computer terminology)

Is this the only way?

Quite likely.

The simple reason that you keep dodging and ignoring is that you seem to think your claim works in a perfect littel world. It won't - people are people.

And again, the people involved in gaming are of all ages and circumstances and many lack empathy, or are inexperienced with the ways of the world as we see every single day on here with not knowing how basic banking works or account security or refunds or more.

So the sad fact remains that unless Valve decided to literally go ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and give everyone what they wanted this couldn't happen, and again even if they did it still wouldn't likley happen.

Even Valve themselves have been wont to say in the past "we could give away cash in brown papaer bags and certain people would moan about the colour of the bags".

So yet again, I'm afraid the solution you think you have just doesn't bear out in the real world becuase peple don't work like that.

Sad but true. Again, this isn'tsomething I've just pulled out of my arse. This is borne of years of wroking with the public, and in insurance, and setting up helplines, then working in law and much more.

[Darren]

So how about I explain what is useful for support to have as metrics, and why your feedback adds absolutely no value to them.

The goal of support is to provide the customer with the correct answer in as few interactions and as quickly as possible.

Metrics that are important here are:
* Correctness of the initial reply (which is ideally an automated one)
* Correctness of the final answer
* Total number of replies (it should be few)
* Quality of the internal documentation is allowing the support agent to provide the correct questions/reply

These are the things they need to tune to make support better.

Metric that has no relevance:
* How happy the customer was with the experience.

If the customer likes the correct answer and gets it quickly they are obviously happy. If they don't like the correct answer then they are unhappy but that is irrelevant because the answer was still correct.

i.e. this metric is going to give them data that isn't actionable.

[crunchyfrog]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Darren:

So how about I explain what is useful for support to have as metrics, and why your feedback adds absolutely no value to them.

The goal of support is to provide the customer with the correct answer in as few interactions and as quickly as possible.

Metrics that are important here are:
* Correctness of the initial reply (which is ideally an automated one)
* Correctness of the final answer
* Total number of replies (it should be few)
* Quality of the internal documentation is allowing the support agent to provide the correct questions/reply

These are the things they need to tune to make support better.

Metric that has no relevance:
* How happy the customer was with the experience.

If the customer likes the correct answer and gets it quickly they are obviously happy. If they don't like the correct answer then they are unhappy but that is irrelevant because the answer was still correct.

i.e. this metric is going to give them data that isn't actionable.

Well explained.

[Mad Scientist]

Diposting pertama kali oleh EmotionallyBroken:

Diposting pertama kali oleh Mr. Gentlebot:

You're deflecting again

Yes, I am deflecting your off topic posts and getting back on topic, you should too.

They're not off topic, and if you're just going to say "your posts are off topic!" each time you receive questions or scrutiny while receiving information as to why the suggestion will not work, then quite frankly the topic should be locked as you're clearly not up for having a discussion. Marking the "answer" with just someone agreeing with you also demonstrates this as well, again showing you're not up for discussion, scrutiny, or questions.

It's not difficult to answer relevant and important questions. If you want to rate support over some vague, unexplained details then clearly the issue is not support. Anyone with legitimate feedback for support complaining about them on the forum usually explains everything. Those that time after time, hide the true reasoning are typically withholding such information as it shows the problem is on their end.

You constantly ignore and wave away anything that explains why the idea works such as internal systems as I have mentioned, which are unbiased performance reviews, watching the employees, selecting random tickets to go over to see how well it was handled, if it was resolved etc. Fact is a lot of people get very immature when dealing with support, they get angry and part of your vague reason again paints a picture that perhaps you're not treating them well or that you're expecting something they're not responsible for providing.

The reason some companies even have such a feedback is to make the users believe such is important. An issue with this, is any higher level person can take it more literal or believe such ill-faith users, making it to explain yet again - entirely a waste of time. Seeing the forum 'feedback' here, also shows a lot more time would be wasted dealing with feedback than actual people, then people get sick of explaining 'themselves' against the false input of the user, typically out of anger that they aren't getting what they want, or the company isn't supporting what they have no obligation to.

Have you ever worked CS or tech support? It's obvious you haven't.
Having techs waste time with a lowest-review possible, only to explain to their bosses who like to go over the entire thing before letting you go back to work only to find out a "customer" is angry that the support individual isn't supporting another persons product which they demand, again, immense time waster.

Giving angry people a way to abuse staff is never a good idea, realistically it would be best suited as a digital shredder rather than ever taken seriously. People in here that have done CS/Tech have already given valuable feedback, though you usually deflect or say "off topic". I'll take the CS & Techs feedback, of why it's an awful idea especially for a company with hundreds of thousands of tickets a day especially when someone basically claims they should have more to reply faster and be more competent, then fail to give how many they believe is reasonable when asked which is entirely relevant when probing someones personal beliefs when they can't even give an example as a response demonstrating that they have an idea of how to make any portion of the suggestion or the responses thereof, function.

[EmotionallyBroken]

Diposting pertama kali oleh DC-GS:

Diposting pertama kali oleh EmotionallyBroken:

Thats an interesting thing to hearconsidering about 50% + of the time I talk to support they seem to be very unaware of the details when its clearly explained in the user input. (At least to anyone who knows basic computer terminology)

Its not the supports job to know computer stuff.

Im just gonna stop right there

[crunchyfrog]

Diposting pertama kali oleh EmotionallyBroken:

Diposting pertama kali oleh DC-GS:

Its not the supports job to know computer stuff.

Im just gonna stop right there

Well that IS correct.

Support don't do that. That's the job of the relevant user forum here.

That's how it works.

[Frostbringer]

Diposting pertama kali oleh crunchyfrog:

Diposting pertama kali oleh EmotionallyBroken:

Im just gonna stop right there

Well that IS correct.

Support don't do that. That's the job of the relevant user forum here.

That's how it works.

Since they never started their main reason as to why they have an issue with support that would require user feedback; this might well be it.

Imagine the millions of games on Steam, and thinking support would be able to provide any technical support for even 0.01% of them for customers that lack basic knowledge or troubleshooting if they buy a game their system can’t run or they don’t know basic game set-up like adjusting simple audio/video.

[MrL0G1C]

Diposting pertama kali oleh Frostbringer:

Diposting pertama kali oleh crunchyfrog:

Well that IS correct.

[1]Support don't do that. That's the job of the relevant user forum here.

That's how it works.

Since they never started their main reason as to why they have an issue with support that would require user feedback; this might well be it.

[2] Imagine the millions of games on Steam, [3] and thinking support would be able to provide any technical support for even 0.01% of them for [4] customers that lack basic knowledge or troubleshooting if they buy a game their system can’t run or they don’t know basic game set-up like adjusting simple audio/video.

[1] What, because you want to go on a tangent and attack the OP for what-ever support issue they may or may not have had?

[2] Roughly 30,000 games.

[3] [a] Game publishers are supposed to support their games via the game forums and their support email address, I've had success via both (forums and email.
[a2] Also, Games are games, they all have many identical aspects, it doesn't matter how many of them there are. Support should have good knowledge about games given that they are supporting a store that sells games. You don't have to have played all games in order to be able to understand games.
[4] Straw man, also [3] [a].

So, you're left without a point given your only points were, attacking the OP through insinuation and a straw man argument about something that steam support doesn't cover.

[Tito Shivan]

Diposting pertama kali oleh EmotionallyBroken:

Diposting pertama kali oleh DC-GS:

Its not the supports job to know computer stuff.

Im just gonna stop right there

I see you've never been near a sizeable CS service.

The first layer of any CS service is always scripted. You only need people make the customer follow a IFTTT script which helps solve a large ammount of requests for support. There's no need for tech-related knowledge to fullfill that task.

It's literally the 'I need help recovering my account' Support page, but performed by humans.

Above that layer. You're going to have way smaller teams specialised in the different areas Support may deal with (IT Support, Billing, Legal). Even at this second layer you're going to find a fair ammout of scripted walkthroughs.

Support services are a huge sieve mechanism which tries to accomplish most of its work without requiring lots of specialised labor.