Get rid of Self-Help Steam Support

[lolyouwish]

It might work for some people, but the process of trying to figure out how to submit a ticket or report to Steam for something not mentioned in their preset lists has left me realizing just how little I like the Steam client and Valve as a whole anymore and like PayPal I kinda just use it because I have to.

I dunno why anyone felt like it was a good idea to make people jump through so many hoops and have to go through such limited pre-selected options just to get help, but it shouldn't leave people more frustrated after trying to use it than they were before. All I wanted to do was submit a report that the store was throwing an error up for me every time I tried downloading a free game and after ten minutes of going through the self-help options I gave up because it simply wasn't worth the effort. Which now that I think about it might be the point, who knows? Cut down expenses by making the process of getting help so frustrating you have to employ less support agents.

It shouldn't be this hard to get support from a company we spent larges sums of money with, it is disrespectful of our time.

[rawWwRrr]

Because people would spam Support over issues they can't solve, or about issues that already have solutions or knowledge articles in the Support menus.

[lolyouwish]

"Everyone should enjoy a lower quality of service so that we have less work" isn't a good argument imo. Dealing with non-issues is part of customer service, it is no excuse to minimize their actual support this much.

[FFL2and3rocks]

Originally posted by lolyouwish:

"Everyone should enjoy a lower quality of service so that we have less work" isn't a good argument imo. Dealing with non-issues is part of customer service, it is no excuse to minimize their actual support this much.

Are you willing to wait 6 weeks for a response again?

[lolyouwish]

Originally posted by FFL2and3rocks:

Originally posted by lolyouwish:

"Everyone should enjoy a lower quality of service so that we have less work" isn't a good argument imo. Dealing with non-issues is part of customer service, it is no excuse to minimize their actual support this much.

Are you willing to wait 6 weeks for a response again?

As opposed to having no option to inform them of an issue not on the list and get no response at all? Is that even a question? This isn't an improvement over the long wait times, it is just a way to not have to deal with improving the wait times.

[BiLL ❤]

Not a bad idea honestly Rawr

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by lolyouwish:

Originally posted by FFL2and3rocks:

Are you willing to wait 6 weeks for a response again?

As opposed to having no option to inform them of an issue not on the list and get no response at all? Is that even a question? This isn't an improvement over the long wait times, it is just a way to not have to deal with improving the wait times.

That would be best put in the bug report forum.

[lolyouwish]

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Originally posted by lolyouwish:

As opposed to having no option to inform them of an issue not on the list and get no response at all? Is that even a question? This isn't an improvement over the long wait times, it is just a way to not have to deal with improving the wait times.

That would be best put in the bug report forum.

:nkCool:

Excellent suggestion, thank you I appreciate it. My criticisms of the Self-Help Support idea still stand though, it is a frustrating experience if you are having anything more than the simplest or most common of problems.

[Ben Lubar]

If you still have questions after going through the options, you click the "I still have questions" button and it gives you a free-form text box where you can type anything you want.

If you're going to the support site frequently enough that that's a major bottleneck for you, there might be other problems that need addressing, especially given that Steam Support doesn't handle questions about specific games unless you are the developer of that game.

[rawWwRrr]

Originally posted by lolyouwish:

"Everyone should enjoy a lower quality of service so that we have less work" isn't a good argument imo.

That's not what I said.

In fact, you get the complete opposite of what you're hoping for.

The customer base on a gaming platform is, quite frankly, one of the worst in the world. If they were allowed to flood Steam Support with requests, bug reports, help with hardware, help with software, why doesn't my mouse work anymore, why are you dropping Windows 7 support, why are you still supporting Windows GO LINUX!!, etc.... You'd get a lot more automated "bot" responses.

Getting anyone to even look at your request would take days to weeks as they churn through all the crap, and then the workload would be so overwhelming that you'd be lucky to get more than a cursory glance at it.

Even getting Amazon Support to talk to you is near impossible. Anyone that provides Support on large platforms eventually move to a more self-service model. That is more a reflection of the userbase than it is of the Support team.

[lolyouwish]

Originally posted by Ben Lubar:

If you still have questions after going through the options, you click the "I still have questions" button and it gives you a free-form text box where you can type anything you want.

If you're going to the support site frequently enough that that's a major bottleneck for you, there might be other problems that need addressing, especially given that Steam Support doesn't handle questions about specific games unless you are the developer of that game.

I could not find such a button anywhere after ten minutes of messing with it, so I'm going to lean heavily into they have done the equivalent of burying the customer support number somewhere it is hard to find hoping you don't find it.

[lolyouwish]

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

Originally posted by lolyouwish:

"Everyone should enjoy a lower quality of service so that we have less work" isn't a good argument imo.

That's not what I said.

In fact, you get the complete opposite of what you're hoping for.

The customer base on a gaming platform is, quite frankly, one of the worst in the world. If they were allowed to flood Steam Support with requests, bug reports, help with hardware, help with software, why doesn't my mouse work anymore, why are you dropping Windows 7 support, why are you still supporting Windows GO LINUX!!, etc.... You'd get a lot more automated "bot" responses.

Getting anyone to even look at your request would take days to weeks as they churn through all the crap, and then the workload would be so overwhelming that you'd be lucky to get more than a cursory glance at it.

Even getting Amazon Support to talk to you is near impossible. Anyone that provides Support on large platforms eventually move to a more self-service model. That is more a reflection of the userbase than it is of the Support team.

See, you said that isn't what you said then you go on to reiterate the point how getting a lower quality of customer service because Valve doesn't want to deal with the downsides of customer service is somehow an improvement.

"Everyone is doing it" is an even worse argument imo. Just because companies are increasingly being disrespectful of the customers responsible for their business doesn't mean that it is ok Valve is doing it.

[Tito Shivan]

Originally posted by lolyouwish:

but the process of trying to figure out how to submit a ticket or report to Steam for something not mentioned in their preset

If it's not on the list, there's a very good chance it's something Support is not meant to deal with.

[lolyouwish]

Originally posted by Tito Shivan:

Originally posted by lolyouwish:

but the process of trying to figure out how to submit a ticket or report to Steam for something not mentioned in their preset

If it's not on the list, there's a very good chance it's something Support is not meant to deal with.

Issues with the client throwing errors when doing specific things in the store isn't something Support is meant to deal with? Seriously? What exactly then is Support there for if not to assist with issues with the client impacting a user's ability to use it?

[Maria]

Originally posted by lolyouwish:

"Everyone should enjoy a lower quality of service so that we have less work" isn't a good argument imo.

Originally posted by lolyouwish:

"Everyone is doing it" is an even worse argument imo. ...

You already failed twice in getting the main idea of Rawr's posts. Maybe it is time to stop skimming and start to actually read. Word-for-word. Imo.

[Tito Shivan]

Originally posted by lolyouwish:

Issues with the client throwing errors when doing specific things in the store isn't something Support is meant to deal with? Seriously? What exactly then is Support there for if not to assist with issues with the client impacting a user's ability to use it?

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/SteamClientBeta/discussions/
You're better posting client errors there. Support mostly deals with billing and account issues.