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Andy's Workshop


Game chat and stories along with some articles probably for the more geeky among us,
all written by me, Andy.

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Monday 28 February 2011

Service With A Smile

This little blog post is coming after a suggestion from Nancy, one of our members.

We often need to tell you to contact Zynga, but rarely go into much detail about how to get the best response and help... so here it is. I worked for over 8 years at a radio station and sometimes part of a shift would be to answer phone calls and listener correspondence. Also, as a self confessed nerd, I've spent a huge chunk of my life running unofficial IT support, both for the radio station and for family and friends.

Hopefully this means I know of what I'm about to speak. Everything here is my personal opinion based on experience and some knowledge, it's not an "official" guide and it doesn't come from Zynga, my only talk with a CS rep has been to try and fix a game problem, not a discussion of how they feel about the players.

I'm also NOT a Zynga rep or anything to do with the company, this is my own feelings from outside, before people shoot off and suggest this was written by someone connected with the company. Right, now that's out the way...

Getting customer service with Zynga is best seen as a two part process. What you can do before you get a hold of them, and then how to treat the request itself.

1) Before writing.

Obviously the first thing to do is come ask a question on our Facebook Wall, we're not omniscient and we can't do a lot for many of the more serious glitches but a lot of the simpler stuff we've picked up answers for. You may find within 5 minutes of asking on the wall your problem is solved, otherwise if it's beyond our expertise we'll send you to the big guns of Big Z.

So, onto Zynga, we get a lot of complaints about generic replies, especially to first emails. Often telling them to try a few basic things before real mention of the problem is made.

The thing is, this needs to be done. More than you may realise, problems can be solved by Occam's Razor, a theory that suggests the simplest explanation is often the correct one.

There's a reason why IT support ask if you've shut down and rebooted your computer, there's a reason tech support ask you if you've unplugged the appliance and plugged it back in again and there's a reason why Zynga ask you to do basic stuff in your browser.

Often it works.

There's no point an IT rep spending half an hour in your computer when a simple reboot would have fixed it. Sometimes these problems are completely unsolvable in any other way because they've simply appeared in the strange world of the computer and have no cause and cure.

Equally Flash games can glitch for the simplest reason, so before contacting Zynga just follow this flow chart:

Does My Game Work?
- Yes -
Playtime!
|
No
|
Reload the Game
|
Does my game work NOW?
- Yes -
Playtime!
|
No
|
Clear your Browser Cache
and Cookies
Instructions HERE
|
Does my game work NOW?
- Yes -
Playtime!
|

No
|
Clear your Flashe Cache
Instructions HERE
|
Does my game work NOW?
- Yes -
Playtime!
|
No
|
Contact Zynga HERE

If you do these simple housekeeping things first then it's one less step out the way. Can't say you wont still get a possible default email but at least you can respond quickly and say you've done all the basics. It's surprising how often doing the above works.

2) OK, we've had to contact them...

Right, this first bit may come across as slightly personal because it comes from answering support calls while being a very low rung on the ladder.

The person on the other end of the line is a human being AND, more often than not, totally unable to help with deep technical queries without assistance. The person you speak to is a customer service operator, not a game developer and not a manager. I cannot stress this next part enough so I apologise for the emphasis but I feel it's worth it.

IT'S NOT THEIR FAULT


We know the inherent annoyance and frustration of the game not working. I'm just a player like you and have had the glitches, problems and issues. You know what? The people on the other end of the line probably are too, and they also know the irritation you're feeling.

But going in with all guns blazing, using ALL CAPS and adding punctuation like it's got a sell by date (you all know what I mean!!!!!?!?!?!!??!!!!?!?!) will... well, it'll still get you helped because they're professionals... but personally if I had a choice between a calm letter or caller and a wildly flailing exclamation mark machine cussing at me? I know which one was most likely to get help first.

If I buy something and it turns out to be defective I pop back to the store and I request a replacement or a refund, with a smile because I know the poor sod behind the counter didn't put together that toaster with his bare hands. He takes the money and puts it in a drawer.

Some people on the other hand do go a little wild and end up berating shop staff like they've personally insulted them, just about stopping before slapping them across the face with a glove and demanding satisfaction via a duel at dawn. This is a (somewhat) family blog so I won't go into detail about what I think of them when I see this but suffice to say you wouldn't say it to your Aunt Mabel.

When you're writing to Zynga, be it via email or live chat, just take a moment to read back what you wrote and the impression it gives of you. The Rep doesn't know you personally, doesn't get a chance to go look at your Facebook profile and see a wall full of peace lilies and cute kittens. All they know about you is that one missive.

If I was asked (which I'm not) this would be my short list of do's and dont's for any message to Zynga.

Do... understand that the person on the other end of the line is a person.
Don't... swear. There's no reason at all to swear at a stranger over this. If you find yourself moved to profanity over an internet game, shut down the PC or laptop and go look at some flowers, stroke a puppy, eat some Belgian Chocolate (Americans, I can't push this step enough, taste some Belgian Chocolate and all your worries will leave you... Europeans have a word for US chocolate; bread).

Do... realise the person on the other end can't magically fix all problems, they might need a delay to contact a developer or a higher force.
Don't... threaten that you're going to leave the game, especially if it's because of a time frame. "If I don't get an answer today I'm deleting!" Well, if you're addicted enough you're getting this wound up? You're not giving up your fix any time soon. I see it a lot and strangely it's often the same people over a six month period who've "given up" approximately once a fortnight.

Do... try to put your problem clearly and try to be as grammatical as you can.
Don't... use CAPS LOCK, excessive punctuation!!?1?"!!!11! or txtspk... it's hard enough sometimes to work out what a problem is at the best of times, without the reps needing to break out a 133t dictionary to translate it to their native language or wade through CAPS and !?!s which make things much harder to read.

Basically, I think the answer is to treat the person on the other end with respect, understand game issues aren't their fault and realise that, as Nancy said to me in her email, you always catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Or, as I like to put it, you catch more friends with a smile than a shout.

I almost forgot your reward for reading the whole page! I'm out of invisible animals so... today your prize is an invisible Saloon, placed just off the right edge of your homestead. You can't see it or activate it but every time you log off? All your avatars (especially Jack) run off there for a drink... if the game takes a bit longer to load you'll know it's because they're staggering back to position.

5 comments:

  1. I am SO glad your took the time write this. Somewhat amazing that grown adult people need to be reminded or 'taught' how to treat others.

    I was taught, from infancy, the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have done unto you."

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  2. Thanks Andy! Your suggestions are great! I work in Customer Service for a retail giant and wish our more of our clients understood your simple wisdom.

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  3. Thanks for addressing this problem, Andy. I have had to contact Zynga a few times and have found that the nicer you are to them, the better they resolve your problems.

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  4. ... and a collective "YES!!" from everyone who is or ever has been a telephone/email/live chat customer service rep!

    Thank you, Andy, for picking up the ball and running with it!

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  5. I sometimes think "If you would simply READ the directions/instructions, you'd see..." whatever it is they are asking about...
    you know?

    ReplyDelete