SOE CSR's and Tech Support?

Phrack

I've noticed in my years here that when you have a problem and someone suggests using Station Supports Live Chat to help, or calling into Tech Support, people absolutely cringe at the thought.

What usually follows are horror stories of CSR encounters in Live Chat or on the telephone that makes the person who approached them feel like it was a complete waste of time, effort, and brain-power. So my question is why?

This is me calling out for your CSR horror stories from both Live Chat or Technical Support. If you have a horror story (or even an instance where they've been so excellent that they've blown you away) then post it here. I'd like to read it.

**SolidRevolver**

I requested a password change, so they changed it.... and didn't tell me what it was, I spent hours searching for the account number of my origional credit card so I could prove it was my account so they would give me the password.

**Archangel**

Well, I had to delete a character awhile back and the launcher froze in the process. I waited patiently for about 3 days, it usually resolves itself in a matter of hours, but it was a weekend. Finally, on Tuesday I contacted chat support. This is the log, names removed to avoid calling out names.

Please elaborate your issue?

My account has been giving me the "Account in Use" error since Friday.

May I know your issue exact error?

Let me try to login real quick.

"The account you are attempting to log in with is already in use." It's been doing that since I attempted to delete a character I don't use anymore last Friday.

Are you putting your correct user name and password?

Yes...if I hadn't put the correct login information in I wouldn't have been able to find out the error for you.

May I know your account name?

<LINE REMOVED>

Thank you for contacting Sony Online Entertainment Customer Support. For security reasons, we are unable to address your account issues without first verifying your identification. Please respond with the following information:
Last 4 digits of credit card
Current security question answer
Account/Registration Key
Real Name
E-mail address
Station Name
Birthdate

<LINE REMOVED>

Need my blood type while we're at it?

I'm sorry if there is a delay in response. Thank you for your patience.

Your password has been reset as <REMOVED>

What? Do you even know what you're doing? I've had this happen countless times before and never had to have my password changed. I didn't want it changed. And by the way, if that was supposed to work, epic fail.

I think your character get stuck. Is it?

If by stuck you mean I can't login with it, then yes.

Yes. Please let me know the character name and server name.

Archangel, server: Recursion.

I am escalating this to the tier 2 to unstuck your character

Is there anything else I can assist you with today?

Nope. That'd be it.

Thank you for visiting our Sony Online Entertainment customer support chat. Take care and have a nice day.

**Aquatium.**

I remember when I had my character locked out because i went over the info cap, I told the CSR's what they had to do to fix it, but they just wouldn't listen. Only after I asked for help from 9mmFu and Rarebit was it finally resolved. Repro was able to repro the problem and then it was fixed. thankfully we have awesome Devs who can make up for the lacking in the CSR team.

NightTrace

Rarebit was nice enough to keep me and a large section of the DOE from being perma-banned by Brewko because we had used the term "CSR" in a speech macro which had NOTHING to do with impersonating an SOE Employee and everything about tinting PVP with some RP.

There was no "investigation" etc, a group of players had just begun to report us from "impersonating a CSR" because we kept owning them in PVP XD, and Brewko was just about to banhammer us all lmao.

"Thank you for playing Star Wars Galaxies" when you're playing MxO >_<

**CrimsonKiller01** · 03/20/2008 09:29:50

My experience was about two weeks ago when I downloaded the MXO launcher and tried the password used last year , of course it didn't work until I finally I used the password from the station launcher/ Success everything was going well until I reached the server menu and discovered that my level 50 character was missing, the only option the launcher was giving me was to create a new character.

I Instant Messaged the CSR team to get the issue resolved. The CSR manager was very polite and patient but the excuses I was given were questionable.

His first excuse was "We do not have any information which were created with WB"

To which I replied that the character was deleted and recreated in an SOE account.

Second excuse was "Are you missing any SOE character then you will get it back but if you are missing WB character then you will not."

Again I explained that I created the character in SOE and that the character still existed in the data base because I just sent it email and had a friend do the same as well.

Finally his solution to the issue: "This is a game play related issue. I will send you an email regarding this issue. Please reply me back to that email. Once we receive your reply I will forward your issue to our Game Play Support. A Game Master will look into your issue and contact you back through email."

This was after an hour of me answering every question he needed and him searching for my character. Funny thing the character I have now has no Beta Gear and I have had this account since Beta. The joke was I told a few friends that by the time I get an email I will probably have the character I am using now (the name "Barloke" is modified the "L" in the name is really a capitol "i" SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=

" />

to level 50 byt the time I got a rply or email from SOE, I am currently at level 31 and still I haven't received one email.

The short of it is that the character I had was level 50 with Beta Gear and over 85,000,000L , all gone now or at least far enough out of reach and no way to retrieve it on my own.

Havocide

SolidRevolver wrote:

I requested a password change, so they changed it.... and didn't tell me what it was, I spent hours searching for the account number of my origional credit card so I could prove it was my account so they would give me the password.

Ah yes I remember that well. You had me contacting live chat lol.

Worst thing happening to me is that I can never ever get the live chat option to load up. >.<

**Lezel**

I remember awhile back ago when I was deleting a character and because of that reason , somehow my other rsi's got stuck and it said my account was already in use. I went to talk to live chat and they lied to me telling me that they would do a world kick before the machine event that evening. Two days later, I got my account unfrozen.

**Virrago**

You guys know that I started out in SOE Tech Support right?

SMILEY

back in October of 2000

Phrack

Wasn't aware of that, Virrago. SMILEY

If you want, you can post some horror stories that you've gone through AS a CSR. lol.

**CrimsonKiller01**

Heh Virrago got the right sig too SMILEY

**ChloeAnn**

Well, all the tech support people I get are always nice to me, and always helps me quickly on my problems. Same when i send in a CCR... theres only one time I had trouble.

I gotta say the best two Ive encountered would be (yes) brewko, and Chrol. Chrol spent two days answering my ccrs. Poor guy lol he must of gotten annoyed with it, but he was nice, and in the end, he got my problem fixed.

9mmfu is also good as well. Havent really dealt with anyone else..

ReProgrammed

I had the same problem Arch, Asked me the same things, but they had me delete my cookies, thinking that that was thr problem, I even told the three people I talked to exactly what to do. Ended up taking 30 hours to solve it. My last responce to them "Is 30 hours the industry standard at SOE?" I then left.

**Darminian**

I was going to compile my 'horror' story when i had managed to finish it and get my issues with swg resolved. I've been trying to get the *CENSORED* game installed fully and properly for the past few weeks, and before i got to this point it was trying to stop the client from crashing - both situations which have had no resolution and countless amounts of stupidity from the support people i've had to deal with.

In current summation of things:

One phone call which informed me of my inability to currently switch to station access.

I've had 7 different chats with TS reps. and not one has yielded a positive result.

I've been escalated to Tier 2 support 3 times - and only recieved one e-mail about an issue i am no longer dealing with.

All of this just so i can play a game i'm not even that crazy about- i mean i'm a 3 year mxo vet, and i'm being caught up in crap like this while just trying to install SWG.

And of the 3-4 causes of problems that have been located - all of them have been done so by my own hand and only after i interupted the TS person and just asked if that could be the problem.

I used to think i only hated them as a corporation because of what they'd done to mxo, but uh - the reasons just keep adding and adding.

Final point - virrago you may have started out there, but you moved on cause you were competent, can we say the same about the people still there? Not to mention your ability to type and comprehend and communicate in english is also a valuable asset.

~Darminian

Buhdai

I would hope Station Access issues are being started and ended with knowledge base chat support. I wouldn't think virrago started in the same support. I don't think the outsourced support speaks English as a first language. Then again, after reading Archangel's experience, that may have been outsourced, their first day or I want some of what they got.