Hello, and welcome to Customer Support at [a major casual games portal]. This is a difficult job, and not everyone is cut out for the unique stresses. You’ll be disoriented, abused, blamed, and threatened, but if you can learn to roll with the punches, you’ll find a job rich with unique rewards. The rewards will come in the form of a very reasonable paycheck, and free soda.

You already know sh*t rolls downhill. In casual games, customer support is at the bottom of that hill. Actually, it’s in a valley, nestled between the company and the consumer. When anyone on either side makes a mistake, it rolls down the hill, and the support team deals with it. When marketing forgets to note an expiration date, it’s your problem. When a customer accidentally orders a game six times, it’s your problem. When QA misses a level design error that makes it impossible to beat the game, it’s your problem. When a functionally illiterate seventy-eight year old doesn’t understand the difference between the right and left mouse buttons, it’s your problem.

Support is different from other jobs you may have had in one very important way. While any type of employment will sometimes put you in the position of scrambling to find a solution for someone else’s mistake, in support you will do that exclusively. There is never a moment of relief where you’ve cleaned everything up, and are now able to get back to doing productive work. When you’ve solved all the problems, you get to start working on more problems.

Replying To Emails

Most of your day will still be fairly straightforward. You’ll have people who have moved to a new computer and need help retrieving their software, people who are having problems running the game they downloaded, people who have questions about a specific game, and billing errors make up the bulk of the issues you’ll respond to. However, a good 10% of these people will not be writing to you in a way that appreciably resembles English.

	This is what I see at night.

“It has thegame downloads. It has the game its is it error. I Need Help.”

 

This email is actually not so bad. You know they’re talking about a game, which they’ve either downloaded or attempted to download. You at least know which questions to ask. For questions less coherent than this, we have a form response that, in very polite terms, lets the customer know that you have no idea what they’ve said, and gives a list of information that would be helpful.

You are going to be cursed at. People are going to call you a liar. They are going to accuse you of stealing from them. They are going to call your ancestry and sexual orientation into question. They will refer to you giving them simple instructions, such as a request that they reinstall, as “the runaround”. We’re going to look at a few examples, and discuss the appropriate response to these special case emails.

“XXXXXXXX.com your CROOKS. The Soliaire Games Are RIGGED. A deck of cards does not have 6 5's or 7 Queens. Their is no way mathematically that after your hand is dealt that you go through the whole deck and not have one move, not just one game but 12 games in a row. Cards change and they disappear. Your CROOKS, and a bunch of cheats. I wouldn't buy your games for nothing.”

 

I think it’s important to note that this is not a paying customer. He had only used free web based games. It’s also worth mentioning that this same customer sent a number of emails to us, most containing graphic sexual imagery and a distinctive use of the phrase “your crooks”. The appropriate response here is actually to delete the email and move on. There’s nothing to be done for this poor soul.

Then there are the emails that involve some sort of inappropriate disclosure.

“My mother and I have decided to buy the game XXXXXXX, everything worked pefectly until my mother might have made a mistake,and the game has left us. There is a mesage stating a problem and that they have to close. Please give us our game back our I will start drinking again.or I kill myself.”

 

Treat this email as if it was totally normal. They’ve lost their copy of the game. Just find their purchase, and send them the information they need to get the game downloaded. Do not mention the suicide threat or the alcoholism. They might have been joking, they might not. The only safe thing to do is pretend you’re a robot that answers these emails based on keywords.

“I have come to the last five levels and the game is no longer random. I do believe that paying for a game should give me the ability to win the game. If the random dropping of symbols is truley random then why do the black faced creatures stop coming down when I have two blocking the game and 20 come down when There is no need to eliminate them? Not really random is it? More like the games here in Vegas. The only exception is that I AM THE HOUSE not you since I PURCHASED THE GAME. Now either contact me with a new game that is random and is completed to the level I am or give me my money back. I do not participate in a loose-loose situation and not go to the head of the company and complain very loudly. I also do not want an answer where there are >< to write my question between or I will contact the BBB and report the scam that is being perpatrated on the public.
Sincerely,
XXXXXXXXXXXX

PS if you think I am bluffing, contact MP3 and Rapsody.”

 

Threats are similar. Pretend they aren’t there. People will drop any name they can think of. The Better Business Bureau, the Attorney General, the police, Crocodile Dundee, God, the Television, the credit card company and private lawyers have all been invoked as agents for justice should the customer’s needs not be met. Keep in mind that out of the agencies mentioned, those that might actually contact you are very reasonable, and the records you have showing that you’ve made every effort to resolve the issue with the customer will cause them to rule on your side. So for the above email, ignore the threats, and focus instead on the claim that the developers would have consciously made it impossible to complete the game by changing the behavior from random to fixed.

	This is where you'll spend most of your day.

You are going to be lied to. More painfully, you are going to be lied to by people who are not smart enough to lie. Don’t ever call them on it. Tell them they must have been confused, or act like you don’t understand. For example.

DEAR SIR OR MADAM,
FIRST, I DID NOT AUTHORIZE THIS PURCHASE. )SECOND,THE GAME LICENCE DOES NOT WORK!AT ALL!XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX,PLAYER ID#XXXXXXX THAT DOE NOT WORK!PASSWORD#0483 THAT DOESN'T WORK! CODE XXXXXX XXXXXX DOESN'T WORK!ITS MESSING UP THE COMPUTER!
PLUS,ITS ONLY FOR ONE GAME?i CAN PLAY AS MANY 60 MINUTE GAME DEMOS FOR FREE,WHY WOULD I BUY BLACKJACK?I CAN GO ON SUN CRUZ CASINO BOAT FOR 6 HOURS FREE BECAUSE I AM A VIP MEMBER AND THE SEA ESCAPE FREE.IS ALL THIS TROUBLE WORTH $20 TO YOUR COMPANY?
(At that point the customer wrote two more paragraphs about her back problems, the medications she takes, her children’s performance in school, the man she lives with, brings up the game again, and closes by recommending an herbal remedy for hot flashes.)

 

Sure, it’s a little inconsistent that she claims that she didn’t purchase the game, then complains that she can’t get it to register properly, and finally that the game is causing computer problems. The only clear thing is she doesn’t want the game. Despite the number of conflicting elements in her tale, she started by saying it was unauthorized, so it’s best to go with that when documenting the refund. When you tell her the order has been canceled, don’t bother mentioning that she could just have said she changed her mind and you still would have issued a refund. She will accuse you of not trusting her.

Don’t lose hope though. Some people love the services we provide, and occasionally, one of them lets us know.

“XXXXXXXX is the best game in my life. this support me to tnink clearly, supportively, experiencely and so on. I hope i will play this game everyday with a very happy face. good bye to the people who sponser this game to all people. – LXXXX LXX LXXX LXXX_sciencetist”

 

In this case, you should just thank the customer for her kind words, and thank god that she’s on your side.

Customer Support Orientation Guide: A Conclusion

The theme here is probably pretty clear: Ignore everything but the technical side of the problem. Email Customer Support is often accused of being impersonal or cold, but it’s the only way to deal with emails like these. If you can’t separate the issue from the way it’s delivered, you can’t do this job.

A final warning: Take regular breaks over the course of the day, or your brain will rebel. You will develop a headache, and your eyes will refuse to focus. This is a good time to grab one of those free sodas I mentioned at the beginning.

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