Support tickets are a joke

[telperion]

The support ticket system isn't a support system. It's a system designed to massively off the player base.

So the process seems to be:

1) set up ticket
2) wait.....
3) get frustrated....
4) get REALLY annoyed.....
5) quit playing the game

Why the hell do you even have a support ticket system when you're not actually bothering to support your customers, Frontier? For frak's sake, either switch it off or reply to your customers! Just letting them create support tickets that are then completely ignored is extremely bad business practice and does nothing except make all the current customers bad-mouth your company to anyone who'll listen.

I played the original Elite, I've been a staunch supporter of ED from the beginning (being an original backer from the kickstarter) and I've been extremely excited about the game but this has completely turned me off the game and the company and I know I'm definitely not the only one. I've gone from saying to people "Yeah, David Braben and his team know what they're doing, get involved" to "They clearly have no idea what they're doing, have released a buggy product and provide precisely no support to their customer base to the point that people are wasting entire evenings recovering from the effects of bugs and Frontier simply don't care about it one bit. Do not under any circumstances buy this game until they've got their stuff sorted, if indeed they ever do."

This is a massive change in my (and a lot of others') perspective which could have been easily avoided. It's a shame that I and the other backers thought that Frontier would be a professional outfit. We were clearly wrong.

Yours sincerely,

Mr. Cathartic Outburst

 

[StayFrosty]

What is it you need help with?

 

[Flappers]

As annoying as it can be, it seems they work on tickets based on priority.

Got a bug? It gets passed on to internal testing to see if it can be replicated.
Unable to play? These will take priority.

You need to take a look at how many people are playing, and the size of Frontier.
They have recently hired more support staff (according to the newsletter) - these new staff members require training before going on live support.

Frontier isn't like Blizzard or EA, with a massive ton of cash at their disposal for support.

Besides, if you think Frontier's support is bad... you haven't experienced Steam support.

You need to be patient with tickets. If it's a minor bug, don't expect a response too soon.

 

[babelfisch]

I said it before and I will say it again:

The problem with the support is not that there is no support. The players who think they should ticket everything, starting with loosing a ship due to insufficent credits or getting fined for accidental friendly fire are the problem. Or ticketing an already known bug instead of using the forum search.

Support system should be in place for people who realy have game breaking bugs (like not beeing able to log in or instant crash) or new, unknown bugs. But everyone feels entitled to pester the support with the loss of a few hunderedthousand credits.

 

[Whiterose]

I have a bug/glitch whereby when I dock none of the "starport services" "hangar" or "launch" options are selected. I have to go to the right UI and then back again so that "Starport services" can be selected. I have ticketed this, and my point is I am not expecting an answer any time soon as its not a critical glitch / bug. I can still play, its is just mildly annoying. I would rather they fixed some of the more criticla issues first, although it would be nice to know if ones ticket was high, medium or low priority.

 

[notorious]

ya I agree support is a joke, I have an open ticket since January about my lost (ship blew middle of no where for no reason and lost my 10M ship)

 

[Phyl]

I have a bug/glitch whereby when I dock none of the "starport services" "hangar" or "launch" options are selected.

You don't have focus on the comms panel open do you? I have this same thing - when I close the comms panel the options become selectable. I am finding the comms panel opens a lot for me at the moment when I don't want it - annoying as I need to close it to do things like select targets - not sure if it is me messing up my controller settings or a bug of some kind but I've not been able to fix it by changing settings so far....

 

[daan2002]

some need to wake up and realize this is not Blizzard support FD does not have a legion of a support team and are not going to be able to get to you with in 24 hours FD more than likely have 100's if not 1000's of tickets coming in every day

 

[Gogster]

Well I recently had a reply to my 1.1 collision ticket saying I'd received a 880k refund. Which is slightly bizarre as the Lakon 6 is 1m+ credits and was upgraded and had 100+ tonnes of gold on board.

Anyhoo, I'll live, but tickets do get answered.

 

[xtridence]

some need to wake up and realize this is not Blizzard support FD does not have a legion of a support team and are not going to be able to get to you with in 24 hours FD more than likely have 100's if not 1000's of tickets coming in every day

Sir, 10 people can handle each one approx. 400 tickets per shift. Means, 10*400 = 4.000 tickets per day. Which makes 80.000 tickets per month.

Too much?

I just forgot: Frontier Development actually has only 2 persons working as customer support representatives.

<snip>

 

[Gogster]

Sir, 10 people can handle each one approx. 400 tickets per shift. Means, 10*400 = 4.000 tickets per day. Which makes 80.000 tickets per month.

Too much?

I just forgot: Frontier Development actually has only 2 persons in charge of tickets.

Did I've mentioned this game is broken? Well, it is.

73.6% of all statistics are made up.

 

[xtridence]

73.6% of all statistics are made up.

No, Sir. No statistics. True facts brought up from my very own personal experience.

Having insight as BDM in a company for administrative coordination of energy supply, shows you how much tickets can be done per day by a single team of 20 CSRs divided in 2 shifts..

 

[babelfisch]

Sir, 10 people can handle each one approx. 400 tickets per shift. Means, 10*400 = 4.000 tickets per day. Which makes 80.000 tickets per month.

Too much?

I just forgot: Frontier Development actually has only 2 persons working as customer support representatives.

Did I've mentioned this game is broken? Well, it is.

400 per shift? That would make 50 tickets per hour, 0.8 (edit actually 1.2) tickets per minute. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.

EDIT:
SORRY, didnt read properly!
EDIT2:
SORRY, did read properly!

 

[Gogster]

No, Sir. No statistics. True facts brought up from my very own personal experience.

Having insight as BDM in a company for administrative coordination of energy sumministration, shows you how much tickets can be done per day by a single team of 20 CSR's.

And now you're whipping out unverifiable statements to support your arbitrary figures.

Strange person.

 

[xtridence]

400 per shift? That would make 50 tickets per hour, 0.8 tickets per minute. You clearly have no idea what you are talking about.

EDIT:
SORRY, didnt read properly!
EDIT2:
SORRY, did read properly!

Okay, let's strip this.

50 tickets per hour (1 hour has 60 minutes) = 0.8 tickets per minute?
Aha. Tell me more, please.

The average handling time to respond on a ticket is approx. 48 seconds. Time enough to decide if you're going to put in a textblock or just forward it to a superior / different department.
I don't know how you guys do this, but we usually employ people with skills like speed reading.

 

[StayFrosty]

Do people really file tickets for losing things due to bugs? Really?

No wonder it takes so much time to answer tickets. Because I'm not sure that's what support is there for. Support is there for people who have problems running or playing the game, and for bug reporting, not crying for your lost credits.

It's a video game, if you lose something, bug or not, just sit on it and keep playing.

 

[graham.reeds]

I got notified on Monday that my ticket I raised at Christmas was to be closed (which I to be fair I haven't seen since then).

I got notified this morning that another ticket I had raised, which I still think is there, has been closed since "We have recently released a number of game updates since your ticket was submitted". I screen shotted the issue, put a big red ring around it (so there can be no confusiuon) but I am pretty sure that this issue is still there - it wouldn't take more than a few minutes to fire up the most recent release, jump in an ASP and check. I will be checking tonight but if someone can post a screen shot of the cockpit of an ASP I could tell.

 

[babelfisch]

Okay, let's strip this.

50 tickets per hour (1 hour has 60 minutes) = 0.8 tickets per minute?
Aha. Tell me more, please.

The average handling time to respond on a ticket is approx. 48 seconds. Time enough to decide if you're going to put in a textblock or just forward it to a superior / different department.
I don't know how you guys do this, but we usually employ people with skills like speed reading.

Yep, you actually say 1.2 tickets per minute what is even worse. Have fun derailing your arguments.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

The average handling time to respond on a ticket is approx. 48 seconds. Time enough to decide if you're going to put in a textblock or just forward it to a superior / different department.
I don't know how you guys do this, but we usually employ people with skills like speed reading.

You can't even read and understand a ticket in 48 seconds. Sir you just don't know anything of what you are trying to talk about.

Do people really file tickets for losing things due to bugs? Really?

No wonder it takes so much time to answer tickets. Because I'm not sure that's what support is there for. Support is there for people who have problems running or playing the game, and for bug reporting, not crying for your lost credits.

It's a video game, if you lose something, bug or not, just sit on it and keep playing.

This.

 

[xtridence]

Yep, you actually say 1.2 tickets per minute what is even worse. Have fun derailing your arguments.
You can't even read and understand a ticket in 48 seconds. Sir you just don't know anything of what you are trying to talk about.

http://www.supportindustry.com/researchinsight_AHT.htm

Mmmmh... Suck... it... up... Babelfisch...

 

[Flappers]

http://www.supportindustry.com/researchinsight_AHT.htm

Mmmmh... Suck... it... up... Babelfisch...

Wow... so mature

Your graph is irrelevant, as it is based on standard support services.
Game support is completely different.

You have obviously never worked a day in your life on 1st line support. As you wouldn't be basing your views on "averages" and expecting every company (any service) to fit those averages. Support service response times depend on the service in question.

Without actually having experience in the field, your argument is invalid.