Tuesday 1 June 2010

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

Lets face it, no one likes dealing with customer service because we've all had nightmarish encounters with them before. Am I right? So when you have to contact some one about an issue and you stumble on some good customer service, it's a big deal. I was recently blessed with such an encounter and not only was it enjoyable to converse with them, but they married customer service with one of my loves, role playing. Could it get any better?

I'll keep the back story short because I know some of you are tired of hearing me rant on about Wizard101 and all their greatness, but they have hands down the best online customer service I've ever had the pleasure of dealing with. I was bent of crafting one of the hardest items in the Spiral because I had hit the level cap and was waiting on all the new releases for this spring and summer. Well it took me over a month but I finally farmed enough reagents to craft it (woohoo). I go to my designated crafting area and clicked the button. Simultaneously I get an error message saying the servers are down for maintenance and I get booted off. Well, that was no fun. Long and short of it is I log back in and lo and behold, no item, the reagents are gone, and one of my crafting slots has a cool down timer ticking, indicating I just crafted something. But where are my spoils? Where did all my hard work go? Gone. All that time and effort and gold (in game currency) just wasted on an untimely server crash.

Needless to say I was livid, or heart broken, I couldn't decide. Either way I was none too pleased. After I calmed down and regained composure from my all powerful nerd-rage, I did what any gamer would do... scurried over to the forums to complain! I went to the proper page and posted a new thread about my misfortune in hopes someone would take pity on my poor soul or rant and rave about the same issue. Not two hours later a forum administrator had posted a reply, she goes by Professor Greyrose, which was odd to be because that is one of the NPCs in the game. But here is how the next few days went:




Professor Greyrose
Administrator
Oh dear! Please contact Mr Lincoln
through either the Help & Support link on the left, or directly through
email at support@wizard101.com
". . . with Persistence, Victory is assured"
Lydia Greyrose
Professor of Ice Magic



Well I immediately emailed this "Mr. Lincoln" character and within ten hours was met with his response:




Hi there,
Please let me know your username and character name and I will
send this to the Senior Wizards to investigate.
Regards,
Mr. Lincoln
Ravenwood School of Magical Arts

PS: While you're in the waiting
room, please peruse some fascinating reading material:
https://www.wizard101.com/guide




I sent my information along with an almost exact time as to when the incident occurred (thanks to my cool down timer) and waited. And waited. And got nervous when I didn't hear anything after twenty four hours. I just thought to myself, "great, another lost cause in the customer service department." then it happened. The huge update for the advanced pet system went live. Half a day later I get this in my inbox:




Hello!
I'm sorry for the delay, I'd like to confer with our Senior Wizards on this matter. Please give me just a little bit of time.
Thank you for your patience,
Regards,
Mr. Lincoln
Ravenwood School of Magical Arts



What a relief, someone admitting that they are taking a while on a situation and owning up to it. No excuses, no complaining about how untimely my "problem" was and no mention about how busy they were. Just a simple, "I'm sorry, just a little bit longer please." So refreshing! The very next day, all my dreams came true!





Hello and thank you for contacting Wizard101 Support!
We are very sorry for the poor timing and loss of your reagents. I've gone ahead and given you the following back.
Crystal Vial 1
Ore 80
Fossil 30
Scrap Iron 25
Black Pearl 15
Leather Straps 48
Shadow Oil 4
Let us know if there is anything else we can do for you.
Sincerely,
The Senior Wizards
KingsIsle Support



Now try and tell me that isn't amazing service. How many MMO's do you know of that has over five million registered users takes the time to thoroughly investigate and resolve an issue with just one customer. Not to mention returning lost items. Wow. In roughly three days, not only did they resolve my issue, GIVE back all my reagents that I worked so hard for, and release a huge update... they stayed in character the whole time! If I didn't love Wizard101 before, I do now. These Kings Isle employees really stick to it when it comes to character. The forums are hilarious to read because all the administrators answer questions and write posts as if the Ravenwood School for Wizards is a real place. Absolutely love it.



So next time you're on hold for three hours just for someone to tell you they can't help you and don't even have you in their system, remember... There are some good guys out there, they just might be meeting with the Senior Wizards at the moment.

2 comments:

DiCeY AKA AsHlEy said...

First of all I would like to thank you for helping me find the amazing world which is wizard 101 I never heard of it until I read this blog and i'm glad I took the time to read your review on the customer service because not only am I excited about having a fun new game to play I know that the customer support will be awsome aswell I was a little annoyed about the names though I thought Ashley was fairly common but it wasn't there for choice unlike the ever so popular name Austin! so blaze ashheart it is lol

Amanda said...

Awesome! I'm so glad you've joined up with the millions who play W101. Hope you are enjoying it as much as I do, and feel free to message me if you ever have any questions. www.wizard101central.com and of course www.wizard101.com are both amzing places for information, hints, and tips for your journey across the Spiral!

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