On June 22 I sent a ticket to the WildStar Support queue. A few days earlier I had opted for a free realm transfer from Pergo, an original and vastly overcrowded destination, to Rowsdower, a new realm thrown up during the early-adopter crush. Understanding the swarm of players opting for the free switch, I didn’t fuss when it wasn’t completed in 24 hours. Or 48 hours. When 72 hours came and went I got worried. Logging in I saw that my character was no longer on either server, instead getting dumped to the unrelated Bloodsworn PvP server. I logged in to the realm to find…
NOTHING!
My character that I spent the first few days power leveling had evaporated. It did not exist on either the originating or destination realm, nor the realm that the system claimed it was on when in the Character Selection screen. That’s when the panicked support ticket went out. It was initially met with standard, seemingly automated replies. For a solid week.
‘Check this FAQ. Oh we fixed stuff, take a peek and let us know. We need more information.’ All your typical unactionable responses. Again, I understood that the company likely had a parade of tickets coming through, so I kept my cool and replied with more information, screenshots and any detail I thought relevant. Then days started going by without any response from WildStar Player Support whatsoever.
Some suggestions:
- Have support agents own a ticket. I dealt with five unique individuals, only conversing with the same person once. This wastes agent time and my time having to re-explain issues.
- Response time should be less than 24 hours. This timeframe could be difficult during high stress areas, like a launch or major content patch, but that should be the goal. Weekends may make this hairy depending on schedules.
- Pass off tickets only as escalation bumps or to cover shifts as a ticket ages.
- Do keep the original support agent in the loop and able to reclaim a ticket upon their return.
- Be quicker and better at disseminating common information. WildStar actually did this pretty well, it just didn’t actually apply in my case.
- Accept and admit when the company made a mistake. Most people will see this humanizing to the company.
Nearly 20 days after the ticket was initially created and about 4 weeks since the issue began my character has returned from the ether. The client still says she’s on Bloodsworn, but Solidsagart is actually on the original destination of Rowsdower. Annoyingly, in the interim my friends created characters on Bloodsworn meaning I have to re-roll anyways.
Them’s the breaks.