Unsubscribed/uninstalled elder scrolls --- Worst Customer Support Ever

I am so sorry to hear that you have given up on the game. Did you try the email support? I was getting a great response time there.

=( I have always had great customer support. Sorry all the pain it caused you! Maybe you can return in a month or two when they get all their kinks worked out? =)

My experience with customer service has been decidedly poor as well, but I haven't had any issue serious enough to make me unsubscribe (luckily).

Second using email support.  Because you know the phone call back will take much longer time than the email service for both the customer and the service representative, that maybe was why you were not able to get a call back as quick as you would expect, considering the game just launched and need a lot of bug fixed and the call back queue is probably flooded.

If the storyline is bugged it may be an issue that they can't address immediately.  Account issues, yes...but customer service may not be the route to go for a game issue.  A bug report then go do something else in game until the next update fixes it.

I was stuck, blocked from VR content for 2-3 days, customer service was horrible for me also - I got a response 3 days after I my problem solved (5-6 days after the ticket went in).  I have a friend who completed all the content for the entire story, got his quest completed and the reward, is back in the harborage and the npc that opens up access to the VR content is bugged and stuck in an animation loop so he has been blocked since Thursday - unable to advance and no response from them.

Bugs happen, I can understand that, but having such abysmal customer service is completely unacceptable.

I had to google what VR content was and found this:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/73076/ebonheart-vr-content-bugged

One respondent suggested this work around:

You could try fixing Tomb quest by going to activate the middle corpse and just spam E (or whatever is your "activate" key), assuming I remember it correctly.

Well the problem here is people being prevented from accessing any of the VR content, not the individual bugs in the content itself (although they kinda suck also).

 I feel like they are more concerned about fixing the beginning areas before they address the end content so much. Seems like a perfect time to roll an alt.

I didn't know people still used telephones to contact customer support services.  Email has been a far more efficient service for nearly a decade now.  It's unfortunate that you feel the need to uninstall, but I do understand.  I cancelled my preorder during beta due to issues that I considered game-breaking, I ended up turning around and reordering the game because I wanted to play with friends.  What really disappoints me is to see the same game breaking bugs from january still present in the first month of launch.

All I gotta say is the game hasn't been out for a whole week yet.  There are several bugs on launch and they're still working on it.  Gotta cut them some slack.  It's not like they're serving 500 players, but they're the customer service for all of the ESO players for the whole entire world.  Sorry to hear that though Lymosa.  I hope to see you in the next game or if you do decide to return.

From what I understand the bug he is talking about has been around since early beta so it really should have been fixed by now.  During beta I had a great experience with CS but since launch I have to agree that even with email support I feel it has been severely lacking. :(

@Darkdonut, the game may have only been out a week but "several bugs" from launch go back to 3-6 months.  The bugs pertaining to balreth, Ragebinder or blaze in Stonefalls specifically was bugged in October 13 and still present at launch.  Bugs in the main story quest that stop a player from progressing to the veteran content are game breaking bugs that should have been addressed long before launch, especially considering how long some of the bugs have been present.  The biggest flaw in this game is having the veteran content gated by the main story, because if for some reason you are unable to complete the main story whether it be bugs or personal skill you are locked out of the veteran content and it's game over.

I get the same canned response to every email I send to customer support "If we do not hear from you within 24 hours, we will assume your issue is resolved".   

I wouldn't take the "we will assume that it is resolved if you don't answer back" as anything rude or otherwise.  They have to sort thru all the service requests in some way and this will ensure that people that still needs help, gets a faster chance of getting the help they asked for.  If they had to contact each and everyone, and then wait for a response, then we are looking at weeks of response time, not days.

Don't like that the email is poorly formatted and it is not obvious what you need to do, but I have given that as feedback.

I knew better to try calling so I too tried via email and that was the same deal...notta...complete joke at this point for me.

http://guildwars.gaiscioch.com/tavern/eso_discussion/post_78372.html

Sorry to add negativity to our forums  Morigana. You are a great  person (yes I can tell without meeting you). You were the one that even helped me on the bugged quest where we all finally got credit  on the Baleth bug. Ironically enough that was the toon I had to delete since CS would not respond to me in over a week with nothing more than an automated one. That toon is now deleted and I have a new and improved Sorcerer hehe. I look at it like this > it was meant to be. On my new toon I looted 3 motifs and 2 locked chests at the very start in Davon's Watch before I was even lvl 4 AND she is assigned to Hopesfire campaign like all my other toons! So the gods work in mysterious ways and I will refrain from posting anymore negative feedback so be it. I agree with you.

I'm sorry to hear so many are having customer service issues.  My own experience has been different. I've worked with them via email on issues with much success with the added benefit that this method gives you a "paper trail" which is nice.  I've used in game live chat to resolve quest specific issues also.  Remember, just like any other service all people are not created equal, some are better than others. I see this in restaurants and lately, sadly, with nursing also.  Patience and perseverance  (and politeness) is the key, in my opinion.

Just don't get frustrated, most in game problems can be "shelved" for a bit while something else is pursued.  I also wouldn't recommend "throwing out the baby with the bath water".  I've yet to encounter a bug in a year of testing that required deleting a character.  You can always make an alt to explore or experience other facets of the game while your issue is being addressed.

If your issues are with game installation or account log on those really are game breaking, so I'm sure that is where their highest priority is right now.  If your problem is of this nature I would definitely get an email thread going with them.

I hope these issues get addressed for everyone soon, but in the meantime, remember it's a game and we have more fun with a smile than a frown.

Naay, you say you used in game live chat to resolve a problem - that must have been on PTS because they don't have the option to do that any more in live.  PTS their customer service was amazing - probably because they only had a few thousand to deal with.

I understand that quests will be broken and I dealt with some of them as I leveled.  Most required workarounds and were annoying but able to be resolved in the end, others were truly broken and I had to just leave the quest and hope it gets fixed some day so I can come back for it.

The problem is the handful of quests which act as a bottleneck to content - when those quest NPC's break they stop everyone from progressing beyond that point.  You can't just skip the quest and go to the next area, you're prevented from doing that by the bug.  I was stuck for a couple of days and it was extremely frustrating, my buddy has been stuck for a week now.  They only communicate with him through generic cut and paste "try relogging or reloading ui, try abandoning the quest" responses so they clearly are not even reading his ticket properly.  It's at the point where his guild leader has had to get in contact with Jessica over it and her response was "we're sorry, we're working on it".

The problem is that while they are working on fixing it (and all the other problems) he has been unable to play his character for a week.  As well as fixing the long term bug they should be addressing the immediate problem.  Either manually advance his quest status to the next step or manually abandon the quest for him (it's a main story quest so he can't abandon it himself) and he'd do the quest again no problem - he could have done the quest over 500 times in the time he's been waiting for resolution.

It isn't the bugs or other problems that bothers me, just that customer service really has been abysmal. I think in many cases the way they approach it has done more to harm goodwill than the underlying problem. For the two tickets I sent, response was slow and it was clear customer service didn't even read them before replying. I'd state my problem then list the things I'd already tried on my own before submitting the ticket. The response was "Sorry you're having this problem. Try X and Y," where X and Y are the exact two things I stated in my original ticket as having tried. That sort of thing rightly takes player frustration to a new level.

There is also the factor of advancing much faster than the general population of this game, you are level 50 while most of the players are around level 20ish at this point.

My highest is just level 13.

So ZOS is going to see a lot of bug reports on lower level contents vs higher level contents like 100 to 1, no doubt they are going to address the more prevalent lower level content issues.

Like some suggested, time to level another char, do PvP, do other contents while waiting for the issue to be addressed would probably make you feel better, if you do enjoy the game except for the bugs.

All it takes is something excruciatingly ugly and negative for the press to latch onto at the launch of a game for the game to suffer its entire run. Ask Vanguard or SimCity how it works. Game launches are the most important time to insure longevity and success, and so far ZOS is not off to a good start. With so many broken quests and just absolutely horrible customer non-service, they are making a face for themselves as a company to stay away from. After browsing through Reddit, game forums, and my own experience, ZOS has something like a 5-10 day turnaround on just responding to tickets. In what world is this acceptable? I thought Comcast customer service was bad, but ZOS makes them look like the pillar of great customer service and that's just sad. This whole thing reeks of take-your-money-and-run syndrome.

I mean, I'm still playing, working my way around broken quests and pretty much doing everything I can to avoid having to submit a ticket because the game, overall, is still fun. I don't even report gold spammers or bots anymore. Two weeks in and I'm already assuming this game is going to take a Vanguard-nosedive. All because of an outwardly and very publicly terrible customer support system.

Wow, I'm glad I'm only level 16.  Some of you are so fast! heh  I think I'd be stressed out if I leveled that fast.  I'm enjoying the content, taking my time, doing everything the game has to offer, and AvA is fun too.  I've had a couple issues with quests not able to advance but after an email with suggestions or coming back to it the next day, they fixed themselves.  I found this (http://tamrielfoundry.com/topic/non-existand-zenimax-customer-support/) on Tamriel Foundry and reading all the responses it seems like it's a mix of experiences, with actually more having had a good customer service experience.  And given that it's only a week into the game, if it were me I'd give them more time to sort through everything.  If they need to add/hire more people it won't happen over night or even within a week necessarily.  

Dex, just because we got to higher levels doesn't mean we arent enjoying the content - in fact I'd say that if I wasn't enjoying the content I wouldn't be a high level!

I know some people grinded from 10-50 in a cave somewhere but not all of us in VR cotnent did that (in fact I'd say most didn't).  I did (almost) every quest in every zone (that wasn't bugged), all 16 dungeons, all the public dungeons.  I have all the skyshards available from 1-50 (including all 46 in Cyrodil) and a ton of lorebooks.  I killed all but a couple of world bosses and dark anchors (the ones that bugged or were never spawned when I stopped by).

I've also spent ~ 20 or so hours in AvA, crowned a friend as Emperor, taken keeps, captured scrolls, had some epic battles - good times!

I really think everyone should play the way they want to - whether that's a few hours a day or all but a few hours a day!  Concentrate on one character or play 8 different alts to sample every flavour in the game - either playstyle is valid so long as you adhere to the golden rule...

Make sure you have fun.

I have had a blast every moment I've been playing the game, I've been frustrated or annoyed at some of the bugs but either figured out a fix, brute forced through them, or left them to go back to later if they were truly broken (some of those quests were so broke they ended up removing them from the game lol).  The problem is the bottlenecks that block forward progress, especially when you've been as completionist as I have because there wasn't much left for me to go back and do while I waited for the fix.

I think right now we need to step back and realize a few things.

1: ZeniMax never anticipated this many people at launch. Launches are always hard to predict. If you build up too much infrastructure in the beginning and your game doesn't match it, you end up laying a ton of people off right out the gate. You have any idea what the press and investors see when you lay a ton of people off out the gate? Yeah a doomed game. If you build an ample staff and then hire like mad the spin however is the opposite. Think about it. A game that cuts staff in the first month, what does that tell you? Then a game that doubles it staff in the first month, what does that tell you? Two different public views, one negative, one positive. This is the pickle that Zenimax is caught in.

2. ZeniMax is understaffed big time. I don't think their CS team was even close to large enough. Last numbers I saw, the game sold over 2 million copies in the first week. Without the support team to handle that type of populous its going to be a bit crazy. Don't believe me take a look at their open positions: http://jobs.zenimax.com/search over 100 unique positions available for ZeniMax Online Studios. Not a day goes by that Jess, Joe, and Gina aren't posting about needing to fill CS positions.

I understand this is very frustrating and hey we're paying for this why should we not have service. But I can tell you that I have never seen a launch go off without some kind of an issue or another. These things happen. It's unfortunate but they do. If you're done with trying to work it out, thats your right. We'll see you in a future chapter down the road. I would however encourage you to keep trying. Also get me a ticket number and I'll see if I can move things along from my end.

Am i the only one that doesn't see the body of what he typed as the reason why he unsubscribed? Or was his post deleted?

He removed the content of their post.

He probably deleted it himself.

If a moderator was removing the post, the whole thread would be gone, not just the initial post.

As I've noted in another thread, my experience of the game as a whole has been quite good, and I'm enjoying it a great deal. I've been lucky in that I haven't had many issues. If I'm being honest, I have to say that the two issues I did have, and that went to customer service, were handled quite poorly from my perspective. However, I think what Fog says about staffing is on-target. In fact, the complaints I have about my customer service experience are all emblematic of being understaffed, and I envision the CSRs being so overwhelmed they just can't do a good job with every ticket.

The action I took, which I hope will be of some use to Zenimax, was simply to fill out the Customer Service survey they emailed me, and in a polite manner explain what I thought were the biggest problems with Customer Service and how they might be addressed. I'm pretty tolerant of bugs and delay times at launch, but what got me was getting a response, after waiting, that the CSR clearly hadn't even read. I felt a bit insulted by that. I'd rather simply get an email saying "Hey, we're sorry but we are completely overwhelmed. We haven't gotten to your ticket yet, but rest assured we will get to it as soon as possible." 

If I'd received that response, then yeah, maybe it's still disappointing but it is entirely understandable. Getting an email that purported to be a response but wasn't because the CSR clearly didn't read the ticket only create a poor impression of Customer Service.

So my response to the survey said just that, and I also mentioned the fact that I appreciate how overwhelmed they must be and that most customers would be understanding if they'd just say that's the problem. And then I made a note of pointing out the things I did like about the game and the launch, including customer service, so it didn't look like someone just griping with them. 

It's a good game, and I think they'll get things ironed out. Growing pains can be hard, but I think if they get the Customer Service thing figured out that will go a long way about making people feel better about things, even if they're still experiencing issues.

If nobody minds, I will toss in my 2 cents on the opposite spectrum.  I initially chose an Account ID having no knowledge that it is used for in-guild conversations.  Though the ID I chose was not embarrassing by any means, it did detract from 'keeping my head in the game' in Tamriel rather than thinking about mountains.  :P

I contacted CS during the PTS regarding this issue, and was told there was nothing they could do because I did not have a Live key input yet.  This made perfect sense to me, and so I held off asking again until launch (my PTS and Live IDs were the same).  When launch arrived, I waited a few days as both my assumption and game experience indicated to me the CS staff would be swamped.  Last week I submitted the request again - initial responder misunderstood my question, but upon replying and clarifying, the team was able to handle the request and make the change with no issue.

Given we are less than a month into the game, and as mentioned above current bugs and initial subscriber load, I was beyond pleased with my CS experience.  I definitely do not want to diminish the frustration others are experiencing, but did want to balance the feedback to some degree.  Good luck to all in resolution to your issues.

A wannabe ski bum outside of Tamriel, who simply wanted to be known as Sinjj....and it was done. :)

Yeah, I actually have been having a blast and I absolutely hated the game during beta. It was glitchy, quests didnt' work at all, the art was horrible, and the mechanics seemed off if not working at all.

I kept playing it and eventually noticed they were taking suggestions very well and fixing stuff so I decided to try it and i'm glad I did.

Plus i'm running a tally of how many botters I've reported. So far I've gotten six. Woot woot!

Being in IT support myself for many years I can tell you there is nothing more frustrating than not be able to fix a problem.

If there not giving you responses its because they cant do anything themselves and or no one above them can fix it too.  They are also not allowed to come clean with you and say things like. You number 100432 with that issue it may take us a week to advance your quest. We were told to wait till the next push to production. It should resolve the issue. If they tell you that they will get fired. Customer service for 5 million people is a daunting task. Its even more daunting when none of them can fix the issue and there told to distract you with a list of canned responses. I would not want to be doing their job right now :(

Then again if they would hire remote staff i would take the job in a heartbeat lol :)

(I read the OP before it was deleted so some of my response relates to what is now not visible).

I have found the "canned email response" with that line about "if we don't hear from you...we will assume your issue is resolved" annoying too, and I gave feedback to that effect months ago. It's poorly worded and would be far less inflammatory if it were along the lines of "please reply to this ticket if this does not solve your issue" and then mention the timer as a footnote, since most players will reply within the timeframe anyway. 

My own experience with customer service was a learning curve for me - it started off badly but ended well. Blocked content in a questline is one thing, but when I submitted a ticket via email it was because I couldn't log into the game at all.

I gritted my teeth through 4 identical canned responses, and decided to reply in kind: I turned my initial ticket into a canned response, and every time I got one back, I replied right away (which bumps the ticket) and added new line regarding the latest response (along the lines of: "your latest response did not solve my issue") and then block pasted my entire initial ticket content below that. I avoided adding any emotional content (frustration, anger) to my replies (although I admit to being tempted to include it!) and simply played "canned response tennis" with them.

To my surprise (since by that time I'd started to give up hope that it would be fixed anytime soon), after the 4th round of canned response tennis, my ticket was escalated to a supervisor who was apologetic and helpful. She fixed my login issue right away, and was so great about it that I was glad I hadn't given in to the temptation to throw a tantrum with each canned response.

It seems like the staff shortages in their customer service department have created a giant bottleneck in ticket escalation: tickets get stuck in the first-level template responses and take a while to be escalated to the right staff for resolution (and in the case of quest blocks, may not have a current solution or even an estimated timeframe for resolution that can be provided in response to a ticket). It's unfortunate, but it is what it is. I don't expect it to be this way forever.

If the current state of customer service is a dealbreaker for you, I can understand your desire to walk away. But my own experience is that persistence has a huge payoff, if you can hang on a little longer.

Just going to break down the numbers...

Fog stated over 2 mil copies sold.

Just for the sake of argument 1 million are playing.

10 tickets per playing in the first 2 weeks. (I've submitted over 40 myself for various things but they all become a CS ticket even the ones I don't need a reply on.)

That is 20,000,000 CS tickets.

So would you prefer the canned response or no response since this is really their only 2 choices since they can't hire 5,000 CS reps to personally respond?   With the canned response you can keep replying to their e-mail if you haven't found a way around it or a server reset didn't fix your problem.  With no response you are left hanging, wondering, and not even knowing they received your in game message. 

All I ask is to keep it all in perspective which I know is difficult since as an individual you want help but they have over 1 million individuals that are expecting the same thing.

Then again if they would hire remote staff i would take the job in a heartbeat lol :)

I know right! I have no job - I sit and play video games all day until my kids get home from school. Where are all the telecommuting jobs for game tester, QA, in-game support, etc.?! I'd snap one up in a heartbeat.

Logged in this morning 1/2 the objects in my game are now invisible. Did most of the standard things. (Re-start, Re-boot, repair, play at lowest graphic setting).  Essentially, I can't play ESO until this is resolved. It's not computer. Other ESO has performed well until this incident. Other games I checked (GW2, SWTOR, Bioshock Infinite, Wolf Among Us) graphically perform the same.  Something within the game has been corrupted. Hate to do a full re-install. Not sure if I have a choice in the matter.

@ LordMelchom

DOH!  /facepalm

I see what you did there - I'm bad :)   and believe it or not thanks....