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There are often threads posted with questions we’ve seen before (and often experienced ourselves). Given we know Paizo CS are awesome but absolutely snowed under at the moment, it can seem like a good idea to help out the newcomer by explaining what the issue is and how it’s likely to be resolved.
Newcomers will often post in someone else’s thread also to report they are having a similar issue (or just to commiserate!)
The trouble is that the CS team review posts from oldest to newest (as a general rule) so when you post your entirely accurate and helpful reply, it has the effect of moving the original question to the top of the forum and therefore back to “last place” in the queue of issues to be resolved.
Similarly, if a post about extra shipping, multiple charges, no PDFs or anything else is “bumped” by others reporting that they too were incorrectly charged then everyone in that thread will be shuffled back to have to begin waiting again.
If you fear your thread has been missed, the best thing to do is to start a new thread referencing your first asking to check that it is being looked into. To post a link to an old thread, you can use the following code:
(url=www.whatever)Type what you want the link to look like(/url) but using square brackets instead of round brackets.
So a link to this post shows like this (hit reply to see the exact formatting):
FWIW, I have a few exceptions (not any kind of Paizo policy, these are just the times when I sometimes break my own rule because I think it may be helpful):
1. When the thread in question is already at the top of the CS forum - obviously posting in the topmost thread doesn’t actually cause any delay, since that person is already last in the queue. I still avoid doing it, since often other people, including the original poster, may reply hours later when it’s no longer “harmless”. But if I’m thinking it might be useful, replying to one of the top few threads at least causes minimal damage.
2. When it’s a weekend and the complaint is from a new customer - this is especially true if they’re angry and demanding “immediate action” but they’ve happened to post on a Friday afternoon. It’s not widely appreciated that Customer Service don’t usually work on weekends. If I see a thread like this at the top of the forum, I may well point out that fact, just to help the person have good expectations as to when things will even be addressed. It can feel like Paizo have been notified on the Friday, even though they may not be aware of the issue for three or more days.
3. When it’s a widespread problem and I can point to a recent Customer Service post with relevant information or an FAQ that exactly addresses the issue in question. As a newcomer, I daresay it doesn’t help much to hear me say “don’t worry about it, things will be fine!” but I suspect that seeing official acknowledgement of the issue can help mitigate the frustration in waiting for a problem to be sorted.
4, When I know the person (or think I do). Sometimes if it’s a fellow “oldtimer” there are times to disseminate information that will technically delay their response but will reduce the overall number of threads since we’ll all come to learn of the ongoing problem - here I’m thinking the recent listing of the Bestiary 2 as a separate item in one’s sidecart alongside a subscription copy. This was a widely reported issue, acknowledged as a glitch. By saying as much to people with that issue, you’re not actually delaying anything (other than confirmation from official sources) and it has the upside of hopefully preventing a few similar threads that actually require no action from CS but will take time.
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As I said - none of that is forum guidelines, or anything Official. Just some opinions from someone with a lot of orders (and almost as many customer service calls!)
With the launch of PF2 there seem to be a lot of new users/subscribers and I figured it’s worth getting the word out a bit of the inadvertent harm one may do by trying to be helpful.
Can this be made sticky?
Can this be made sticky?
Yes, please!
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Is there any way the IT folks can provide the CS folks with a way to sort the threads by original post date, rather than latest post date? Generally, with databases, that sort of thing is very easy to do, but I have no idea what software Paizo is using and whether or not that's a hard thing to do. But, it would be a much saner way to do things.
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Keep seeing people post in others that are a day or 2 old and I cringe every time.....
bumping this back to the top.
(Please make it sticky)
Back up to the top with ye!
This should just get a sticky.