The concern was never about the ticketing system though ;-)
Oh I know :) I should have made my comment as separate thoughts instead of making both sentences seem like they paired with each other.
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Let's not confuse Real-time (synchronous) support and real-time exchange (Phone call) with the support team.
The first one is a nightmare for support teams and only really needed for exceptional situations such as when lives are literally at stake (tech support for health systems used in surgery, for example).
The second one is greatly efficient when the support team needs to contact the user / client to get better info to solve the issue. Sadly, since it is time-consuming, many support teams avoid using it, even when it would be best.
Well said.
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And just like that, the CS forum is gone.
Came on to see if the January thread had been started yet. Found the whole CS forum just gone. Any one have any ideas where the monthly sub announcements will be posted?
Pretty sure this is getting close to my final straw on deciding if I will maintain subscriptions at this point.
Announcements Forum.
thank you, much appreciated
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My concerns about the reason for the change being more of a hide the bad PR move than an attempt to improve customer service aren't helped by hiding the new Announcements forum down in the middle of the assorted Paizo related forums instead of at the top of said group in the logical place for public anouncements.
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I think what makes the removal of the Customer Service forum problematic is that many of us have strong memories of the period when e-mails to customer service got backed up to the point that they were months behind being answered. The cited problem of duplicate problem reports in e-mail and forums probably started then as a reaction to the ever building delays in both.
I think the only way to reassure us on that point is for this transition to e-mail only for reporting problems to customer service to work out relatively smoothly after the transition. Certainly any complaints about delays in answering e-mails will be more visible even if they are purged quickly by forum moderators (probably not a good idea if the poster is not being abusive about it).
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The whole implementation is currently Work in progress. I would give the teams some time before quickdrawing the pitchforks.
You can check Brian Bauman's recent posts about this. They really helped alleviate my concerns which were rather similar.
I hope this will in the end result in increased value for both the Paizo teams and the customers.
But how badly the communication was first handled is sad. Paizo should know better by now than abruptly springing such changes on the community.
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Agreed that this is still a work in progress. I do hope they move Announcements up on the page to where the old CS forum was (actually, either just above or just below Product Discussion would make sense to me), so they're more visible.
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The Announcements forum should definitely be higher up the page, and before killing the CS forums they should have made sure that they changed the instructions on the help page (which still even has the phone number listed as well as the option to start a thread) before removing the options.
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So how many places are we going to have to look now for information on products and releases or delays?
I got an email today saying that the order generation would begin soon. Nothing about the last Strength of Thousands being delayed yet another month in that email.
I am also old enough to recall when there were months of delays in response to emails, is that going to continue?
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As a follow-on to my earlier post: I sent an e-mail to customer service yesterday and got a response the same day. So far, so good.
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Pretty sure this is getting close to my final straw on deciding if I will maintain subscriptions at this point.
Its an interesting dichotomy. There are people who had previously cancelled their subs in part because of the public nature of doing customer relations in the public forum who could potentially come back with the change to a more private (email) system.
A lot of us have over the years told Paizo we were withholding funds and I honestly don't think they care. We are a small portion of their customer base and for every one of us that leaves someone else signs up. Whether it be you, me, or anyone else, there will be those in the community who will say "sorry to see you go" as well as those who say "good riddance."
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I agree with TwilightKnight.
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You know, I took a playreading class once. It was funny--we were taught that when giving our thoughts on a play, we should always avoid saying "I thought this was interesting", because the word "interesting" is a vague, meaningless term that often indicates we don't really have any point to make with whatever follows, we're just pointing and making "interesting" sounds to make ourselves seem smart.
Anyways, I just thought that was interesting.
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Pretty sure this is getting close to my final straw on deciding if I will maintain subscriptions at this point.Its an interesting dichotomy. There are people who had previously cancelled their subs in part because of the public nature of doing customer relations in the public forum who could potentially come back with the change to a more private (email) system.
A lot of us have over the years told Paizo we were withholding funds and I honestly don't think they care. We are a small portion of their customer base and for every one of us that leaves someone else signs up. Whether it be you, me, or anyone else, there will be those in the community who will say "sorry to see you go" as well as those who say "good riddance."
Not really if you paid attention to exactly what my complaints are.
I am one of the people who have complained about doing private business through the forums. This is not my complaint.
My complaints about this current situation:
Not having a one stop shop for information that is 2 way. This is solved actually by the announcement forum.
Unilaterally making changes that affect large swaths of the community with very little notice. This is exacerbated by the out and out removal/archival of the CS forum. The easy solution would have been to turn off commenting in the forum and leave a post at the top direcing people looking for announcements to the announcement forum.
Placing the announcement forum hidden in the middle of the forums instead of at the top. Tonya is working on getting this resolved, kudos.
Email Systems are universally a poor idea for creating tickets, but if that is the best they can do than so be it. They should be able to easily implement a web based form submission system that would auto trigger creating tickets, but this is just a personal preference and not really one of my complaints causing me to look at cancelling subs.
My overall complaints making me lean towards cancelling subscriptions:
Lack of updates on negotiations with the Union.
Failure to show me personally that Leadership and current Customer Service Management have made any significant progress in addressing how they treat the department or the customers. This really isn't up for negotiation, this is my reasons for my subscriptions so yes it is personal.
Failure to take responsibility for the many missteps that got us here in the first place. Lip service is not taking responsibility, it is in fact the opposite. The current silence that has been on going is just re affirming to me that they are taking the wait and see approach when they should be taking action to correct the homophobic and transphobic policies. The ridiculing of former employees publicly. The obvious lack of accountability in Leadership, mainly the President, in doxxing their customer base.
I am still within my timeline for what I gave myself. If I do cancel my subs that doesn't mean I am taking my ball and playing somewhere else. Pathfinder is my game. It is the only one I want to play other than HeroQuest and board games. I will stay on the forums making my voice heard regardless of if I cancel any subscriptions or not.
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You know, I took a playreading class once. It was funny--we were taught that when giving our thoughts on a play, we should always avoid saying "I thought this was interesting", because the word "interesting" is a vague, meaningless term that often indicates we don't really have any point to make with whatever follows, we're just pointing and making "interesting" sounds to make ourselves seem smart.
Anyways, I just thought that was interesting.
Interesting. Unique. Fascinating. All taken as insults when directed at someone unless explicitly followed up with compliments and praise.
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*nods sagely* most intriguing
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Pretty sure this is getting close to my final straw on deciding if I will maintain subscriptions at this point.Its an interesting dichotomy. There are people who had previously cancelled their subs in part because of the public nature of doing customer relations in the public forum who could potentially come back with the change to a more private (email) system.
A lot of us have over the years told Paizo we were withholding funds and I honestly don't think they care. We are a small portion of their customer base and for every one of us that leaves someone else signs up. Whether it be you, me, or anyone else, there will be those in the community who will say "sorry to see you go" as well as those who say "good riddance."
It is very precious info to know why customers leave you.
It can lead to changes in strategy. Or not.
Marketing and Licensing Coordinator
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FWIW, literally, the only tangible change that was made is that we're not addressing customer account/order problems on the forums anymore. The main reason for that, as both Tonya and Logan stated, is because such a vast majority BOTH posted on the forums and emailed us.
The other is the aforementioned privacy concerns. There's always been a number of posts on the forums that had to be addressed via email anyway because it involved personal information.
The subscription threads will continue to be maintained in the Announcements forum, as well as any other customer-service related messaging, as we've done in the past.
The ticketing system we're using is proper ticketing system from our end (they're not just going to an email inbox that we have to sift through) and a submission system from the customer's end is something that can, potentially, be implemented in the future.
THAT SAID, nothing I've said above addresses most of Yoshua's concerns, so please don't think I'm being dismissive of them! They're just out of my scope and ability to do/say anything about. :)
Hopefully that explains things a bit? This was a change that was requested by the CS team in order to streamline our workload, not to suppress discussions, but I understand why that would be the first thought.
Contributor
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Having worked customer service complaint systems both in emails and on a forum, I can understand how having a ticket system -- and frequently answered responses -- can vastly streamline things for staff. Wanting to protect privacy concerns and make things easier for customer service are both valid reasons for this change.
That said, I am a forum girl and will miss the CS forum a lot. I really hope this change makes life more sane for you, Raychael. There is a reason I no longer do CS stuff for Meetup -- I burned out, and the library paid me a better hourly rate.
Hugs to all of you and thanks for taking the time to check in with us about this change.
Hmm
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Marketing and Licensing Coordinator
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That said, I am a forum girl and will miss the CS forum a lot. I really hope this change makes life more sane for you, Raychael. There is a reason I no longer do CS stuff for Meetup -- I burned out, and the library paid me a better hourly rate.
Hugs to all of you and thanks for taking the time to check in with us about this change.
Hmm
<3
I absolutely want discussions to continue in the subscription/announcement threads, the only thing we didn't want was order issues posted on the forums! I promise everyone in CS is just as charming and friendly via email as they are on the forums. :P
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It sounds more like an attempt to alienate more of their customers. I mean , how long should one wait for a response to an email?
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It sounds more like an attempt to alienate more of their customers. I mean , how long should one wait for a response to an email?
How long is a rope?
Sorry. PF2 joke. But seriously, that's a non-argument. How long should one wait for a response to a forum post? It's the same situation; you type some stuff, click a button, and have to wait a completely indeterminate amount of time before there'll be a response.
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It sounds more like an attempt to alienate more of their customers. I mean , how long should one wait for a response to an email?How long is a rope?
Sorry. PF2 joke. But seriously, that's a non-argument. How long should one wait for a response to a forum post? It's the same situation; you type some stuff, click a button, and have to wait a completely indeterminate amount of time before there'll be a response.
The text in the CS forum was there. Emails do not always get answered, especially since in recent history it take months to receive an email response.
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Every time I've emailed them in the past three months I've received a response within a business day. The massive backlog is cleared. I agree that an automated response with a case number would be great, but my problem isn't with moving to email, it's the way in which it was communicated and enacted so swiftly.
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We understand your concerns for email response times but those long response times were due to our previous email backlog of 3,000+ and before implementing our new ticketing system. We are no longer looking at a backlog of this size. We can also look into having an automated message that would be sent out once you've sent us an email and opened your ticket. Our goal is to respond to customers as quickly as possible and eliminating the extra work that a double forum post and email created will also significantly help with response time.
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At least when there was a CS forum with product information I could see what was delayed or what was on time.
This past email had none of that information for Part VI of the Strength of Thousands. Shouldn't the Community Manager compose those emails or at least check them before they are sent en masse?
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We still have that? The Announcements forum has the same monthly subscription threads as the CS had every month.
There should be one central place which email notes should match up with.
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We understand your concerns for email response times but those long response times were due to our previous email backlog of 3,000+ and before implementing our new ticketing system. We are no longer looking at a backlog of this size. We can also look into having an automated message that would be sent out once you've sent us an email and opened your ticket. Our goal is to respond to customers as quickly as possible and eliminating the extra work that a double forum post and email created will also significantly help with response time.
Ah, yeah. When it was said "we adopted a ticketing system", it seemed a no-brainer that people would be told when a ticket was opened for them. An e-mail confirmation is pretty standard operating procedure for this. E-mail requests should immediately turn into tickets which are immediately confirmed to the initiator. Any tickets incorrectly created due to being spam or duplicates get closed by CSRs. That's kind of ticketing 101.
To be clear, I'm supporting the change.