Posts with tag customer-support

Blizzard introduces live Web Chat support

by Anne Stickney Jan 15th 2013 at 8:00PM

Blizzard Customer Support has rolled out a new feature to better assist customers with issues. The new live Web Chat feature allows players to chat directly with a Customer Service Representative, bypassing the long wait times sometimes associated with phone calls. But don't think that this is a replacement for the ticket and phone system altogether. The live Web Chat is only available for issues that can be resolved in that format -- specific issues may require a ticket or a phone call to address.

Using the new system is easy enough; simply visit the Contact Blizzard Support page, select the game you need assistance with, and then choose from a variety of dropdown menus to pick the selections that best address your particular issue. You'll see three buttons at the bottom of the screen, one for submitting a ticket, one for contacting by phone, and one for live Web Chat. Please note that web chat and phone support availability still varies based on hours of operation, as well as the type of issue you need addressed.

Honestly, I'm wondering why this type of support system wasn't put into place years ago. With the Web Chat feature, players can bypass sitting on the phone and listening to hold music, and just chat with a representative to get their issues addressed. And with the new filtering system for issues, it makes it a lot easier to figure out what I should be doing if I have a problem. Hey, don't get me wrong, I do love Blizzard, but if I don't have to sit in a phone queue, I'm generally all the happier for it.

You can read more about the new live Web Chat feature on the official site.

Filed under: Blizzard, News items

Live chat Customer Support Q&A this Thursday

by Anne Stickney Dec 12th 2012 at 2:00PM

Ever had a burning question about the customer service side of World of Warcraft, or other Blizzard games? This Thursday, you'll have your chance to ask. Blizzard is hosting its first-ever CoveritLive chat featuring customer support representatives from all of Blizzard's games. The chat will be focused primarily on World of Warcraft, but the panelists can field some questions regarding Diablo III and StarCraft II support as well.

Keep in mind, this is not a development Q&A -- so keep your questions about whether or not Atiesh will return to the game's loot tables along with Alleria and Turalyon for another time. However, if you have any questions regarding the policies and the customer service side of Blizzard, this is an excellent time to get those questions cleared up.

The Q&A will be this Thursday, December 13, from 5-6pm PST. Unlike previous Q&A chat sessions, this one will be taking place directly on Blizzard's website. And if you need an email reminder, you can sign up for one directly through the official blog post.

Filed under: Blizzard, News items

Patch 4.3.4 patch notes, new customer support changes live

by Matt Low Apr 17th 2012 at 4:00PM

A minor patch for World of Warcraft was deployed this morning. There are no gameplay changes, and this isn't the patch with the world events leading into Mists of Pandaria. The changes introduced in this patch are designed to streamline the ticket submission UI.

Patch 4.3.4 notes

A new Submit Bug button has been added. Clicking this option will open a report dialog box, along with basic instructions on what to include in your bug report.
A new Submit Suggestion button has been added. Clicking this option will open a text dialog box, along with a description of what to include in your suggestion.
The Report Lag button has been removed.
The Report Abuse button is now called Report Player.
- The Report Player function offers four categories: Spamming, Language, Name, and Cheating.
- Reporting a player for Cheating now opens a text window in which a description of the occurrence can be written.
- Reporting a Name opens a window with three categories: Player Name, Guild Name, and Arena Team Name. There is also a text field for optional information.
- Report Player now includes text and visual instructions for how to submit a report.
Right-clicking a character's portrait now offers additional reporting options.

source

If you're having problems patching your client to 4.3.4 and you're using the 64-bit client, you'll need to follow some additional instructions, which we've included past the cut below.

Filed under: News items, Cataclysm

Blizzard highlights customer support changes coming in patch 4.3.4

by Mathew McCurley Apr 16th 2012 at 5:00PM

Blizzard has updated the Customer Support options in the upcoming patch 4.3.4 for WoW, including a brand new interface for dealing with in-game harassment, naming violations, and cheating. These features have been in the game previously but were buried a bit in the customer support window (which was, admittedly, funky at best). Now things seem a bit more straightforward.

Hit the jump for the full announcement.

Filed under: Blizzard, Cataclysm

Love is in the Air customer support policy

by Mathew McCurley Feb 2nd 2012 at 11:15PM

Blizzard has posted a guide to what customer service and support can and cannot do for players during Love is in the Air, the WoW in-game holiday that runs between Feb. 5 through 20. As with most in-game events like this, players will be getting exclusive items, quests, tokens, prizes, and chances on really rare items like mounts from daily bosses. These events are designed to be rare and happen only once a year, and Blizzard stresses (again, by design) that these titles, achievements, and other event goodies need to be acquired during the holiday. Legitimate claims of items lost with logs will be restored as normal, but Blizzard wanted to make sure people knew in advance that item purchases and achievement-related issues during this limited-time event will most likely not be able to be addressed.

Putting out notices like this is definitely a nice move by the community team. Many people have complained in the past of not knowing when a new event was starting in game or that their schedules did not permit them to complete all of the necessary holiday achievements and get all of the accompanying items. For many of those, the bright line rule is that "Blizzard wants these things to be rare," so they are rare by design.

Remember: Get your holiday stuff done ASAP. This is your early notice that things will most likely not be given to you if you miss the event.

The full blue post, after the break.

Filed under: Events, Cataclysm

Blizzard releases customer support how-to videos

by Mathew McCurley Sep 15th 2011 at 8:00PM

As part of its continued fight against account hacking and account compromise, Blizzard's customer support department has started a YouTube channel dedicated to hosting how-to videos on security, what to do if your account is hacked, general security tips, and how to use the Battle.net authenticator. Not only are the videos educational and helpful, they are also adorably fun, making security as enjoyable as it possibly can be.

Not only is this an awesome service for Blizzard to put out, the videos offer excellent ideas for online security in general. The tips in the general account security video are great tips to follow, even if you aren't a gamer. Everyone on the internet should be following these security tips. Good on you, Blizzard, for this awesome community service. I don't think we can give the customer support guys enough shout-outs.

Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Look at what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!

Filed under: Blizzard, Account Security

Public Service Announcement: Don't file false GM reports

by Daniel Whitcomb Mar 8th 2011 at 8:00PM

This may seem like common sense to a lot of people, but it came up as an issue recently on the official Customer Support forums. The message is simple: Don't file false GM tickets. Whether you're doing it to get back at someone you dislike, to play a prank on someone, or just because you're bored, don't do it.

Support forum agent Nevalistis points out that false reports are is against the Game Master interaction policy. Each GM petition is taken seriously, and if the GMs see a pattern of frivolous or false reports, they can and will take action from warnings all the way up to suspension or permanent account closure.

Those of us who have tried to petition a GM lately know how long the queue times are -- so from all of us with legitimate problems, please make sure your ticket is legit. It may save your account, it may save a GM's sanity, and it'll certainly help those with real problems get the help they need a little faster.

Filed under: Blizzard, News items

Blizzard opens EU customer service Twitter account

by Michael Sacco Jan 7th 2011 at 8:00PM

A few months ago, Blizzard opened a Twitter account for its U.S. customer support team. Though it seems to mostly be used to retweet accolades for support staff and keep followers abreast of ticket queue times, there are also helpful links to hot CS topics and support-related announcements mixed in there.

Now, players in Europe can take advantage of the same service with the Blizzard EU CS Twitter account. Between the official Warcraft Twitter account and the new Game Guide/community site, it's good to see Blizzard finally embracing social networking and web 2.0.

Filed under: News items

Blizzard announces automated account recovery form for hacked accounts

by Mathew McCurley Sep 22nd 2010 at 3:00PM

World of Warcraft accounts have been under siege for years, with hackers and gold-selling outlets stealing passwords, items and more to fill their coffers, selling that gold to unwitting buyers. Blizzard has fought back incessantly over the years to stem the tide of gold farming and account hacking, and as you can imagine, the scale at which this happens is very tasking on its customer support department.

Blizzard has just announced a new, speedier way to get help and answered about your hacked account, stolen items, authenticator issues and more! Now, under the new system, you will not have to email or call Blizzard to get these matters into its queue -- simply use the Account Recovery Form.

Filed under: News items, Account Security

Blizzard customer service now has its own Twitter account

by Robin Torres Sep 1st 2010 at 5:00PM

Blizzard has just announced via its Warcraft Twitter account and the forums that the Customer Support team now has its own Twitter. The full text of the forum announcement is below:

Auryk

You can now follow all Blizzard Entertainment Customer Support news and updates on Twitter. Just head over to @BlizzardCS, (http://twitter.com/BlizzardCS) for the latest Support related news, events and more. We will be providing constant updates during Tuesday's maintenance and service outages. Additionally, you will be able to view updates to our Queue Times for Game Master interactions, account investigations and escalated tickets alike.

source

No word if the intermittent outages of the authentication system that were recently being experienced will be reported on this new Twitter account, but I think this is a step in the right direction for further increasing the communication from Blizzard to its customer base.

Filed under: Realm Status, Blizzard, News items

Blizzard Twitter contest winners still await prizes [Updated]

by Zach Yonzon Nov 11th 2009 at 2:00PM

Followers of the official Warcraft Twitter will recall that Blizzard ran a contest some months back using the #Battlecry hashtag, encouraging players to tweet a message for either the Alliance or the Horde depending on the background of their Twitter page. It was a pretty cool promotion and was a great social media activity for fans, who proudly showed their World of Warcraft allegiances throughout the contest period.

An interesting post came up on Pixelated Geek the other day, however, wondering about the results of that contest and if Blizzard had ever gotten around to giving prizes to winners. Or if they'd ever gotten around to contacting the winners at all. The writer notes that he himself was a winner, having received a tweet from @Warcraft requesting for further details, an e-mail he promptly responded to. He then notes sending several more e-mails to the noted address as well as to customer service but has not yet gotten a single reply to date, nearly two and a half months after the contest ended on August 24.

The author also notes several other Twitter users who were asking the same question -- as it turns out, more than a few #Battlecry winners also hadn't received prizes nor responses from Blizzard. One follower asked, "any news for the winners of #battlecry? I haven't heard or received anything yet," while another mused, "Wondering when I will receive my prize from the #Battlecry contest." Still another asked, "has anyone got their Battlecry prize yet? I haven't received anything" just last November 6. One WoW.com reader even wrote us at the end of October confirming the same thing, that he had won but had not received any word from Blizzard, much less a prize.

Update: We have received word from one of the winners that Blizzard sent them an email confirming their prize will be sent soon.

Filed under: Odds and ends, Blizzard, Contests

Another blow in the keylogging experience

by Amanda Dean Mar 15th 2008 at 9:00AM

Thank you all for the encouragement I received in response to my recent keylogging experience. As a whole the experience was just dreadful. As I mentioned on last week's WoW Insider Show podcast, I am still afraid every time I log in that I will get the "The information you have entered is not valid" error. For the most part things have settled down, but the fear remains.

The worst part of the keylogging episode was that my Shaman was transferred from a PvP to PvE server. After about a week in limbo my beloved Tauren was returned to her proper place. I was extremely relieved. Unfortunately that's the only thing on my account that Blizzard was kind enough to restore. They refused to return any of my gear or gold and did nothing about the items ninjaed from the guild bank. I appealed their decision with several emails. Those appeals were ubiquitously denied despite logical arguments and heart-filled plights. I thought it was all over, for better or for worse.

I got more bad news in my email box the other day:

Filed under: Odds and ends, Blizzard, Forums

Blizzard setting up shop in Ireland

by Mike Schramm Sep 20th 2007 at 4:01PM

Blizzard is apparently setting up a fourth support center, this one in Cork, Ireland. Currently, they've got bases in Southern California (where the main company and developers are located), Austin, Texas and Paris, France. But now an Irish newswire is saying that Blizzard plans to have another center in Cork, where they'll hire 100 people total over the next three years to support the European realms.

And Cork is apparently happy to have them-- Motorola and Bourns Electronics have recently closed up shop there, leaving IT employees looking for new jobs. Ireland is apparently a hotspot of digital content as well, or at least it wants to be. I had no idea-- Irish companies, if you're hiring and willing to fly me out there, let me know! I'd love working in the country of Guinness.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard, News items

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