Tiny rant: WotC customer service and e-mail

[Perun]

Just a couple of minutes ago, I mailed WotC customer service with a question regarding the wild magic armour ability (which I also posted here). That was in 18:51 CET.

In 18:55, I received a reply (asking if I could state exact book and page where "wild" armour ability can be found). I immediately replied to that reply (in 19:04), and received the following mail back:

-- Automated Reply --



-- EMAIL NOT RECEIVED BY WIZARDS OF THE COAST --



Thank you for contacting Wizards of the Coast. In order to help you faster AND give you access to information at any time, we have recently installed a new system for managing your questions. Due to this system upgrade, the email address you tried to contact is no longer available. Please understand that you will not be receiving an answer to your email. Your email did NOT reach Wizards of the Coast. In order to get a response, you need to submit your question via our website Help page at http://wizards.custhelp.com. We recommend that you bookmark this new site in order to streamline getting help in the future.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. We look forward to servicing you and hope you find our new system useful!

I re-sent my reply at 19:07, and got the same mail back.

So, apparently, they installed this system upgrade in the 13 minutes between my original mail and my reply to their mail.

 

[diaglo]

do like i do.

blame Whisperfoot. or whatever DD is calling himself now. he was a customer service guy at WotC at one point.

 

[Jdvn1]

Try the phone number?

 

[Darrin Drader]

do like i do.

blame Whisperfoot. or whatever DD is calling himself now. he was a customer service guy at WotC at one point.

Hey, leave me out of this. I have nothing to do with WotC custserv anymore (other than the occasional conversations with my former co-workers). Supporting D&D in custserv is a no-win situation. You get DMs emailing because the players are trying to abuse the rules, then when the players don't like that custserv agrees with the DM you get players emailing to try to overturn your decision. You get rant after rant about how people don't like WotCs latest marketing scheme, you get people who just don't have any understanding of the rules, you get people wanting you to provide flavor text that doesn't exist, you get people wanting you to create spot errata. Then when you tell them that you cannot help them with their request, they get all indignat. Half the people on the custserv team know Magic better than D&D (and vice versa), so customers who email in more than once on the same issue frequently get conflicting answers. You. Just. Can't. Win.

I'm much happier now that I'm dealing with WotC on a strictly freelance basis. I now enjoy dealing with only the positive and creative aspects of the company without having to deal with the above headache (or some other gripes that I'm not going public with).

One more thing - if you have taken the Vow of Poverty, don't even try taking levels of kensai because you cannot imbue your body/weapons with magic bonuses as per the class abilities.

 

[Mark]

Better send a note to Berandor and let him know he can stop pretending to work at WotC...

 

[Staffan]

Half the people on the custserv team know Magic better than D&D (and vice versa), so customers who email in more than once on the same issue frequently get conflicting answers.

Wouldn't it make sense to:
A: Separate the D&D and Magic folks, so all D&D questions get sent to D&D people and the Magic questions to Magic people?
B: Maintain a database of questions and answers, to make sure that people get the same answer?

 

[Darrin Drader]

Wouldn't it make sense to:
A: Separate the D&D and Magic folks, so all D&D questions get sent to D&D people and the Magic questions to Magic people?
B: Maintain a database of questions and answers, to make sure that people get the same answer?

It would, wouldn't it?

 

[Crothian]

You. Just. Can't. Win.

I'm much happier now that I'm dealing with WotC on a strictly freelance basis. I now enjoy dealing with only the positive and creative aspects of the company without having to deal with the above headache (or some other gripes that I'm not going public with).

So, telling the idiots to go to hell wasn't an options?

 

[Mr. Lobo]

Retail rant/custserv rant

(paraphrase-see above)Stuff about working for WotC customer service

Just agreeing with you. I worked for a retail WotC store so I can relate somewhat.

Didn't WotC already supply the service by providing the rules? They aren't a bunch of babysitters for a person's personal games.

I mean, come on. Customer service for rules to a game? How much of a waste of money is that?! There's scads of resources for discussing rules besides all the FAQ's that WotC puts out anyway.

Did WotC charge for this service by chance? By the minute on the phone? Dang, how much money could Gygax and Arneson have made by doing this? Gygax is still giving out rules pointers for OD&D to this day. He would be really really rich by now, man!

By the way, anyone know the hotline for the Twister rules set? You see, me and my girlfriend were playing Twister the other night and got into a big argument about which way the spinner is spun. I said it didn't really matter which way you spin but she said...

Then I went home.

Who you gonna call?

 

[Darrin Drader]

I mean, come on. Customer service for rules to a game? How much of a waste of money is that?! There's scads of resources for discussing rules besides all the FAQ's that WotC puts out anyway.

Did WotC charge for this service by chance? By the minute on the phone? Dang, how much money could Gygax and Arneson have made by doing this? Gygax is still giving out rules pointers for OD&D to this day. He would be really really rich by now, man!

Yeah, that really touches on the job security aspect of that position. If Hasbro decided that the axe needed to fall again, what positions are non-essential? I think the rules support could easily find itself cut. If they stopped all rules support and began only dealing with administrative issues, they could probably cut the team down to one person and be OK; and as far as that goes, there are other sub-teams in customer service that could absorb that workload. WotC is being extremely generous by providing this service at all, and I think that's something that a lot of gamers have completely lost sight of.