It was the morning of April 4th. I'd played the ESO betas, and was looking forward to getting started with my real character at launch. After creating her and pulling my lovely Imperial Edition and preorder bonuses from the mail, I was ready to start. I ran into the room where you receive your first weapon…. and fell through the floor underneath the world. No amount of /stuck or /reloadui or logging out and in would fix it (in fact it would kick me from the game after about 20 seconds), and I couldn't just delete the character and start again since I'd redeemed my one-time Imperial Edition bonuses, so I was left with contacting ESO Support.
That's what I'd like to talk about today: ESO's support center. One of the things that has really impressed me so far is their customer service. I have had to contact them a few times so far (not counting reporting gold spammers) and they've come through every time. Their response times are fast: one issue that kept me from even logging in was answered in an hour, I got help with the aforementioned falling-through-the-ground issue in a few hours, and when I reported a scam email with suggestions on how to improve their “how to tell if it's fake” message, they replied in just fifteen minutes thanking me specifically – very different from their generic “thanks for reporting spam” auto-response for in-game gold-spam reports – and I could see that they had escalated the case to the higher-ups to take a look (who thanked me as well two days later saying they'd passed the suggestion along to their teams).
The issue that took the longest was an unusual one that I wasn't sure they'd even be able to help with. It's a well-known fact that the Imperial Edition physical items didn't have the best workmanship: many people have complained of the Molag Bal statue being misaligned or broken. My problem was unusual, though, and I've not found anyone online with the same thing: my copy of the Improved Emperor's Guide to Tamriel came misprinted. It repeated a section of pages, replacing what should have gone there. Which, with my luck, happened to be the pages about the Altmer and the Summerset Isles, which is what I most was looking forward to. Considering that the book was the real reason I got the Imperial Edition, I was very unhappy when I realized this.It did take a while – both individual responses and the potential of anything happening – because they weren't really sure how to handle it or if they could do anything, but once they were able to pass it to someone who was able to help, it got resolved quickly. They paid to have my bad copy shipped to them, and the day after they told me they'd sent the replacement, I was surprised to find it in the mail. They'd done overnight shipping and got it here, over 900 miles away, in one day, which was really awesome of them. I am very excited to have received it and would like to give special thanks to those at Zenimax Online Support who helped me with this, if you ever happen to read this.
The other big thing that has impressed me, in addition to the speed of the service and the fact that they were able to take care of that book issue, is the very personal tone in the response. Compared to other customer experiences I've had with other companies, it feels like these guys are less detached and more involved. When I was stuck falling through the ground (and forced to play on a second character in the meantime), the gamemaster that helped me in-game was real cool and kept me updated frequently as I played, even if he hadn't found a solution yet, so that I knew he was still there and working on it. I really appreciated that. Once he'd gotten it taken care of, he even parted with an in-character farewell, which made me smile. That experience in particular was really memorable, and I've talked about it to friends both online and in real life.
That's how you definitely know you're doing customer service right, if the customer's experience was so good that they tell others about it. The first time I needed help, I was dreading how long it might take to get resolved, and really wasn't sure what to expect. I was very pleasantly surprised. In the few times I've needed them since then, they've continued with this excellent service, and I'm glad to know that if I need any help regarding ESO in the future, that's the sort of support that's ready and waiting.
