The Customer is Always Right?

[Valdrane]

As a store manager of a rather popular retail store if I had customers walking in my store acting the way they are acting here, I would show them the door. Yes, the customers are important and I take what they say to heart, but that doesn't give them the right to insult or other wise degrade me or my staff. There is a point in which the "customer is always right" mantra turns into "the customer is always an a***ole!" Besides a little common courtesy goes a lot further than throwing insults at the people who are providing you with a service.

[Laenar]

As someone who has worked in retail in the past and am a customer of various business. I can honestly say as someone who knows both sides of the situation, who ever coined the phrase "The customer is always right." Needs to be drug out into the street and shot!

 

I hear that. I work for the state in the welfare system.... and let me tell you most of our "customers" are never right... unfortunately I still have to pretend to be nice to them.

[Djabelek]

I wholeheartedly agree that each and every person who pre-ordered (with few exceptions) saw the statement "up to 5 days of early access". I do not disagree whatsoever, and anyone complaining about this fact can cease immediately. In the end, this comes down to the fact that some people are "getting ahead" in the game, and people are feeling left out. It sucks to be left out of things that you derive enjoyment from--no one disagrees with this. However, this is a fact of life. Sometimes you don't always get to participate right away--or at all--and it takes maturity to accept this. Within the next 7 days, all of us will be playing this game, and we will be having a great time.

 

My concern (as is many others) is the lack of communication with the majority of their playerbase as to when exactly this vague, but rather lengthy, timespan will play itself out. For example, how many times have you heard people complain when the local plumber or cable guy tells you that he will be out between the hours of 10 and 4? That is 6 hours that you have to wait around at your house *hoping* that he will show up towards the earlier side of this timeline. And that is only 6 hours of waiting for a single person! What happens when you tell supposedly 2 million people that they need to stare at their computer screens, iPhones, etc. for the next 7 days in anxious anticipation of something they cannot WAIT to get their hands on? You are going to get a lot of frustrated individuals, that is what.

 

I'm not in the Early Access as we speak, and in no way am I complaining that I am not. However, instead of arguing with the people who are on here because they care about playing this game that is being dangled right in front of their faces like a carrot on a stick, maybe try understanding.

 

I believe it was Marshall Field's store a while back who took on the mantra that the "customer is always right". While he did not mean this literally, the idea is that if the customers are upset about something, regardless if it is rational or correct, then perhaps there is a problem anyways. If the customers perceive a problem with a business's practice, then the simple matter of fact is that There Is.

 

Not always is the customer right the early release for the pre orders has ben posted for a long time and people just don't read the terms and conditions. So in this case RIF,

reading is fund-a-mental, carrot on a stick no they did not do that imo they added days to the actual pre-order play time to make room for everyone to get a chance to play on

pre-order codes.

[imtrick]

Why do people keep complaining about getting to start playing a game early just because they don't get to start on the first day?

 

Let me summarize:

 

"People are going to be higher level than me!

 

They're going to take my name that I'd actually have much less of a chance of getting if ten times as many people were playing!

 

I want my new toy NOW!"

[Malthivarius]

See, this is an example of an unproductive and unintelligent comment. Businesses need to be receptive of their customers, and like I said, if this many customers believe there is a problem, then the business has a problem, simple as that. The long term health of a business is not only measured by the dollars it produces each year, but by the reception they have towards their customer base over that time period as well.

 

I wish some of the people in these forums ran businesses against mine, I'd love to have all their angered customers.

 

(No offense directed at you, Higherpower, this was a partial reply to you and to the situation. Plus, this thread was started by so you seemed the obvious choice.)

 

But what's the alternative? Give the customers what they want? They all want in right this very second. Can you honestly say that the whole system they built was completely and 100% stable and ready to handle the millions of players who want to play now and in the future?

How can they guarantee that stability? Well, by testing it, which they have on a number of occasions. But as a business person I'm sure you can understand how a proposed model and the actual truth and execution aren't always going to be the same, especially when you throw over 1 million human beings into the mix. They can plan and practice and work to avoid a situation as best they possibly can but there is no way to insure that all will be perfect and clean and smooth.

 

If they gave everyone what they wanted what would likely happen? At best, crazy long queues where 3/4 of the people who want to play still can't. At worst, server or even network crashes and then NObody is playing.

 

You're also forgetting that they added two additional days to the early access to accommodate for the insane number of pre-orders they received. They weren't expecting that many, I'm sure.

 

How would that situation benefit them as a company? How many angry people would there be then?

 

Again, as a business person, would you just reply with, "Well, they just need more servers and this and that and throw more money at it?" Course not, that'd be just as silly, right?

 

I think this process is fair and their way of handling it is meant to minimize even further disappointment and frustration, believe it or not. If they gave an estimate and then suddenly the networks feet went out from under itself, well...suddenly they're "breaking their word" and "they're not trying hard enough."

 

Plus, first come first serve has been around for a bajillion years because it IS fair.

 

Finally, there's the simple fact that they did not have to give us these extra days of play at bloody all. We don't DESERVE them, they aren't OWED to us. It's a sign of good faith and appreciation, a bonus for actively supporting them for their efforts.

 

Yes, I purchased my pre-order in the hopes of getting early access. I've my estimations as to when I'll get in. Likely after most of you 'cause I only put it in a couple weeks ago. I'm super excited and thrilled and I wanna play right away! But it isn't my turn yet. I'm not at the front of the line.

 

My respect is for the people who dedicated themselves to giving us this game. The time and effort and care they undoubtedly put in means more to me than my immediate gratification. My heart goes out to the employees who are reading all of these ridiculous posts. Everything they've all done, their work and effort and good will in this offer, their attempts to remain unbiased while still offering everyone a reward beyond the product we paid for...it's gotta sting when so many people slap them in the face for it.

 

Please people, show some respect, show some maturity, show some patience.

Edited December 14, 2011 by Malthivarius

[choxor]

Back when I was in college, I did a stint with Best Buy. Black Friday was the most amazing display of customer stupidity imaginable. Door busters, like $10 digital cameras, that were plainly advertised as LIMITED QUANTITY, FIRST COME FIRST SERVE! We'd have people waltzing in after lunch completely dumbfounded that they had missed out. We advertised it! We HAD TO HAVE ONE FOR THEM! It wasn't fair! I'M NEVER GOING TO SHOP HERE AGAIN!

 

Is the customer always right? Nope. Do they have a right to voice their opinion? Sure. If their opinion flies in the face of the facts is it going to make any difference in the world? Nope.

[Shendaar]

I agree that the way BW has been handling the launch so far is quite bad. Technically speaking, the game's actual launch date is on the 20th, but the fact is that some people are playing right now which means that the game IS live. They have essentially replaced hours long queues with days long queues to reduce the load on their servers and called that move "Early Game Access" to make people think they are getting a good deal.

 

I can definitely see the benefit to having a staggered launch to prevent the servers from crashing, but there is no need to do that over such a long period of time. There is no reason why they can't have everyone in by the second day or at worse the third day. Remember that we are talking about pre-orders only here, so they already know exactly how many people ordered the game. This means that they should be able to quite accurately estimate how many servers they will need as they already have all the numbers. There is no need for such long wait and see periods when they have all the numbers they need to be prepared.

 

I actually registered my key quite late and I knew full well that I wasn't going to be invited today. I was prepared for that, but what I wasn't expecting is that they would only go through a few days worth of pre-order and then stop inviting people midway through the afternoon. Looking at the Server status page, it is clear that the servers are far from being heavily loaded, which means that they could have easily kept inviting more people instead of making us wait for essentially no reason. Remember that I said that I wasn't expecting to get in today anyway, the problem here isn't that I feel that Bioware owes me 7 days of EGA, the problem is that they seem to be intentionally holding back just for the sake of doing it. What I and many others were expecting is that they would be continually granting more and more people access for as long as the servers could handle it. So, not only do we have no idea when we should expect to get in, we also get to stare at the server page like a carrot on a stick, constantly reminding us that people are playing now and there is room for you, but that you can't play because BW feels like taking their sweet *** time.

 

In the end, I really don't care that much as we're only talking about a few days, but I do think that the way Bioware has been handling the EGA has been very poor. It is no wonder that so many people are upset.

[Tunaberry]

"They need to do something, but I'm not sure quite what..." Sounds like the Occupy movement. Anarchy-- hell yeah!

 

Quit yer whining-- I'll bet BioWare folks are pulling 20 hour days-- stop distracting them with incessant teeth gnashing that only interferes with them rolling it out. They've been working years towards this day.

Edited December 14, 2011 by Tunaberry

[Tikreity]

See, this is what I don't understand. If playing the the earliest possible moment was such a concern for you, why did you wait to preorder?

 

cause i didnt know of the game

cause i didnt enter code straight after

cause retailer didnt give me the code till few days after

BECAUSE AND MOST IMPORTANT NO ONE KNEW A STUPID WAVE SYSTEM GONA BE USED.

no one was told first in first serve, we all played MMOs we never experinced such fail in our life before.

 

Because i was out of the country on holiday its july ffs

Because I had something to do... i Ordered 2 days after you gona punish me?

 

My biggist problem is when i hit lvl 10 am gona finallt play battle ground and BOOOM i see 3 or 4 lvl 50s running around.. W T F

 

My biggist problem is am lvl 22 and finally go for world PvP and BOOM few lvl 50 runing around ****** everything and everyone..

 

WHY BECAUSE I AM BEING PUNISHED FOR PREORDERING THE GAME 4 MONTHS BEFORE RELEASE..

 

FFS you want to kill my fun lvling to punish me? and then you tell me there is no problem with customer service here?

 

for all i care to hell with game and their stupid EA****

 

if on release, 20th, and i wont play till then, if there is no new EU PvP server am not gona waste my time on this

[Girochen]

I understand your point, and I understand the point of each of the posts that the community managers, particularly Stephen Reid, have pointed out to us. It may be incredibly difficult, if not impossible for them to give an accurate timeline as to when people are going to be able to play the game they are so excited about.

 

However, this is an issue of perception. The customer perceives a problem, and they do not see a direct solution to their problems. Even if Stephen Reid came out and pulled out a rough estimate of the timeline, which I am absolutely sure he could do, it would quell the issue temporarily and perhaps save people who pre-ordered in November from checking the website every 5 minutes for the next 3 days.

 

If the Community Managers in this situation would even give an incorrect attempt, it would be an attempt nonetheless, and would go a lot further than the vague posts they have thrown at us throughout the day.

 

Which would be true right up until ONE of his predictions was missed. Additionally, I love your post, but some people are not being reasonable. First off, this is the 13th, 7 days prior to release, not 5. Second, they are trying to reward early pre-order. Does this method work? Well, that remains to be seen. I know a lot of people are irate, but they are wrong.

 

1. As you pointed out, the "promise" was "up to 5 days". We are at seven days. Also, it was said that everyone will be on by the 15th. So, no loss there.

 

2. The servers up for early access will NOT be the only ones that ever go live. Competitive players will get their shot at server firsts. So, no loss there either.

 

3. If all those that complained quit and got a refund, it would be such a small impact that the company wouldn't even notice. Again, for the company, no loss.

 

Those that are complaining are the ones that want to complain and look for a reason. They are those that give reasonable nerds a bad name. Now, the other side, could this have been done better? Absolutely! But it is what it is. Life is not fair, equitable nor reasonable. To those that expect that they will get their way, get over yourself. Life is not here to suit you. This is an example of that. Learn from it.

[Flashlandrunner]

I'm good with waiting, I understand wanting in at earliest time for gamers who take pride in that. In truth unless your playing 24 7 anyways your gonna take time away, at least I hope you would. I am sure you'll pass me up and I got time to kill.

 

I do agree that based on pre-order amounts to date a post stating we want to try to get most july pre-oders in on the 13th, august and september on the 14th and then nov and dec orders on the 15th. Though due to unknown circumstances some may get earlier access and some may get delayed, for reasons pertaining to servers, regions in which the game was pre-ordered and other possible issues. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

 

Something as simple as that would have let many that waited around all day at least give them a slight idea of what to expect even if not 100% accurate.

[Tikreity]

Which would be true right up until ONE of his predictions was missed. Additionally, I love your post, but some people are not being reasonable. First off, this is the 13th, 7 days prior to release, not 5. Second, they are trying to reward early pre-order. Does this method work? Well, that remains to be seen. I know a lot of people are irate, but they are wrong.

 

1. As you pointed out, the "promise" was "up to 5 days". We are at seven days. Also, it was said that everyone will be on by the 15th. So, no loss there.

 

2. The servers up for early access will NOT be the only ones that ever go live. Competitive players will get their shot at server firsts. So, no loss there either.

 

3. If all those that complained quit and got a refund, it would be such a small impact that the company wouldn't even notice. Again, for the company, no loss.

 

Those that are complaining are the ones that want to complain and look for a reason. They are those that give reasonable nerds a bad name. Now, the other side, could this have been done better? Absolutely! But it is what it is. Life is not fair, equitable nor reasonable. To those that expect that they will get their way, get over yourself. Life is not here to suit you. This is an example of that. Learn from it.

 

1) your wrong not everyone is in by 15th

 

2) your wrong, no one gave gurantee there not to mention guilds who joined servers have a hassle to deal with

 

3)your wrong those who complain spread word of mouth, the hype of this fail is spreading wide over, go check their facebook page or just search the net and see the negative fedback, and beleive you me negative is negative. if this is how they start with their fail what hopes do you have and what reason do you have to have any hope to assume a bright future? I think next game out such as D3 will kill it since so many people had such a horrible first impression with their stupidty

[Dimus]

It's easy for you to talk about it after the fact but when it first came out did YOU see "up to 5 days" and automatically think "Well, that means that we'll have up to 5 days of early access according to the date you preordered"? I don't know if many people did since as far as I can remember nobody ever mentioned this. My first thought when I saw it was that they just didn't know yet how many days the early access would be. Never did it enter my mind they would stagger it according to the date of the preorder because it wasn't said anywhere, nobody else had done anything like it and up to this point nothing bioware had done was in accordance to when you had signed up for something. I was one of the first people that signed up for beta but I only got into the last couple beta weekends.

 

If Bioware didn't want people to complain about them they should have EXPLICITLY stated EXACTLY what they meant by "up to 5 days"...because that can be interpreted in a ton of ways. They didn't actually tell anyone exactly what this meant until like a month ago and they didn't even make it widely known...just posted about it in the forum like once.

[AuriusWolf]

1. As you pointed out, the "promise" was "up to 5 days". We are at seven days. Also, it was said that everyone will be on by the 15th. So, no loss there.

 

Would you be so inclined as to point me to the source of this "everyone will be on by the 15th". As far as we have been informed everyone will get a minimum of 1 full day of Early access. Nowhere have i seen an official statement from Bioware to the contrary(unless i have been mistaken), so please if you could show me where this was stated.

 

I'm not trying to be an A**hole with my statement above, I just don't think spreading misinformation will not help the situation. If i am wrong and it has been stated somewhere then i apologize for any negative tone this post may appear to possess.

 

Edit: Fixed my own grammatical sentence stupidity. XD

Edited December 14, 2011 by AuriusWolf

[Temeluchus]

It's a dynamic rollout. There's no way to give a definite timeline. And if they gave ANY kind of timeline, regardless of how much they emphasized how vague or rough it is, the SECOND the rollout deviates from that timeline the QQ on these forums would cause a singularity and destroy humanity.

 

^^^There is the answer to your question,OP. The sticky says pretty much the same thing, in different terms of course. Look at the reaction today, now imagine it if people were told they'd be getting in Day 1, Wave 3 or 4 and that didn't work out.

 

Your post is well written and thought out and doesn't once come off as the self entitled whining that a majority of the posts from today are though. Kudos to you.

[VanorDM]

BECAUSE AND MOST IMPORTANT NO ONE KNEW A STUPID WAVE SYSTEM GONA BE USED.

 

Actually a whole lot of people did in fact know that, because it was quite clearly stated from day one of pre-orders that they would be using a first come, first served method of early game access.

[imtrick]

Actually a whole lot of people did in fact know that, because it was quite clearly stated from day one of pre-orders that they would be using a first come, first served method of early game access.

 

Yep! I knew. I told a few people, too. I think there were at least five of us.

[azmundai]

Sure, the customer is always right.

 

The signal that the customer is sending to Bioware is that they are doing a good job. Until and unless people pull their pre-orders, Bioware can only assume that people are happy with their product.

 

The only feedback that matters in a business transaction is whether or not money is exchanged. I'll bet that less than a half-percent of customers will cancel their pre-orders because of the way EGA is handled, so Bioware can only assume that the customer is satisfied with their product.

 

lol?

 

most successful companies don't wait until the money stops flowing to rectify customer complaints.

[Svettly]

What I have never understood is the race to server firsts in any MMO. Why do you want to race to the end game just to be bored while you wait for more content? We all know that End game content is limited in a just launched MMO. All those that want to race to the top and are upset that someone is beating them right now are the same people that will leave this game in a couple months because they are bored.

 

The way I see it, we are all getting an extra 2 days of play time compared to what we would have gotten. Hell, My account was messed up and I had to make a new one. I didn't get a workable pre-order code until last week even though I placed the order back in September. I'm not going to be upset until my friend that pre-ordered the same day I did and got his code no problem gets in and I still have to wait. That is only because BW told me that my code issues would not affect my early access.

[RhajaZola]

LoL I am a Green Retrofit Contractor (not bragging but i am pretty successful at what i do) (well until now, this game might hurt me workwise lol)

 

BUT I can tell from personal experience the customer is clueless. The ones that think they know, are just clowns, and the ones who gripe and moan about something they are clueless and wrong about are just jokes.

[mfrags]

1. You preordered a game
   
2. The company, as a bonus for preordering, offered you an early start over the masses who buy after release
   
3. The company has always stated that you will have up to 5 days, not a guaranteed 5 days.
   
4. You'll still be getting early access, so the company has kept their word.
   
5. End of discussion
   

 

^ this.

[choxor]

cause i didnt know of the game

cause i didnt enter code straight after

cause retailer didnt give me the code till few days after

BECAUSE AND MOST IMPORTANT NO ONE KNEW A STUPID WAVE SYSTEM GONA BE USED.

no one was told first in first serve, we all played MMOs we never experinced such fail in our life before.

 

Because i was out of the country on holiday its july ffs

Because I had something to do... i Ordered 2 days after you gona punish me?

 

My biggist problem is when i hit lvl 10 am gona finallt play battle ground and BOOOM i see 3 or 4 lvl 50s running around.. W T F

 

My biggist problem is am lvl 22 and finally go for world PvP and BOOM few lvl 50 runing around ****** everything and everyone..

 

WHY BECAUSE I AM BEING PUNISHED FOR PREORDERING THE GAME 4 MONTHS BEFORE RELEASE..

 

FFS you want to kill my fun lvling to punish me? and then you tell me there is no problem with customer service here?

 

for all i care to hell with game and their stupid EA****

 

if on release, 20th, and i wont play till then, if there is no new EU PvP server am not gona waste my time on this

 

All those reasons are controlled by YOU. How is any of that Bioware's fault?

[PocketHealer]

I wholeheartedly agree that each and every person who pre-ordered (with few exceptions) saw the statement "up to 5 days of early access". I do not disagree whatsoever, and anyone complaining about this fact can cease immediately. In the end, this comes down to the fact that some people are "getting ahead" in the game, and people are feeling left out. It sucks to be left out of things that you derive enjoyment from--no one disagrees with this. However, this is a fact of life. Sometimes you don't always get to participate right away--or at all--and it takes maturity to accept this. Within the next 7 days, all of us will be playing this game, and we will be having a great time.

 

My concern (as is many others) is the lack of communication with the majority of their playerbase as to when exactly this vague, but rather lengthy, timespan will play itself out. For example, how many times have you heard people complain when the local plumber or cable guy tells you that he will be out between the hours of 10 and 4? That is 6 hours that you have to wait around at your house *hoping* that he will show up towards the earlier side of this timeline. And that is only 6 hours of waiting for a single person! What happens when you tell supposedly 2 million people that they need to stare at their computer screens, iPhones, etc. for the next 7 days in anxious anticipation of something they cannot WAIT to get their hands on? You are going to get a lot of frustrated individuals, that is what.

 

I'm not in the Early Access as we speak, and in no way am I complaining that I am not. However, instead of arguing with the people who are on here because they care about playing this game that is being dangled right in front of their faces like a carrot on a stick, maybe try understanding.

 

I believe it was Marshall Field's store a while back who took on the mantra that the "customer is always right". While he did not mean this literally, the idea is that if the customers are upset about something, regardless if it is rational or correct, then perhaps there is a problem anyways. If the customers perceive a problem with a business's practice, then the simple matter of fact is that There Is.

 

No one is telling anyone to stare at their computer screens for days

on end, that is your choice. I find it cringe worthy at some of the immature complaints people have been qqing on here. some people have no shame / life.