[MUD-Dev] FW: [uodevlist] OT - Lawsuit on Lum's

[Norman Short]

----- Original Message -----
From: KevinL <darius at bofh.net.au>
To: <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Sent: Saturday, September 23, 2000 1:57 AM
Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] FW: [uodevlist] OT - Lawsuit on Lum's


> Got bad news for you - your ISP is probably doing exactly this.  Your
telco is
> almost certainly doing this.  As others have pointed out, "churn and burn"
> customer support policies are not at all unusual, or restricted to online
> games.
>
> The basic causes seem to be that a) you can get really cheap labour that
way,
> b) people have a tendency to burn out on support anyway - if you treat
them
> well, you find yourself pouring more resource into supporties just to
maintain
> the level they start at.  So, if you write a good FAQ/guide to support
(which
> you can get the supporties themselves to do while they're young and
chirpy),
> then you provide it to each young new support staff to give them the
illusion
> of knowing what they're doing (enough to answer 80% of questions), then
work
> 'em hard while they've still got stars in their eyes and are producing
> optimum, and throw them away when they start costing you more - there's
always
> others out there to replace them with.

Obviously I don't know as much as I should about the telecommunications
industry, but I do know in my own ISP's case we're talking about 4 customer
support reps who have all been there over a year.  It's a small ISP handling
several small communities, which may mean a more friendly working
environment.

I DO know a bit about customer service though; I've not only worked in it
myself but have managed large retail outlets like Best Buys which have
customer service staff.  In my case I never looked at our support people as
less valuable than other employees.  I realize they can burn out and
therefore offer them opportunities to move within the company to and from
service.  Obviously not every employee turns out to be capable of learning
enough or having the skills to handle other jobs but that is true from every
other department too.  One thing I always did was to allow every employee to
learn and get training to be better able to move up into a better job.

>
> This is in stark contrast to volunteer systems, where your volunteers
really
> do care about the (game/system/whatever), and are actually part of the
> community themselves rather than just being paid employees of the company.
>
> Dunno whether it's a case of the volunteers being <insert local
appropriate
> denigration here>, or whether UO/AOL really have "treated the volunteers
badly".
> That would make a difference - but I would have thought that if UO
maintained
> a policy of "providing tools to volunteers to help them build community"
> instead of "requiring volunteers to perform x, y, and z duties", they'd
never
> get these complaints - I may be (horribly) wrong - I'm apparently not of
the
> correct mindset to fathom suing the company in the first place anyway.

>From what I've seen, volunteers get treated worse, not better than the paid
employees the company actually has to look in the face day to day.  And
unfortunately the industry went right to those requirements and work
schedules and such while minimizing the tools for volunteers to actually
help.  Even to the point where they wouldn't give them patch information
that intentionally left them unable to answer simple questions.  When the
volunteers actually had to learn from the players about these changes rather
than from the company something is wrong.  This seems more likely to create
that burnout as frustrated people don't even have said FAQ to answer
up-to-date questions.

>
> KevinL
> (and yeah, it's atrocious, and yeah, your high-end knowledgeable support
> suffers - but once you've got a good layer of disposables, one or two good
> higher-end support staff can manage anything that slips through the 'net
(and
> add it to the FAQ for next time ;)

If it's atrocious, it doesn't seem like something to smile about. Sounds
like "everybody does it so treating employees like fodder is just fine".
I'm quickly becoming disillusioned on commercial MUD's after hearing this.
Maybe Neverwinter Nights really is the only responsible model.  But this
list is for game designers to work out ways to make the massive multiplayer
model to work better, so maybe this is an area all of you should be working
on.  Find ways where employees and volunteers feel like valuable assets
instead of ignored and mistrusted people who you expect to fill a seat for
awhile and quit.  At least give them the tools and training so they feel
like they have somewhere else to go instead of merely quitting and having to
find whatever job they can when they leave.

Norman Short aka Shakkar
>
>
>
>




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