Game Design, Programming and running a one-man games business…

How to get a reply from tech support

cliffski

I’ve worked as first, second and third line tech support for IT companies, and I also run an indie games biz and handle my own support, so I’m in a reasonably informed position to dosh out some handy advice here to people who run into a tech-support brick wall. here goes:

  1. If sending email, ensure there is a subject line. I’m serious. blank subject lines aren’t going to leap out from someone’s inbox. I get quite a few of these.
  2. Make sure you state up-front and clearly what product or service you have a problem with. In my case, that would be *which* game. It saves a lot of guesswork on time
  3. State anything unusual about your setup. I get a lot of people who only mention they are running the game on Linux (officially unsupported) under WINE after about 6 emails. That’s silly. Let the tech support guy be the judge of what is relevant to the cause, don’t assume.
  4. Find out your rough system specs first, and state them in the email. Everyone will need to know what version of windows you have, and for games, what video card. Find this out *before* you email them, because they are going to ask you anyway.
  5. Don’t get abusive. Especialy not in the very first email. People who are there own boss, like me, will just delete those emails. At the very  least, you go to the back of the queue.
  6. Don’t write a novel. The guy scanning tech support issues is busy. Don’t include too much fluff.
  7. Include any previous correspondence, quoted below or attached. In an ideal world, all tech support staff can instantly see a log of your problem and previous emails. In practice, esp for small companies, we don’t have a system like that. And even when we do, scrolling down an email to see what was said is quicker anyway. This saves us a whole bunch of time.
  8. Understand the problem from the other guys POV. Every consumer computer on earth has a different combination of hardware and software and configuration. It’s not ‘stupidity’ that has resulted in a software crash. They are likely more annoyed at the software having bugs than you are so remember by default, they are on your side.
  9. Use email if you can, and there isn’t a dedicated support form. Email is easily stored and searched. I get tech support requests by forum PMs, by twitter, facebook messages, blog posts and everywhere else. At least try to find the contact email address for support, as this will get the quickest response. My email is cliff@positech.co.uk. Good companies do not hide their email address.
  10. Don’t assume you are being ignored. It’s a big world and tech support may be asleep while you are awake (I’m in England). They may also be investigating the bug before getting back to you. Some problems are fixed in 2 minutes, some take 3 months.  If you need to chase up a problem be polite, and remember 7.

Of course, this doesn’t always work. Some companies, which I won’t name, but they are global internet companies, ignore all communication that isn’t by phone. *Sigh*. But you certainly can’t be *worse* off for keeping this stuff in mind.

11 thoughts on How to get a reply from tech support

  1. If it’s a small company, I just do a whois lookup and get their domain registration info and call the number there.

    About 70% of the time the domain reg info isn’t useful – just a hosting or registration company. But the other 30% of the time the phone number that’s there leads to someone important/knowledgeable. It’s been my experience that even if they’re not the designated person to deal with problems, as long as you’re polite, they just *can’t* hang up on you, and they then have to fix your problem.

    I know it’s a bit disruptive/selfish to try and avoid the normal support paths, but if I’ve had enough of the front-line guys reading from scripts, it can really get results!

  2. Things that can help:

    You could also create a crash dump.(Just make sure you have stored all the *.pdb’s needed to debug that dump).
    Require the user to send you a DxDiag output to have a clear idea on what he is running.

  3. Hey Cliff,

    Great advice for those that need help but don’t really know how to go about it or have tried going about it in the wrong way.

    Also, one of those companies, which you wouldn’t name – but I will – that ignores all communication, unless by phone (which is also almost entirely automated and requires you to stay on the line for approx. 20 mins before you can get a hold of customer service) one of those companies is EA (Electronic Arts). Yes, if you plan on buying anything EA related (this even applies for *Console* titles) and run into trouble, be prepared to not only wait, be prepared to be completely ignored. If at all possible, try contacting the game developer and not the publisher because contacting the publishers is usually much like asking a lawyer advice on how to repair your vehicle.

    Not all mainstream big-name companies are entirely evil, but getting through to them does require much more time but on top of time some simply WILL NOT communicate with you, at all and if they do communicate with their game fans it is via a public blog post or locked forum thread so that they do not have to respond… e.g.) see SEGA.

    There are many good companies out there, but sometimes, even if you’ve heard that a game is “All that” you might want to do your research about the company first, because there are many larger companies out there that you would think have great customer service due to the sheer amount of customers that they have when in fact it is the exact opposite. Some companies truly only believe in making money with as little public involvement as possible. Sad but true.

    Yet more reasons to support indie developers whenever you stumble upon a game or application that you like. Most indie developers take what they do seriously and they know and understand that POV that Cliff was talking about, and from experience I can say that most of them care very much about what it is they are developing and want nothing more than for every customer (and even potential customer) that they have to be satisfied and happy with their product.

    Cheers!

  4. I have to chuckle at this one…you guys are talking the software side of tech support. the hardware side is much harder for the IT guy…the reason its really hard to tell the source of the ‘issue’ is what / who it is… thats why we IT guys have to come up with cute acronyms to describe the cause like the ‘PICNIC’ error or the ‘ID ten T’ error, cause 95-99% of all computer issues are caused by the user at the keyboard, but they don’t want to hear that. and the fact that whoever said ‘The Customer is Always right’ never worked at IT support before…

  5. @Dave,

    However, the problem you have is that you’ve never created anything and then had to supply tech support for it, you were just hired for tech support. Creating or actually developing something and then providing tech support AND customer service is a much more demanding job than simply providing IT support.

    So to knock everyone else when you yourself don’t entirely know what you’re talking about is kind of ironic. Being intelligent at IT tech support doesn’t mean you’re very good at business or even understanding customers.

    Cliff has been doing this for a long time and he has an understanding not only from a developers point of view but also a customers point of view. Until you learn to think on both levels you really can’t criticize others.

  6. @Jason

    I wasn’t trying to criticize anyone…sorry if it sounded that way…see thats why its much harder, you took offense to what I said, and yes I understand customers I’m one here myself…I know what its like to code software I did it myself a long time ago on a computer called an Atari 800 :) and yes people don’t like it when I tell em the truth but..would you prefer I tell you honestly ‘hey you messed this up’ or ummmmm it was caused by a gremlin…
    and yes people hire me for my knowledge…not the fact I tell people the truth as to the cause, in fact I even have a shirt that pretty much says the user is the cause that I wear as a joke more then anything

  9. > (3.) I get a lot of people who only mention they are running the game on Linux (officially unsupported) under WINE after about 6 emails. That’s silly.

    Well, if you say “Linux is not supported”, that’s probably the reason why people are holding back that crucial information – otherwise they’ll not get support, right? Why not simply drop that “officially not supported” statement? What good is it supposed to achieve?

  10. >Well, if you say “Linux is not supported”, that’s probably the reason why people are holding back that crucial information – otherwise they’ll not get support, right? Why not simply drop that “officially not supported” statement? What good is it supposed to achieve?

    I do tech support myself for a major company that makes computer components. Some things are not supported. Linux is one of those things commonly not supported. Its just a question of market share and so many different flavors of Linux. If its not supported, its not supported. Trying to sneak around that by avoiding mentioning you’re using unsupported hardware or software only wastes time, as by holding back info the tech isn’t able to help you and is getting frustrated at the evasiveness. Either way the answer is the same, which is that its not supported and the tech can’t help you.

    This means that it has not been tested with that particular hardware/software, so there is no guarantee it will work well or even at all. You’re on your own in that case. This is why looking at system specs or requirements is very important. They’re listed for a reason, as that is the system the hardware/software was tested with/on and that is where the bugfixing was done.

    Pestering the tech won’t magically fix things. Sometimes the answer is just no. :)

  11. Eric, I know that holding back crucial information is not helpful in a perfect world. However, people just do that for the reasons I outlined.

    Personally I really hate these big player games (“officially”). For the last two hardware problems I had I was forced to lie outright because of this:
    1) Overscan cannot be disabled on some flat screen. Talked with support, “Connection with PC is not supported, sorry”. Called again a bit later, said “Overscan cannot be disabled, using the screen with an X-Box” – this resulted in “This is a known problem, will pick up the device and fix” (same support guy!). Great.
    2) HDD in external case seems constantly calibrating. Support: “External cases are not supported, might be related to that”. Web search pretty much immediatly revealed that drive has faulty firmware giving exactly that error (unrelated to case). Sent back the drive, of cause not mentioning the case. Got fixed drive back.

    As you can see, the statement “its not supported and the tech can’t help you” just is not true in general. That statement also just completely ignores the fact that the unusual component in the setup very well might not be the actual problem but is – sadly – often used by support to get rid of customers.

    Of course, in Cliff’s case this is something different again. IMO he should just avoid talking about “officially supported” things. Just do not play big player games. Say “I don’t know much about Linux and Wine, but I’ll try to help”. If nothing else, just pass on tips by others. Other indies also just do that. See for example the FAQ of Hemisphere games’ Osmos: There’s an entry for Wine users giving tips sent in by other Wine users.

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