Secrets of the Game Business (Game Development Series)

To make sure that your support program is performing appropriately, follow these simple steps:

• From time to time, perform a simple Web search on "customer service" and "your game." See where people are discussing your support program, and what their concerns are.

• Monitor the fan sites and message boards daily. Take this information to heart and plan to have staff respond on these forums.

• Periodically review a sample of the feedback. Make sure you know what the top issues are and what's being done about them.

• Consider surveys or a customer service audit by an independent firm. While most businesses employ some method to follow up on customer satisfaction, this is an area the gaming industry as a whole has not given a great deal of attention. Very few games today seem confident enough to employ this technique.

• Track statistics on wait times. Set goals and plan for emergency situations to keep your customers from spending an undue amount of time waiting for assistance.

• Create a quality control team to check on customer service. Test your staff. Take a walk in the customers' shoes and see what the view is.

Customer service surveys for Anarchy Online taught the company two important lessons:

• The quicker customers received assistance, the higher they rated the overall customer service of the game.

• When customer service staff were given survey results that pertained to them, the same staff rated a full point higher on the next round in over 90 % of the cases.