It All Comes Down To Customer Service
Day 954, 10:41
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Published in USA 
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by
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by Calebb
Modus Invictus - Vol. I Ed. 4
This article was written approximately 3 hours before the debacle that will soon be named "GF Day." Some of these points are even more poignant in light of that, some are still good ideas, but obviously not when implemented the way Admin chose to do it.
It's a great thing that an online company like eRepublik can get grants and awards and become successful, but when that company treats its users poorly, it does not remain successful for long. Either you have to have to do it better than everyone else or the new mmos on the block will chip away until your base is significantly impacted. New will always trump Old unless Old can adapt and make their customers happy. If they’re happy, they won’t feel the need to look elsewhere.
Here is a short list of values ANY company, including eRepublik, should embrace when they interact with their customers.
1. Be open. Today's marketplace is more about transparency than ever. Tell your customers who you are, who runs your company, and who their money benefits when they pay you. They will be more apt to give you money in this case.
Just take it! TAKE IT ALL!
2. Make information easy to find; don't bury it in FAQs, auto-answering robots, forums with nothing but questions, and dead-end webpages. Provide a support email. Use crowd-sourced support to let users answer other user's issues.
Players already do most of the work when it comes to teaching game mechanics and nuance. I don’t see why eRep can’t enlist the help of players to help mitigate some of the tickets they get. Admin is obviously short-staffed, because right now it takes a long time to get a ticket response. Either that, or worse, they are inept. Other very successful mmo’s, ones much more complex than this one, use player/GMs all the time.
I wish I understood.
3. Be humble. It doesn’t matter how good or cool you are or how good or cool your product is if your customers don't buy it. Check your ego, because if you don't, somebody else will. Even if it means moving to another product and leaving you in the dust.
While Rising Beta may have helped Admin to some degree, it did nothing useful for the player base other than make everyone nervous and unsure about what is going to happen. Flooding the market with gold skewed the battle grounds, econ module and training expectations beyond any semblance of sanity and realism. Thanks, eRep, for showing me where the buttons are, but if you were trying to soften the blow, you did the opposite.
Sometimes mushroom live in shit. Get it?
4. LISTEN! The people who play your game put their hands on it every day. They have expectations about the way it should work. Comprehensively changing what they see and do without getting some user input, or despite that input, is an incredibly risky maneuver when you have a huge player base already engaged.
eRep Rising is essentially a brand new game where your base stats get boosted based on how long and well you managed yourself in the old game. I’m not sure if eRep Admin are just poor businessmen or they live in another dimension.
I nominate GA Custer to travel to the 10th Dimension to see if you can find any Admins there.
5. Do not underestimate your customer. While there are, admittedly, a fair amount of clowns and idiots out there, overall, today's consumer is more well-educated and aware than you think.
No matter what your size, remember that you cannot grow if you do not build and maintain a solid foundation. If your foundation is your user base, you must treat them right. Without that, you will eventually crumble, and someone who does it better will rise above you. Regardless of what you are selling, if you do not treat your customers with respect, and especially your paying customers, you will not make money.
Time to move on?
eRepublik Admin has made a grievous error in the way they treat their player base and in whom they place their trust. For being a multi-million dollar company, their actions suggest a very "junior-varsity" approach. They now have an opportunity to show how professional and just they can be by investigating and prosecuting the correct parties and people involved with "GF Day." However they must tread lightly. There is still a lot of opportunity to make this PR disaster even worse.
Kongress!!!!
That's for you GAC!
- - - ^ ^ Click to Learn More! ^ ^ - - -
Check out these other important Federalist links:
This article was written approximately 3 hours before the debacle that will soon be named "GF Day." Some of these points are even more poignant in light of that, some are still good ideas, but obviously not when implemented the way Admin chose to do it.
It's a great thing that an online company like eRepublik can get grants and awards and become successful, but when that company treats its users poorly, it does not remain successful for long. Either you have to have to do it better than everyone else or the new mmos on the block will chip away until your base is significantly impacted. New will always trump Old unless Old can adapt and make their customers happy. If they’re happy, they won’t feel the need to look elsewhere.
Here is a short list of values ANY company, including eRepublik, should embrace when they interact with their customers.
1. Be open. Today's marketplace is more about transparency than ever. Tell your customers who you are, who runs your company, and who their money benefits when they pay you. They will be more apt to give you money in this case.
Just take it! TAKE IT ALL!
2. Make information easy to find; don't bury it in FAQs, auto-answering robots, forums with nothing but questions, and dead-end webpages. Provide a support email. Use crowd-sourced support to let users answer other user's issues.
Players already do most of the work when it comes to teaching game mechanics and nuance. I don’t see why eRep can’t enlist the help of players to help mitigate some of the tickets they get. Admin is obviously short-staffed, because right now it takes a long time to get a ticket response. Either that, or worse, they are inept. Other very successful mmo’s, ones much more complex than this one, use player/GMs all the time.
I wish I understood.
3. Be humble. It doesn’t matter how good or cool you are or how good or cool your product is if your customers don't buy it. Check your ego, because if you don't, somebody else will. Even if it means moving to another product and leaving you in the dust.
While Rising Beta may have helped Admin to some degree, it did nothing useful for the player base other than make everyone nervous and unsure about what is going to happen. Flooding the market with gold skewed the battle grounds, econ module and training expectations beyond any semblance of sanity and realism. Thanks, eRep, for showing me where the buttons are, but if you were trying to soften the blow, you did the opposite.
Sometimes mushroom live in shit. Get it?
4. LISTEN! The people who play your game put their hands on it every day. They have expectations about the way it should work. Comprehensively changing what they see and do without getting some user input, or despite that input, is an incredibly risky maneuver when you have a huge player base already engaged.
eRep Rising is essentially a brand new game where your base stats get boosted based on how long and well you managed yourself in the old game. I’m not sure if eRep Admin are just poor businessmen or they live in another dimension.
I nominate GA Custer to travel to the 10th Dimension to see if you can find any Admins there.
5. Do not underestimate your customer. While there are, admittedly, a fair amount of clowns and idiots out there, overall, today's consumer is more well-educated and aware than you think.
No matter what your size, remember that you cannot grow if you do not build and maintain a solid foundation. If your foundation is your user base, you must treat them right. Without that, you will eventually crumble, and someone who does it better will rise above you. Regardless of what you are selling, if you do not treat your customers with respect, and especially your paying customers, you will not make money.
Time to move on?
eRepublik Admin has made a grievous error in the way they treat their player base and in whom they place their trust. For being a multi-million dollar company, their actions suggest a very "junior-varsity" approach. They now have an opportunity to show how professional and just they can be by investigating and prosecuting the correct parties and people involved with "GF Day." However they must tread lightly. There is still a lot of opportunity to make this PR disaster even worse.
Kongress!!!!
That's for you GAC!
- - - ^ ^ Click to Learn More! ^ ^ - - -
Check out these other important Federalist links:
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Comments
good article brah
Fascinating read, good sir.
Treat'em right and they keep coming back.
impressive stuff, votado
All things considered, your timing is amazing. Voted.
Voted from indonesia
1. The money goes to the downpayment of the owner's new Lexus. Buy more gold and give him a full tank of petrol as well!
2. There already is a citizen moderator system that is heavily abused and ignored by the administration. Last big case was two nights ago. 300 accounts were accessed and around 50 banned. For lulz.
3. In the last 2+ years they haven't been able to correctly define what the users want. Miraculously they always seem to manage to add things that no one asked. Chat, anyone?
4. In the other dimension there's no one criticizing your ideas. It's a safe room for poor designers and their fragile egos. Plus they don't speak English so reading suggestions would be difficult.
5. But proper customer service costs money and there's no guarantee that it brings more paying customers. No, no. It's better to maintain the illusion of an existing customer service and redirect the saved money into your own pocket. Users just don't understand what's good for them, and they complain no matter what. No one ever quits despite the threats, anyway. They'll soon become passive and forget about the constant abuse. Completely without an incident.
/sarcasm off