Valve Is Not Psyched They Got An 'F' In Customer Service

[Acurt1982]

"On June 25, 2013, BBB recognized a pattern of complaints from consumers regarding product, service and customer service issues. Consumers allege the games they purchase from Valve Corporation or Steam malfunction, do not work or have an invalid CD key. Consumers also claim the company blocks users from accessing their library of games. Consumers further allege they attempt to contact the company for assistance, but Valve Corporation fails to correct the gaming issues, does not correct credit card charges or issue a refund, or does not respond at all."

"On July 1, 2013, BBB notified the company of the complaint pattern. To date, the company has not responded to BBB's request to address the pattern."

"The BBB is a far less useful proxy for customer issues than Reddit," Johnson began. "We don't use them for much. They don't provide us as useful of data as customers emailing us, posting on Reddit, posting on Twitter, and so on."
"The more important thing is that we don't feel like our customer service support is where it needs to be right now," he said. "We think customers are right. When they say our support's bad, our initial reaction isn't to say, 'No, it's actually good. Look at all of this.' It's to say that, no, they're probably right, because they usually are when it comes to this kind of thing. We hear those complaints, and that's gonna be a big focus for us throughout the year. We have a lot of work to do there. We have to do better."

http://steamed.kotaku.com/valve-is-...in-customer-service-1691308332/+nathangrayson

 

[MicroB]

They did an extremely good job the last few years.

 

[SpotEnemyBoats]

TotalBiscuit has been saying this for some time, heck we've all been saying it for some time. Steam customer service has been outplayed by CD Projekt's GOG and even EA's Origin of all things, Valve have major work to do but will they? I doubt Valve will ever do anything about it, and why would you when you have Valvedrones who are more than happy to keep feeding Gaben money in exchange for ducks, incomplete games in early access and other dumb shit.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

There is no question this has been a problem for a long time, I've heard enough instances of bad support for a lifetime. One of the strangest problems is that Valve absorbs support issues for developer specific issues. I don't know why non-Valve games go to Steam support for non-Steam issues, I always thought those tickets should be forwarded to the developer support / SPUF game-specific subforum.

The automation on replies is also a big problem, offering FAQ style non-specific responses to specific problems. I don't know if their support uses an SLA managed ticketing system but an automated response is the equivalent of a band aid over a bullet-hole situation. Hence the F.

Ultimately it looks like it comes down to one thing though. Given Steam's incredible growth, I think they are just incredibly overwhelmed, and they've not upscaled the support system appropriately in that time.

 

[dogspeed]

I am currently in Steam log in hell. It will not recognize my password, I have a log in for support and it will not recognize that one either. I finally got to a page where I had to answer a question to get a link to reset my password. Have no idea how the hell I got there, but the question was: Lions, tigers and bobcats are all dogs, birds or cats. It then told me I answered the question wrong. So I am locked out and have no way to contact Valve or Steam. If you google search, there are posts dating back as far as 2009 with the same story. I think what it comes down to is they are a bunch of cheap bastards. They have no phone contact point, and their on line process is obviously understaffed as most comments will tell you it takes 3 to 7 days to hear back from their support staff. Given the number of game companies they are linked in with, they have to be making money hand over fist and just done give a damn about customer service, it just does not matter. Reminds me of Microsoft and Xbox.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

I am currently in Steam log in hell. It will not recognize my password, I have a log in for support and it will not recognize that one either. I finally got to a page where I had to answer a question to get a link to reset my password. Have no idea how the hell I got there, but the question was: Lions, tigers and bobcats are all dogs, birds or cats. It then told me I answered the question wrong. So I am locked out and have no way to contact Valve or Steam. If you google search, there are posts dating back as far as 2009 with the same story. I think what it comes down to is they are a bunch of cheap bastards. They have no phone contact point, and their on line process is obviously understaffed as most comments will tell you it takes 3 to 7 days to hear back from their support staff. Given the number of game companies they are linked in with, they have to be making money hand over fist and just done give a damn about customer service, it just does not matter. Reminds me of Microsoft and Xbox.

Your post raises more questions than it answers. A general approach to a forgotten password is a reset via your approved email address, which you should have previously verified. These things are in place to stop people stealing your account.

You need to log a ticket with Steam Support - https://support.steampowered.com/newticket.php

This requires an account, if you read the site in, it says in bold near the top - Note: This is not your normal Steam account

Therefore you are not locked out of the support function. Create an account for support, and log a ticket relating to the name of your Steam account.

I would recommend you be patient, it sounds like you've really dug yourself into a big hole trying to regain access and locking things down further so this may take some time. Be clear in your support ticket, ensure your username, email address and reset issues are explained.

Lastly, out of interest what did you answer to the lions, tigers and bobcats question?