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Review 9/9/2010
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I will start by saying that I was genuinely shocked to check up on Blizzard Entertainment's BBB rating and find it sitting at a B. I remember checking a few years back, and it was actually around a D (appropriate for the level of service they provide). Others have found it at lower ratings (source: http://www.wow.com/2009/04/20/blizzard-gets-an-f-at-the-better-business-bureau/). I question the impartiality of the BBB based on this "miraculous comeback".
My experience with Blizzard games is that, while the games are generally good, the main caveat is that you best go into any business relationship with them expecting to receive zero customer support, because that is very likely what is going to happen.
I have several issues with this company:
- Difficulty/impossibility in receiving service. In-game tickets take days to get a response to, and it is generally never live. Their call center is almost always full. This, conveniently, forces you to email them, at what point, they can either give you a canned response, or outright ignore your inquiry if they don't feel like dealing with it (ie. the problem arises from some issue that is a game defect, and fixing it might require actions such as fixing data in their database).
- Terms of service written in such a manner as to give the company maximum ability to exploit their playerbase, and lots of leave to "creatively" enforce it without any need for due process or rational thought. This is, in my opinion, unethical.
- Lack of accountability and professionalism from their representatives. If action is taken against you, you surely will be given no room to appeal your case. The name of the employee that took said action against you will not be divulged so you can discuss the matter with a supervisor. In fact, their employees are infamous for replying to legitimate concerns on their forums with condescending/facetious remarks (example: http://www.wowblues.com/us/blizzards-neglect-of-pvp-26726034359.html).
- Lack of commitment to their end of the bargain. If there are server outages, technical issues that cause issues with the game, or other related issues, the attitude portrayed is "tough luck, wait until we get around to fixing it". The customer is always expected to grin and bear it as conveniently outlined in the EULA, speaking out against this state of affairs will almost surely get your ability to speak "actioned". Meanwhile, gold selling sites perform daily shows of blatant hacking and botting (and spamming the chat channels looking for accounts to steal), technical issues that have been persisting for months still continue to persist, and the subscribers continue to soar (over 11 million now IIRC) without improvements to the level of customer service.
Call me old fashioned, but I figure that a company that wants $15 from me monthly is expected to provide a certain level of support and respect to those that keep it running. In my opinion, this company deserves a C- or a C, they do just enough to keep things running, and not one iota more.
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