LTT Store, poor response?

[Distinctly Average]

I may be thinking on this at the wrong level here as I have spent the last few years of my working life supporting a singly high end customer, I may be a bit out of touch.

 

Here is my thoughts. During this weeks WAN show I saw a Merch message at 26:24 from Yilin X!. Bearing in mind this was a Merch message that the user had to pay for, to me it deserved more of a response. Yilin X! Has a backpack and is concerned the straps are fraying. The response was to contact another team member via Twitter. To me that feels like a very poor way to respond. If it was me my response would be along the lines of “That doesn’t sound good. We will be in touch asap to investigate”. To me it always sounds poor when a customer is asked to contact someone else. If it was my customer and others may face similar I would want to be on it as fast as possible. I would want images of the product just to be sure I was not potentially facing a wider issue. I would want my customers to be happy and return for future purchases. If I buy something from a company and something goes wrong that is fully understandable. The sign of a good company to me is how well they then go on to deal with problem. It has to be easy and require minimal frustration my end. So when a customer is reaching out, it may take effort but it really stands out when a company just deals with things.

 

[Headword]

If the poor guy had to use customer support through the website instead of twitter it might be months before he receives a response at current rates

 

Mostly joking but at the same time the backpack and subsequent screwdriver launch has felt like a solid kick in the nuts from the customer side of the customer support side of things. 

[Distinctly Average]

I am not an LTT store customer as I am in the UK. Shipping costs are very high and we also have the post brexit hassles of ordering abroad. My comment was just based on what I saw. Now reading this part of the forum, something I have not done before, it does appear things are not good at LTT at the moment. To me it looks like many companies do when there is a rapid growth in sales. It takes a lot of care to get it right when that happens and most companies face some pain. You have choices to make. Do you employ more people or do you go through the pain until things subside? Do you employ more people to grow your company, or do you outsource some of the work? Employing new staff can often make things worse in the short term as they take training, which drains the existing team.

 

I hope LTT do quickly get on top of this. I also hope my initial comment gets heard and gives the team something to think about. If you go through life seeing everyone as a valued customer you cannot go too wrong.

[BobVonBob]

There probably isn't a process to associate a merch message to contact information and create a support ticket out of that. Recommending that they go through established support channels is probably the fastest and easiest way for them to get support. Regardless of that, doing as you say suddenly turns merch messages into an informal paid "fast track" to support. Even if that might be convenient to the customers already trying to use it that way, I think tacitly encouraging it by following through wouldn't be a good outcome.

 

Linus and LMG/Creator Warehouse as a whole are aware that the support response times are abysmal, especially after the backpack launch, screwdriver launch, and Black Friday/Cyber Monday. Linus has said LMG is hiring more support staff, but like you mentioned that isn't an immediate fix. Linus also seems reluctant to outsource any positions. It's not hard to see why given the state of the outsourcing sector, but that means the same amount of money results in fewer support staff.

[Needfuldoer]

3 hours ago, Headword said:

Mostly joking but at the same time the backpack and subsequent screwdriver launch has felt like a solid kick in the nuts from the customer side of the customer support side of things. 

More like a kick in the nuts to the customer support side of things. They should've hired more CSRs before those highly anticipated flagship product launches, not after a mountainous backlog of support requests accumulated.

 

But that's easy to say given the benefit of hindsight.

[manikyath]

2 hours ago, Distinctly Average said:

The response was to contact another team member via Twitter.

none of the people present at the WAN show are directly involved with the customer support, so their options are this:

 

- take time during a live broadcast to essentially briefly pause the show, and forward to -team member- that some guy with this name superchatted about some issue with fraying.

- tell the user to contact -team member- directly with his issue, so that there is no game of telephone going on.

 

superchats, twitch chat, youtube chat, even the forum are not good places to get in contact with someone at the merch team. it's like calling HP's marketing team to ask about your support ticket.. best they can do is forward you to the other department.. as in.. *forward your call* and be on hold again.

 

in fact.. i work in support, and i do exactly this reply just about every day.

the company i work for does a lot of different things for multiple customers. most of those "things" are handled by separate teams to a degree, and while i may have a rough idea of what's going on in other teams, i really dont.

so.. if i'm talking with a user about an issue regarding my department, and they mention "hey, do you know a status for 'X other issue of other department' my response is always that it's best to contact *them* directly, because responding to customer inquiries is their job, responding to me forwarding a mention isnt, and playing a game of telephone is a REALLY good way to get things wrong.

 

also.. detached from LTT store.. in general: treat customer support with respect. there's methods set in place, they are that for a reason. if you feel that those methods arent fast enough.. usually (spending money) going at it another way just slows things down if anything. quite often when customer support is overloaded (which at LTT it appears to be at the moment..) a not insignificant part of the overload is people complaining to support that they dont get a response.. which means that they now have two tickets for you instead of one that they need to work on, which means slower support... and inside information protip from someone in support: if you're the dick, you're the last ticket of the day, not the first.

 

PS: for all the complaining about how they should hire more.. they are.

https://linusmediagroup.com/jobs

[Distinctly Average]

29 minutes ago, manikyath said:

none of the people present at the WAN show are directly involved with the customer support, so their options are this:

I am aware of that, although sometimes there may someone there from the team. I’m my job is it all about taking ownership. If a problem occurs, you own it whether you are the CEO or the floor cleaner. Passing the details on instead of passing the customer on, that doesn’t take much. In this particular  case my internal alarm bell would have gone “Do we have a problem?”. The user was polite and asking a question rather than complaining. I maybe would have chosen to quickly and directly responded to the customer and forwarded the message to the right member of the team. I would personally have followed up too, but I can understand that is not always possible. 

29 minutes ago, manikyath said:

 

- take time during a live broadcast to essentially briefly pause the show, and forward to -team member- that some guy with this name superchatted about some issue with fraying.

- tell the user to contact -team member- directly with his issue, so that there is no game of telephone going on.

There is someone paid to respond to Merch messages. Forwarding on ones like that surely would take almost no extra time. Wording the response saying you have done that takes the same time. 

29 minutes ago, manikyath said:

 

superchats, twitch chat, youtube chat, even the forum are not good places to get in contact with someone at the merch team. it's like calling HP's marketing team to ask about your support ticket.. best they can do is forward you to the other department.. as in.. *forward your call* and be on hold again.

 

in fact.. i work in support, and i do exactly this reply just about every day.

the company i work for does a lot of different things for multiple customers. most of those "things" are handled by separate teams to a degree, and while i may have a rough idea of what's going on in other teams, i really dont.

so.. if i'm talking with a user about an issue regarding my department, and they mention "hey, do you know a status for 'X other issue of other department' my response is always that it's best to contact *them* directly, because responding to customer inquiries is their job, responding to me forwarding a mention isnt, and playing a game of telephone is a REALLY good way to get things wrong.

 

also.. detached from LTT store.. in general: treat customer support with respect. there's methods set in place, they are that for a reason. if you feel that those methods arent fast enough.. usually (spending money) going at it another way just slows things down if anything. quite often when customer support is overloaded (which at LTT it appears to be at the moment..) a not insignificant part of the overload is people complaining to support that they dont get a response.. which means that they now have two tickets for you instead of one that they need to work on, which means slower support... and inside information protip from someone in support: if you're the dick, you're the last ticket of the day, not the first.

 

PS: for all the complaining about how they should hire more.. they are.

https://linusmediagroup.com/jobs

I agree there is a lot of complaining at the moment. It takes time to employ and train new staff and people should be a bit understanding. I am patient with companies on time scales in general. 

[manikyath]

31 minutes ago, Distinctly Average said:

There is someone paid to respond to Merch messages. Forwarding on ones like that surely would take almost no extra time. Wording the response saying you have done that takes the same time. 

here's the problem with that though..

 

just 'forwarding the memo' is essentially worthless. it does as much as the end user directly contacting the correct person, with that difference that when direct contact is made, there is a clear line of communication that the team can respond on, the description of the problem can be made clear, and clarified if needed.

 

i know it sounds like they're just waving the problem away, but that's *actually* just the better way. communicate with a company the way they have set up, if you want to get a propper response. 'in this moment' none of the 3 people present at WAN show can do anything more useful than directing the person to the propper channel. yes that means that the user needs to take action by himself to contact the right channel.. but he'll need to contact that side anyways, wether with his inquiry, or in further communication.

and as it turns out.. contacting support is free, superchats arent.

i can also pretty much guarantee you that if they have 10 people reach out about a support issue trough a superchat, get forwarded internally, and get contacted back by support the same as if they had just E-mailed directly.. at least two of them would be on reddit flaming about how they'd had to pay for a superchat to get support. it's just the sad truth we live in.

 

so.. to bring it back to the thread title..

 

poor response? no. correct response to a customer making a poor choice. you cant have a good response to a poor decision.

it's the same thing as people asking for computer build advice in a superchat.. nothing productive is gonna come out of handling the question then and there.. a lot of good can come out of directing the person to a place full of people who'd gladly chip in.

[Needfuldoer]

51 minutes ago, manikyath said:

just 'forwarding the memo' is essentially worthless. it does as much as the end user directly contacting the correct person, with that difference that when direct contact is made, there is a clear line of communication that the team can respond on, the description of the problem can be made clear, and clarified if needed.

They shouldn't handle support issues through Merch Messages anyway, otherwise they'll set the precedent that you can cut the line waiting for support if you buy a gift card during WAN Show. That's not fair to everyone who's following the process they're supposed to, and makes things even more difficult for the customer support team to keep track of.

[Alex T88]

@manikyathHow about poor response, when Natalie from customer support (I believe it's Natalie Fox, the Product & Shipping Coordinator from LMG), didn't even bother to check what wave I was in, when replying to my inquiry. Like wtf ?! Is it rocket science to correlate the order number with the wave you are in ?! How can someone work in CS and address a problem in such a manner? How can no one, absolutely no one, provide a straight forward answer to the many problems everybody is dealing with?! How can they not express a single certain fact and only throw at us misleading information?! They have absolutely no skills of communication whatsoever. Among the lack of other essential skills when dealing with people, their orders and their money.

 

 

[Needfuldoer]

18 minutes ago, Alex T88 said:

Like wtf ?! Is it rocket science to correlate the order number with the wave you are in ?!

That's clearly a form letter, but it answers your question.

 

So does the Screwdriver product page:

 

Quote

Units with the black shaft may delay beyond these dates as those are limited run & built to order. Current estimate for shipment of black shaft drivers is 4 weeks after silver shaft drivers from the same wave (eg. Wave 4 silver shaft drivers should ship by November 20, so Wave 4 black shaft drivers should ship by December 20)

https://www.lttstore.com/products/screwdriver

 

The form letter reiterates this:

Quote

"Our current estimate is that black-shaft screwdrivers will ship roughly 3-4 weeks later than what is shown in the schedule linked above."

 

You're in Wave 2. Add the 3-4 week black shaft lead time, and that puts your shipment sometime in late November to early December.

 

Spoiler

 

 

They're not going to send a custom-tailored answer to every person who asks "why hasn't my black shaft screwdriver shipped yet, it says my order wave should've shipped by now!".

 

[manikyath]

7 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

They shouldn't handle support issues through Merch Messages anyway,

exactly my point.

 

7 minutes ago, Alex T88 said:

@manikyathHow about poor response, when Natalie from customer support (I believe it's Natalie Fox, the Product & Shipping Coordinator from LMG), didn't even bother to check what wave I was in, when replying to my inquiry. Like wtf ?! Is it rocket science to correlate the order number with the wave you are in ?! How can someone work in CS and address a problem in such a manner? How can no one, absolutely no one, provide a straight forward answer to the many problems everybody is dealing with?! How can they not express a single certain fact and only throw at us misleading information?! They have absolutely no skills of communication whatsoever. Among the lack of other essential skills when dealing with people, their orders and their money.

that's nowhere near what this topic is about, and nowhere near the statements i was making.

 

the reason you get this 'poor response', is because it's a canned response. is it perfect? no. but it allows a single CS agent to respond to 10x more "where is my screwdriver" tickets. is it a good response? no. but it gets you a workable response, as well as all the others who ask support where their screwdriver is. (which, iirc, they mentioned in a past WAN show is currently the bulk of CS tickets)

 

although.. where you're correct. is that they should just have a table in the canned response "currently this wave is this date" instead of referring you to a webpage with an offset. Although.. that's a problem in just about every servicedesk that uses canned responses that arent made by a special kind of nitpicker.

 

and to bring it back to this thread's actual topic.. if linus himself responded to that question in a superchat, chances are you'll get the exact same reply.

[Alex T88]

23 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

That's clearly a form letter, but it answers your question. (As does the Screwdriver product page.)

 

 

You're in Wave 2. Add the 3-4 week black shaft lead time, and that puts your shipment sometime in late November to early December.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

The Screwdriver product page even says this:

 

https://www.lttstore.com/products/screwdriver

 

The Screwdriver page, did not say that, when I wrote my inquiry on the 7th of November, neither when they replied on the 16th of November. It only said, it "may delay". It was never portrayed as a certainty. 3-4 weeks is not valid anymore, since I'm at the end of week 5, heading into week 6, with the status of label created. I posted in other threads, Wizmo is providing false info. According to them, my shipment is already in transit with Asendia. Which couldn't be further from the truth, Asendia informed me, promptly I might add, that they have not received any package from LTT. Everything I say here has been backed up by evidence in other threads. And no, I did not pay $105 U.S. to get a form letter. If it's that difficult to write a prompt and exact reply, maybe they have the wrong job. Bottom of line is, that everything that has been said/written so far, on their side, couldn't be more further from the truth. 

[Alex T88]

3 minutes ago, manikyath said:

exactly my point.

 

that's nowhere near what this topic is about, and nowhere near the statements i was making.

 

the reason you get this 'poor response', is because it's a canned response. is it perfect? no. but it allows a single CS agent to respond to 10x more "where is my screwdriver" tickets. is it a good response? no. but it gets you a workable response, as well as all the others who ask support where their screwdriver is. (which, iirc, they mentioned in a past WAN show is currently the bulk of CS tickets)

 

although.. where you're correct. is that they should just have a table in the canned response "currently this wave is this date" instead of referring you to a webpage with an offset. Although.. that's a problem in just about every servicedesk that uses canned responses that arent made by a special kind of nitpicker.

 

and to bring it back to this thread's actual topic.. if linus himself responded to that question in a superchat, chances are you'll get the exact same reply.

I apologize, I did not mean to quote you, my mistake. I highly agree with your prior statements. I wrote my initial comment, as an example in my opinion, to what I consider a poor response from support. For the sake of authenticity, I will keep my original comment unedited ! Thank you for understanding !

[Needfuldoer]

2 minutes ago, Alex T88 said:

The Screwdriver page, did not say that, when I wrote my inquiry on the 7th of November, neither when they replied on the 16th of November. It only said, it "may delay". It was never portrayed as a certainty.

Sorry, I didn't notice the date on your initial email. You are correct. Here's the exact wording that was up on November 7th:

 

Quote

Units with the black shaft may delay beyond these dates as those are limited run & built to order.

https://web.archive.org/web/20221108232127/https://www.lttstore.com/products/screwdriver

 

The 3-4 week estimate was added to the product description sometime between November 18th and November 21st.

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20221118175516/https://www.lttstore.com/products/screwdriver

https://web.archive.org/web/20221121011300/https://www.lttstore.com/products/screwdriver

 

 

8 minutes ago, Alex T88 said:

And no, I did not pay $105 U.S. to get a form letter.

The letter answered your question. You asked for a status update, it said "our current estimate is that black-shaft screwdrivers will ship roughly 3-4 weeks later", and both your email and their response were within that timeframe.

 

The form letter could have spelled this out explicitly, but then that could be taken as a hard deadline they couldn't guarantee they'd be able to meet. That's why it's an estimate. Close to. Kind of. Could be.

 

When they get hundreds of messages every day asking the predictable questions, of course they're going to be answered by form letters. That's the only way for a small team to have any hope of keeping up. I have no doubt someone actually read your letter, sent the automated reply that addressed your question, then moved on to the next one.

 

If you don't get an "order shipped" email from the warehouse this weekend, email support back on Monday. With any luck it should actually be shipping soon, not "soon" or Valve Soon.

[Alex T88]

28 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

Sorry, I didn't notice the date on your initial email. You are correct. Here's the exact wording that was up on November 7th:

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20221108232127/https://www.lttstore.com/products/screwdriver

 

The 3-4 week estimate was added to the product description sometime between November 18th and November 21st.

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20221118175516/https://www.lttstore.com/products/screwdriver

https://web.archive.org/web/20221121011300/https://www.lttstore.com/products/screwdriver

 

 

The letter answered your question. You asked for a status update, it said "our current estimate is that black-shaft screwdrivers will ship roughly 3-4 weeks later", and both your email and their response were within that timeframe.

 

The form letter could have spelled this out explicitly, but then that could be taken as a hard deadline they couldn't guarantee they'd be able to meet. That's why it's an estimate. Close to. Kind of. Could be.

 

When they get hundreds of messages every day asking the predictable questions, of course they're going to be answered by form letters. That's the only way for a small team to have any hope of keeping up. I have no doubt someone actually read your letter, sent the automated reply that addressed your question, then moved on to the next one.

 

If you don't get an "order shipped" email from the warehouse this weekend, email support back on Monday. With any luck it should actually be shipping soon, not "soon" or Valve Soon.

As I said from the get go, I knew what I signed up for and I know how estimates work. My problem is with the way they disseminate the info, vaguely and rarely, and then, when they actually change it to something that looks somewhat exact, then it becomes overdue and obsolete. For example, they could have said from the get go that the black shaft screwdriver is not included in the waves they have listed on their website. Even now, they have it listed as "may delay". I mean for God's sake, nobody knows the difference between a possibility (may) and a certainty (will) ?! Why do they keep offering estimates, when even those become long overdue. And there are delays, upon delays, upon delays. I've read a comment, don't remember whose exactly, who is stuck in "label created", since the 8th of November. And many more who face similar problems. And not only related to the screwdriver. I can understand that their CS is over encumbered, but this is because they messed up big time. Either in production or in shipping or both. I don't know. But I am not the type to abide by misleading information. So, a simple honest answer to my inquiry like: "We don't know", "We have encountered unforeseen problems, we can't provide you with a time frame", etc and then sending out like a monthly update, would have been enough for me. I know, that this type of answer would have probably back fired and people would have started to cancel their orders, but in my book, honesty is the best policy. Especially for a company and a media outlet that has shown very strong and healthy work ethics and values and that I (still) have high esteem of. My anger and frustration is mostly fueled by my expectations and what I get in return, the exact opposite, especially communication wise and (mis)information wise. 

 

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to check. And for your further explanations and suggestions. 

[Needfuldoer]

27 minutes ago, Alex T88 said:

As I said from the get go, I knew what I signed up for and I know how estimates work.

I know, I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to make a Good Burger reference!

[Distinctly Average]

4 hours ago, manikyath said:

here's the problem with that though..

 

just 'forwarding the memo' is essentially worthless. it does as much as the end user directly contacting the correct person, with that difference that when direct contact is made, there is a clear line of communication that the team can respond on, the description of the problem can be made clear, and clarified if needed.

This case I felt it was not a customer complaint, but a potential issue with a product that may or may not have a wider effect. As I said, if I were reading that it would have got my wider alarm bell ringing. Yes, you have to be careful in how you respond and not generate a precedent, but this stood out to me as “Fraying after three months? We put loads of effort into that not happening”. It may be an overly fussy customer, the type that expects their shiny trainers to still look like new after twenty six basketball matches and a hike up the Andes. Or it could be that the supplier has not used the specified material and need a slap. Yes, that happens a lot even to major brands. So when reading a message like that bells should ring, and ownership even if temporary should be taken.

4 hours ago, manikyath said:

 

i know it sounds like they're just waving the problem away, but that's *actually* just the better way. communicate with a company the way they have set up, if you want to get a propper response. 'in this moment' none of the 3 people present at WAN show can do anything more useful than directing the person to the propper channel. yes that means that the user needs to take action by himself to contact the right channel.. but he'll need to contact that side anyways, wether with his inquiry, or in further communication.

and as it turns out.. contacting support is free, superchats arent.

i can also pretty much guarantee you that if they have 10 people reach out about a support issue trough a superchat, get forwarded internally, and get contacted back by support the same as if they had just E-mailed directly.. at least two of them would be on reddit flaming about how they'd had to pay for a superchat to get support. it's just the sad truth we live in.

 

so.. to bring it back to the thread title..

 

poor response? no. correct response to a customer making a poor choice. you cant have a good response to a poor decision.

it's the same thing as people asking for computer build advice in a superchat.. nothing productive is gonna come out of handling the question then and there.. a lot of good can come out of directing the person to a place full of people who'd gladly chip in.

 

[deathrow]

8 hours ago, Distinctly Average said:

I may be thinking on this at the wrong level here as I have spent the last few years of my working life supporting a singly high end customer, I may be a bit out of touch.

 

Here is my thoughts. During this weeks WAN show I saw a Merch message at 26:24 from Yilin X!. Bearing in mind this was a Merch message that the user had to pay for, to me it deserved more of a response. Yilin X! Has a backpack and is concerned the straps are fraying. The response was to contact another team member via Twitter. To me that feels like a very poor way to respond. If it was me my response would be along the lines of “That doesn’t sound good. We will be in touch asap to investigate”. To me it always sounds poor when a customer is asked to contact someone else. If it was my customer and others may face similar I would want to be on it as fast as possible. I would want images of the product just to be sure I was not potentially facing a wider issue. I would want my customers to be happy and return for future purchases. If I buy something from a company and something goes wrong that is fully understandable. The sign of a good company to me is how well they then go on to deal with problem. It has to be easy and require minimal frustration my end. So when a customer is reaching out, it may take effort but it really stands out when a company just deals with things.

 

The straps on my backpack are fraying too. I mentioned it to the support team and the lady really didn't have much to say about it

[Headword]

I am actually curious how they are fraying.

Nylon webbing is usually super durable so i wish someone had pics. 

[Needfuldoer]

1 hour ago, Headword said:

I am actually curious how they are fraying.

Nylon webbing is usually super durable so i wish someone had pics. 

This is the first I'm hearing about it too.

 

Maybe the ends aren't always getting heat sealed perfectly?

[Headword]

1 hour ago, Needfuldoer said:

This is the first I'm hearing about it too.

 

Maybe the ends aren't always getting heat sealed perfectly?

Thats what I was thinking.

Of course it could be the Linutanium embedded in the fibers rejecting their new form.