Gabe Newell Shows Us How Customer Support Is Done

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

In an imgur post that's making the rounds lately, we can see the exchange between the Steam user called that_earlyguy and Newell. Apparently the Steam user originally sent their issue to Steam Support, but after a week of no response, he decided, hey, fuck it. Maybe I'll have a better shot with Gabe




"I may have got a little passive aggressive, but I didn't want to end it without him knowing I was still a fan!," that_earlyguy wrote on imgur



To that_earlyguy's surprise, Gabe responded—and offered help

 

 

Two hours later, that_earlyguy's issue had been fixed

As is custom with Gabe Newell responses, the guy wanted to post it on social media. The problem being, of course, that if he did that, then people would likely start flooding Gabe with too many small support issues. Gabe Newell probably doesn't have time for that, right? So, that_earlyguy asked for permission before posting the exchange anywhere, just to make sure...

Gabe, being the awesome guy that he is, said that posting it was OK: everyone at Valve is "support," and people can definitely send him their Steam support issues:

Meanwhile @Ubisoft


 

[Juggernautilus]

Steam support is still crap

[Decon]

In an imgur post that's making the rounds lately, we can see the exchange between the Steam user called that_earlyguy and Newell. Apparently the Steam user originally sent their issue to Steam Support, but after a week of no response, he decided, hey, fuck it. Maybe I'll have a better shot with Gabe

"I may have got a little passive aggressive, but I didn't want to end it without him knowing I was still a fan!," that_earlyguy wrote on imgur

To that_earlyguy's surprise, Gabe responded—and offered help

 

 

Two hours later, that_earlyguy's issue had been fixed

As is custom with Gabe Newell responses, the guy wanted to post it on social media. The problem being, of course, that if he did that, then people would likely start flooding Gabe with too many small support issues. Gabe Newell probably doesn't have time for that, right? So, that_earlyguy asked for permission before posting the exchange anywhere, just to make sure...

Gabe, being the awesome guy that he is, said that posting it was OK: everyone at Valve is "support," and people can definitely send him their Steam support issues:

 

PCMR FTW

 

I do believe this is a repost tho...

[VincentiusIV]

'I gave them a weak headstart'

[zappian]

From pc master race.

[Guest]

Gabe Newell definitely is a great guy, but man that company suffers from mismanagement and shitty customer support. Steam is actually the WORST digital distribution platform out there, both in terms of quality control and in terms of customer service. This is just another example of that.

[Sauron]

Now I know who I'll contact if I ever get any issues with steam ^^

[colonel_mortis]

Just a reminder that although you are allowed to indicate that a thread is a repost, please don't do so in anything other than the default font size, and please include a link to make it much easier for us to verify and to allow other people to migrate to the original thread.

EDIT: I am still looking for a link to the original thread. If nobody can provide one, this thread will be reopened.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

PCMR FTW

could you -snip- the quote thank you

[mr moose]

And all off a sudden Gabe's inbox is overloaded with help requests.    But I have a question, how do we know he is personally replying and doesn't have a small team on his accounts for this?

[othertomperson]

...or you know he could fix the customer service system instead of setting himself up to deal with every issue personally >_>

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

And all off a sudden Gabe's inbox is overloaded with help requests.    But I have a question, how do we know he is personally replying and doesn't have a small team on his accounts for this?

possible , but i see no reason why he could have replied him self , the email did speak as gabe, would you think the person incharge of the personal email would impersonate gabe ? and if it's personal , would he have a staff accessing to it? 

[NAP51DMustang]

From pc master race.

I wonder how much people here would rage if they realized how much news posted here was actually posted from r/pcmasterrace

[dalekphalm]

This is an interesting article.

 

1. This speaks great volumes for the care that Gabe Newell personally takes with users.

2. This speaks great volumes as to how fucking utterly shitty Official Steam/Value Support is.

 

This is both great and horrible. Valve: Fix your goddamn support system. It's utterly horrible. Also, please follow in EA's footsteps (Bet you never thought you'd hear that one) and implement an official Return Policy on at least Valve games, if not the entire library.

[Legion495]

Well. If you got hijacked this is the way you should solve the issue. Praise Gaben  Yeah the Steam support is crap... I know it! 
The waiting time is 3 days if you have luck or?
 

It is fast. It is secure. Yes it's Gaben.

[WelshDdraig]

Good Guy Gabe. #PraiseGabeN. It's nice to see people in high up places still care about consumers compared to the amount of money they are making. 

Also, Steam Support is pretty terrible. Only used them once, wasn't that bad but could have been better

[sgloux3470]

Valve's support is worthless and hasn't changed in the last 10+ years despite the exponential growth of the service.

 

They keep adding in all the new protections because of their marketplace bullshit inspiring scammers, but they don't actually do anything to improve the service.

 

I still can't fucking do anything with Steam while verifying files, nor can I set it to verify files for more than one game at a time without downloading third party scripts.  I've literally been waiting for that feature since 2006.

[bcredeur97]

ok so Gabe Newell knowing that steam support didnt get the job done, should have been on people to get it done properly else get replaced. I sure hope something happened.

[Guest Kloaked]

ok so Gabe Newell knowing that steam support didnt get the job done, should have been on people to get it done properly else get replaced. I sure hope something happened.

 

I can only imagine there's been multiple cases like this where users have gone straight to Gabe about their issues since Valve's customer support wasn't helping any.

 

I wish Mr. Newell would kick some asses if he actually wants to genuinely provide a good service.

[The_Strict_Nein]

Gabe Newell definitely is a great guy, but man that company suffers from mismanagement and shitty customer support. Steam is actually the WORST digital distribution platform out there, both in terms of quality control and in terms of customer service. This is just another example of that.

 

Uplay

[SpaceSquid]

what if it isn't actually gabe who answers the emails but a steam support member?

[SpaceCore]

what if it isn't actually gabe who answers the emails but a steam support member?

Apparently, Gabe Newell is part of the support team. As are all Valve employees.

[dalekphalm]

what if it isn't actually gabe who answers the emails but a steam support member?

Does it matter who actually answered the emails? Whether it was really Gabe, or some assistant?

[Maslofski]

And all off a sudden Gabe's inbox is overloaded with help requests.    But I have a question, how do we know he is personally replying and doesn't have a small team on his accounts for this?

 

well, one person in PCMR also asked that, and he got a selfie from gaben back

[WolfDeville]

mr moose, on 06 Feb 2015 - 09:42 AM, said:

And all off a sudden Gabe's inbox is overloaded with help requests.    But I have a question, how do we know he is personally replying and doesn't have a small team on his accounts for this?

My thoughts exactly.

 

Off topic: I imagined this scenario like the scene in Bruce Almighty when he responds to the prayers via email haha. Praise GabeN....