Customer service or lack thereof

In another thread mike4169 said he was leaving SOM online because of the player addition process. Well we all have to have our reasons I guess but I am leaving because a more common and endemic problem at SOM. LACK OF CUSTOMER SERVICE!!! I was supposedly awarded a credit for losing the playoffs. It was right there in red that I had won a credit and it was added to my account. But the problem is I wasn't awarded a credit as my total had not changed. I have sent SOM support two emails both of which have been ignored. The being ignored is the part that irritates me the most and as I stated earlier is a common and endemic problem at SOM. If they are not going to give me a credit then "man up" and send me an email that you aren't going to give me one. I will still leave but at least I would still be getting an honest answer. Those of you out there who own there own business surely know that ignoring customers is the worst thing you can do. please tell SOM. I don't own my own business but I deal with customers every day and we take customer complaints and concerns seriously and give them immediate feedback. What in the hell is wrong with SOM?
I won't be leaving soon because I have 12 credits left but as soon as those are gone, so am I. I am so glad I didn't purchase more credits when they had their sale last week.

Ed

Of all the companies I have ever had the dubious pleasure of interacting with, my experience with SOM is entirely unique and not at all in a good way.

Thirty five years ago I had a face to face conversation with Harold Richman, in early February, 1980. I lived about twenty minutes from SOM's location in Glen Head and went to their physical plant to pick up my set of cards for that year. Mr. Richman was the one who facilitated the transaction, which I suspect was just a rare happenstance. Not one to allow opportunity to pass me by unheeded, I asked him why SOM doesn't include some mechanism for replicating clutch pitching, having in mind the relatively poor Sparky Lyle 1976 card and also several Tug McGraw seasons. Mr. Richman's reply, a rebuff really - accompanied by a smug grin - was that Pete Rose told him that there is no such thing as clutch pitching. End of discussion.

Fast forward about twenty years. I purchase the computer game and several seasons. I called their "help" desk with a couple of questions and, for my trouble, was verbally assaulted by a power tripping geek who exuded vitriol and combativeness, and was anything but helpful.

I won't document my ongoing struggles with SOM's model of customer service as I have probably posted dozens of times expressing my dissatisfaction with SOM's cavalier disregard of its customer's needs, on these very boards.

I do want to address Mike's stated reason for leaving which I felt was akin to the final straw breaking the camel's back.
It is inconceivable to me, or would be had I not experienced this horror show continuously over the past 12 years, that SOM would not at least make desultory efforts to give customers what they want, as it incurs little to no cost to them to do so and creates considerable potential unwanted costs (potential lost revenue) to the company for not doing so. The sporadic addition of extra cards, doled out in miserly fashion, as though giving table scraps to paupers is a perfect example of this. Never mind that I had proposed, and Bernie Ho had immediately agreed that we would add cards monthly to ATG which worked until Mr. Richman replaced Bernie -as the face of the game - with Mr. Garcia after which the monthly card additions ended. Mr. Garcia resurrected this practice -- well sort of -in 2014 but has managed to add cards at the rate of 20 every three months.

How difficult would it be to simply create ATG 9 and not with the absurd paucity of cards added to ATG VII to create ATG 8? 400 new cards, at minimum, would be a good start and then supplementing that with 10 new cards per month or 20 every two months would probably easily satisfy so many of the disgruntled customers who have stuck with this game because they love the game enough to tolerate the endless bullshit issuing forth from the game company itself.

Finally, if you want to create customer interest, instead of farming out the pricing of additional cards to Bbrool or whatever his name is, why not let the community vote on the prices for each player added. That would kindle considerable interest and good will and not involve much work on SOM's part at all.

Why not indeed?

Sigh...

Yes, that exactly.

No, seriously, exactly that.

Someone wrote;

Fast forward about twenty years. I purchase the computer game and several seasons. I called their "help" desk with a couple of questions and, for my trouble, was verbally assaulted by a power tripping geek who exuded vitriol and combativeness, and was anything but helpful.

Yeah, I had a similar experience with probably the same guy, I used to know his name. I believe that guy is long gone and their customer service has gotten much better. One thing people fail to realize is, they are a TINY company... Customer service does appear to be coming a lost art but if anything I think SOM has gotten much better, they are no Time Warner and not as bad a some shady rental owners...

To the gentleman who started this thread, I hope they get it straightened out for you. Are you sure you e-mailed the right place? I have won quite a few credits and never failed to received them, are you sure you were not awarded that credit?

I do think adding at least 10 to 20 cards a month is a no brainer that wouldn't cost them much if anything... They are never going to provide the customer service of say a concierge at the Ritz Carlton, they are a small company, but at least the game still rocks! You can be pissed off all the time about it, or you can enjoy the good in what they offer.

I do agree Bernie seemed to do a great job with what he had.

Radagast Brown wrote:

To the gentleman who started this thread, I hope they get it straightened out for you. Are you sure you e-mailed the right place? I have won quite a few credits and never failed to received them, are you sure you were not awarded that credit?

I emailed the right place both times. I double and triple checked that over the last five days. I am also positive I didn't get the credit because they had a sale that ended on the 30th and I agonized over whether to buy more credits and decided to stick with the 12 I already have. They told me later that evening that I had won a credit and my total did not change. Oh well they will never get me to buy another one. I was also shorted a couple of credits in the big change over a couple of years ago as were some other people.

As I said before what really irritates me is that they just ignor you. The Last Druid covered all of this pretty well. Thanks for posting.

Hey lanier64, I did not mean to second guess you. I hope they get that straightened out for you. Cheers!

Well said Druid and thank you. I mean if it were every month they added cards I wouldn't be so emo about it. They had a franchise addition last time, huge gap in between to this set and maybe I can get the card I'm after next time but who knows when that will be or if there will be a franchise addition again. It could be 14 months before he can be added again.

Plus all the other stuff

To the original post you'll get the credit I'm confident in but you shouldn't have to stress about it for so long.

Radagast Brown wrote:

Hey lanier64, I did not mean to second guess you. I hope they get that straightened out for you. Cheers!

No, no I'm not angry with you I'm ticked off at the lack of response by SOM. Sorry if I came off that way but there was no offense intended. And they did finally got in touch with me 7 days after the fact and we got it straightened out.

It's just ashamed that a company with such a great product has such poor customer service and doesn't seem to care. I have played many baseball simulations over the years and SOM (board game and computer game) is still the best when you look at accuracy and playability. And the game has great balance in that pitching, offense, and defense all work together as they do in real baseball. No one aspect dominates as pitching does in some games and offense in others. Oh well I guess SOM doesn't much care because we baseball junkies are hooked.

I agree that you (lanier64) have a valid complaint, but also suspect that very quickly you'll find that the credit has been added to your account. I have had excellent and timely responses from John Garcia (or whoever else handles onlingamesupport) from the beginning. Perhaps the fact that the last two weeks were the biggest holidays of the year meant that complaints, help requests and the like got very backed up, hence a natural delay in responding.

I also will miss you in this game, remembering in particular all the baseball card displays you set up in this forum some time back that kept me begging for more. I hope you'll reconsider hanging it up.

My biggest disappointment in Strat was when it was decided to censor any and all criticism of those who ran the game and how they ran it. It appears that policy has been modified greatly in the intervening months and criticism (as long as it's not personal or profane) is now again allowed. Just my opinion, of course, but it really seems that way. Hasn't really helped restore the forums to what they once were (where, every evening, you could look forward to cogent and interesting discussions), but at least the hard hand that cut off a lot of the debate is nowhere near as prevalent.

Tom