Support Lead Dornsinger on the Support Team

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

I thought forum users who don't Reddit (and even some who do) might be interested in the comments of _Dornsinger_, one of the team's two "Lead Game Masters," writing about why there's high turnover and some miscellaneous tidbits.

 

> Support lead Dornsinger, writing as [/u/Dornsinger](https://www.reddit.com/user/Dornsinger)

> https://old.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/avdfi5/gm_ultra_viper_remains/ehhgk5z/

> Being a GM can be very, very hard. It's a job where you get yelled at, lied to, sworn at, you have to continuously move forward - some folks sadly burn out over time. That is not saying they are not great agents, some of my best members worked so hard they burned themselves out after only a few months.

>

> I try to keep a current roster updated on [the wiki](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2_Support_Team), to make sure you can always check in on the team and who is around - and so the team can see I appreciate them enough to put their names out there. They are all awesome. :3

>

> (Please note this does not mean you can request your ticket to be specifically handled by a certain GM, whenever a team member is free, they pick up the next ticket. It's very rare you'd be lucky enough that that one GM you want grabs your ticket. Especially SGMs and LGMs have other tasks outside of crushing the queue, so asking for us specifically may not be your best bet.)

 

(The context was in reply to redditors who were tracking some of the specific support staff that remain with ANet after the layoffs.)

(I don't think _Dornsinger_ uses their GM account to post on the forums. The other lead, @"GM Magister.8736", has posted here.)

[Danikat.8537]

Customer service is a really tough job. I can only imagine how much worse it is with the anonymity of the internet involved as well. I'm pretty sure it has high turnover in all fields, no matter what specifically you're helping people with.

 

I don't even work in customer service any more and today a man shouted at me down the phone for several minutes because he'd called the wrong number and I "couldn't be bothered" to go 120 miles away to do a different companies job and was "too lazy and stupid" to do anything except look up the correct phone number - which he then refused to take.

 

Weirdly it can also be very rewarding. I can remember days when I was working customer service I'd spend my whole journey home trying to figure out how to solve someone's problem, just because I couldn't stop thinking about it. Finally getting it, and being able to help them with something they thought was impossible was an amazing feeling, especially if they were one of the nice ones.

 

But I think it takes a very special kind of person to keep doing it for more than a few years.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

I've almost always loved my time(s) as a Support person. But, then, I've also often been called 'special'. :tongue:

 

Thanks, as always, for the information, Na. =)

[Dami.5046]

I was In Customer service for over 20 years, 6 of those face to face the rest over the phone. And it is very very hard. Even when I got promoted I was 'still just the girl who answers the phone'

But nothing beats having some bad sausages thrown at you and a month full of cute kitties on how horrible they were to read on the packaging they were from another store.

Karma x10

[Goettel.4389]

Any support guy or gall anywhere gets my support. Users can't know.

[Trise.2865]

I don't know who that is, but if they are really who they say they are, then they have my deepest sympathies.

[ArmoredVehicle.2849]

I'm one of technicians at a local IT store and a few desks away from me there is the support team, dealing with some customers can be tough and I don't wanna be in their shoes anytime soon.

 

Thanks OP for sharing the article here. Dornsinger once stepped up to help me with a ticket regarding my account once, will never forget the nice gesture and professional way he handled the situation. Big thumbs up for your hard work to all those who work in customer support.

 

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

I've had terrible experiences with GMs in lots of games. Some try to do their best. Others don't understand a word of what you're saying or how the game works in general.

[Randulf.7614]

22 years of customer facing service here. Enjoyable, but you need a thick skin.

 

I get sometimes needing to be pushy, but rude, sweary and insulting should get you nowhere. It’s very easy not to think of the person at the other end, but restraint and tolerance should be the hall mark of getting things resolved

[SkyShroud.2865]

I worked part time as CSO when I was studying and also work as IT support before as well. It was harsh but at the same time, not that harsh too, as long you don't get emotional about it which I believe can be difficult for some people. It can be tiring though, especially if you work in a very busy industry because in such busy place, you might end up only having 30 minutes break time.

 

For GM, I don't think they have to converse with users verbally much so I doubt it really as harsh as other CSO positions which have to deal with customers verbally, or even face to face. I mean dealing with users verbally is a whole new different level from conversing via text.

[AnClar.1304]

I too was in CS at a number of companies over the years. I found that when I had gotten to be a lead CSR, the only way to keep on keeping on was to have and foster a culture that had a healthy sense of humor. Many times CS winds up being the complaint department of an organization. Folks seemed to think it was OK to treat CSRs as though their particular problem was the only one in the organization. We were yelled at, complained to, and treated terribly. That wasn't always the case, of course, there were usually those ppl who understood our role and had some compassion and empathy towards us. (They were also the ones who tended to get their issues addressed more quickly.)

 

One of the ways we used to handle particularly annoying users in the organizations where I was lead CSR, was that I created a little competition that specifically addressed the worst of the worst end user offenders...you know...the ones who would call over and over again with the same idiotic issues...losing their password for the tenth time in a month...complaining multiple times a month that "their monitors were not working or their machines were not booting...fixed by visiting them and either plugging the monitor in, or operating the BROOS (Big Red On/Off Switch). The competition was called "LAN Loser of the Month." I'd hold a monthly meeting with my team, (off-site) where we'd go over the horror stories of that particular month, share a bunch of community laughs, and identify the "winner" ticket of the month. That ticket would get sanitized for privacy concerns, and posted outside my office for that month. Usually the "winners" knew who they were, and wanted to make sure they were not "winners" in the future. Because of that, I found the repeat offender ticket volume dropped measurably. I had the blessing of senior management for this, so the "winners" really had no recourse. My team was happier and more productive for the exercise, and we all functioned better and more efficiently.

 

I did my best to try to come up with things like this that helped morale, made us better at what we did, and made the organization better. It also helped delay burnout among my team members. So always being kind and appreciative to CS or End User Support, or whatever it's called is, has been, and always be the way I roll. My two cents.

[Shikigami.4013]

> @"AnClar.1304" said:

>[...] I had the blessing of senior management for this, so the "winners" really had no recourse.

That sounds like a decent management to work under :) i imagine most would have said "OMG you can't do that!" ^^

 

I hope the "being yelled at" mentioned by GM Dornsinger refered to being "yelled at" in text form by unreasonable players and not actually being yelled at by higher-up ANet staff ><

[Anela.3867]

In my experience, the support team in GW2 had been absolutely amazing! The best I have ever dealt with.