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Game Playing: Customer Service Lags At Gaming Firms

Games are supposed to be fun. But many players face an aggravating experience, judging by Customer Service Benchmark Report, a study by Netomi finds.

The digital support channel of choice for game enthusiasts is email. But only 54% of companies have a readily accessible email address.

And of those that do provide a convenient email address,76% ignore customer service emails. And almost 33% fail to provide a meaningful response.

On the Support Performance Index (SPI), which ranges on a scale of 1 to 100, the average for the gaming business is 51.17%. The average amount of time it takes to answer is 39 hours. But it varies by region. 

On a global basis, firms in the Asia-Pacific region score an SPI of 56.2 — and the average response time is 10.3 hours.

Next is North America, which has an SPI of 52.68 — with a response time of 29.6 hours. 

It gets worse in the Europe, Africa and Middle East region, where the response averages 2.4 days and the SPI is 48.59. And in Latin America, there is an SPI of 48.27 and a reply time of 32.2 hours. 

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Service also depends on thee channel.

Mobile gaming companies have an average response time of 1.1 days, while for VR/AR firms it is 1.6 days, with PC gaming outfits at 1.9 days, social gaming providers at 2.9 days and console game purveyors at 3.9 days. On the positive side, 80.5% of gaming companies personalize emails, and 52% fully do so. 

Of those polled, 15.5% extend personal greetings only, and 51.5% provide personal greetings and sign-off. Another 13.5% offer only personal sign-off. 

But only 6% of gaming firms are fully empathetic. 

Netomi asked recommendations for a child's social distancing during the pandemic. A mere 7% acknowledged the COVID-19 pandemic, while 50% asked about the child’s interest. 

Netomi surveyed 2,991 gaming companies in 75 countries. 

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