[Improving our Lines of Communication with the Community]

I just spent a while trying to find that post from M from a year ago where he finally noticed the huge disconnect between customers and Lindens and vowed to address it. Regular meetings promised and all that. IIRC, there was one small meeting, voice only of course (despite residents always complaining about that) and invite-only then it fell off the radar, just like every other time it seemed like LL was actually starting to listen to their customers. Anyway, couldn't find the post because the search sucks so horribly. Still.

So now there's this new boss and we're seeing the same sorta talk by Lindens that I'm sure have the best intentions and want it all to work. I hope it works too but I'll believe it when I see it.

How long's the new boss been around now? Is he just talking to the huge estate owners and enterprise customers or do we expect he'll find the time to stop by and promise us cake?

[Linden Lab's New CEO]

Good grief. It truely is a magical time of the year - I find myself agreeing with Prok.

Welcome, Rod.

I'll say yet again what I've been saying for a few years. Make your customers happy and SL will start growing again. Things like SL, myface and twitter grow because people say "hey, check this out" to other people. Under the reign of M Linden/Kindon, LL seemed to go out of its way to piss customers off on a fairly regular basis. Nothing got fixed, we were ignored. People stopped saying "hey, check this out" to their friends. LL spent truckloads of money on things your customers were not interested in. You've seen the numbers - SL hasn't been going in the right direction for a long time now.

Please make it better.

TY.

(and a safe & happy holidays to you & yours, and to all the Lindens out there!)

edit: and can I have a bear, please?  (from BK, too!)

[Making Strides to Improve our Customer Support Services]

Concierge / premium Live chat has been totally brilliant if we residents actually take the time to actually keep our chat dialog clear and precise then this helps the linden on the other end fix or pop inworld next to you within seconds 

About the only reason I contact live chat is to get a restart of my mainland home, when the lag becomes unbearable. I connect, I say "hi, can we get a restart of mainland region (...), please? the lag has gotten quite bad. there are people here but they're all at my place and I own almost all of this region."

Then, almost without exception, they either say nothing or they say "just a minute" and don't come back. And the sim doesn't get a restart. This very much isn't (always) an issue with people calling up and babbling so much that they don't make sense.

To be fair, last night I actually did try again to get a sim restart and the Ontyne actually did it. I was amazed. Everybody at my place was also amazed. I can no longer say "every single time" but it's still "almost without exception."

[Making Strides to Improve our Customer Support Services]

Besides, let's be honest here.  Linden Research, Inc. does not want our input.  The plan a feature, begin implementation of said feature, and tell us about it just before it goes into open beta.  By this time, there is too much invested in the feature to change course or drop it altogether.  It is beyond infuriating.

 

Why on earth would the want the input of paying, engaged, dedicated customers for free when they can hire consultants to do focus groups with people who have never used SL before?

Silly rabbit. You obviously don't understand how business works.

[Making Strides to Improve our Customer Support Services]

remember the mentors? 

 

Those thousands of residents LL had doing support for free? Yes, I do remember them. LL said they were not cost-effective, though. Or didn't scale. Or something. Ontynes are better, apparently..

I've given up on concierge live chat. When they bother to even respond, they say "just a minute" then never come back. I've left the chat window open over night and even for a couple days once and they just don't come back. That's the way it's been the last dozen times I tried to get help from those bozos..

LL tries soooo hard to not have to manage things and almost never gets it right. They should suck it up and hire a Linden (Blue!) to revive the mentors and the old live chat system that had residents-with-clues doing triage and bumping issues to Lindens only when needed.

And get some forums that don't suck, damnit.

[Saying Farewell to Avatars United]

I tried signing up for AU, back at the start. Still waiting for my confirmation email... 

Well, not really waiting any more.

[Introducing Kim Salzer, Our New VP Marketing]

A:  What I really want to do here is help the Lab figure out what the “X  Factor” is going to be for Second Life 

 

That's actually pretty easy. Just make the product work and quit messing with your customers.

Twice since I've been here LL has raised the monthly fee of their most popular product by over 50%. Sim performance at busy places has been horrible, HORRIBLE for +18 months. Service is nearly non-existent nowdays. Zindra. Forums. M.

No other company could do so much to alienate nearly all of their existing customers and still be alive and kicking.

Make stuff work, don't treat customers like dirt and SL will start to grow by huge numbers again.

There was a LL survey a few months ago that asked if we would encourage our RL friends/family/work to spend money in SL. Dig the survey results up and see for yourself that you've already got the "X factor". (edit: and I would bet good money that most customers answer "zomg, no..." to that question, but they're still in SL. Most people want SL to work and to be able to tell their friends "hey, check this out" again, instead of wondering if we're just being saps and throwing money away, month after month)

edit: ...and I meant the outsourced support. When you can get an actual Linden, they are, almost without exception, always great.