Voluntary Exit of Over 100 Blizzard EU Customer Service Agents Sparks Concerns - MMORPG.com News

SBFord

Voluntary Exit of Over 100 Blizzard EU Customer Service Agents Sparks Concerns - MMORPG.com News

Over 100 employees of the Customer Service center in Cork, Ireland are voluntarily leaving Blizzard at the end of December, a move that has sparked concerns with EU customers. According to Eurogamer, the employees leveraged a voluntary program "that offers staff money to leave Blizzard". According to their inside sources, the offer was made several times over the past few months with the amount offered increasing each time.

Read the full story here

SBFord

I wonder if Activision's and Blizzard's customer service operations will be unified? It certainly feels as if Activision has a heavier hand in things, though it could be coincidental. The last 3 months of Blizzard's life feel so...uncomfortable, like sand inside your swimsuit at the beach.

alkarionlog

parrotpholk said:

This is certainly not a good sign but good for the employees taking advantage as it appears there is some writing on the wall.



That said soon all calls will be answered by a very nice man in India named Bob or Steve. I would wager with the cost cutting this will happen sooner or later and it will be combined with only maybe an 8 - 10 hour operating schedule.

or its a good thing, cleaning house so maybe new ideas will come can be what they need

Amathe

SBFord said:

 The last 3 months of Blizzard's life feel so...uncomfortable, like sand inside your swimsuit at the beach.

More like sand fleas.  

FlyByKnight

New ideas in customer service is worth 100 employees having to walk out. Sounds logical.

WhiteLantern

A year's severance?!? Heck yes!

Heretique

Unfortunately Blizzard as we knew it has died. Just seeing the modular assimilation from Activision.

Guess nothing lasts forever.

WalkinGlenn

Softening the blow for when they move their phone centers to India.

Phry

WhiteLantern said:

A year's severance?!? Heck yes!

Its the luck of the Oirish i tells ya

Bananable

"On 19/12 our callback service will be closed from 17:00, please open a ticket request if assistance is required."

And they were joking about the phones before...hmmm.

Phry

Bananable said:

"On 19/12 our callback service will be closed from 17:00, please open a ticket request if assistance is required."

And they were joking about the phones before...hmmm.

Could be they are recruiting chinese speaking customer service agents instead 

Ozmodan

Well considering Wow is continuing to bleed subscribers it is not unexpected.

Wizardry

"no one is encouraged"but were offered more money several times?Definitely something is going on,butthis wording by Blizzard makes it sounds all comfy cozy,like it is all about helping people pursue other careers..lol.

Yes because i am quite certain that when Blizzard looks to hire people they are concerned for their future ELSEWHERE.

Oh WELCOME to our staff and here is a package that will help you leave !!.

Soooooo...

The BIG picture>>>>ACTIVISION.Now this topic is seriously a 50 page essay to cross all the T's and dot all the i's .To keep it short,i will start by saying just yesterday i think it was i mentioned Blizzard has been WASTING a lot of money as i mentioned they spend more than SE to deliver FAR less.
Two things Activision has been criticizing Blizzard's spending while failing with HOTS,failing OW and Wow is slowly dying.Several top execs and mid term employees left Blizzard for different reasons,one of which are LOWER than normal pay with PROMISED bonuses to make up the difference but bonuses are taxed VERY high and bonuses have been removed.

IMO it is Activision trying to get staff to leave because layoffs just look bad for the corporation and to investors.

Staff left because of FAILED Titan,Blizzard could not do a D3 expansion so Activision axed it.They tried again COPYING as typically Blizzard does to turn D3 into a Dark Souls type of game.Fast forward,so NOW Activision has said NO MORE D3 stuff,we want a NEW D4 for obvious reasons,NEW sells more than an expansion.

The infamous "We promise D4 will be a great game for the FAMILY"oh btw it is coming to mobile and you and your family can kill DEMONS together !!!.

Big picture,Blizzard is NO longer the same Blizzard,different people,not a success story anymore,spend too much money. Acitvision is not happy,spending is being cut,employees wages are less,execs are often FREE loading with their pay checks and CHANGE is happening mostly because of Activision.

My two cents,Blizzard deserves it,a poorly run operation that just so happens was LUCKY to be making a lot of money so it hides all the failures.I mean who is going to criticize a business that sports the top mmorpg in the world?

Keller

SBFord said:

I wonder if Activision's and Blizzard's customer service operations will be unified?

I think this too. In my opinion leaving volunteerly with a nice bonus versus forced layoffs is a decent thing to promote.

Alverant

alkarionlog said:

or its a good thing, cleaning house so maybe new ideas will come can be what they need

Then they need to clear out 100 executives, not the people on the bottom of the food chain who have no influence on the products.

Wizardry

https://www.google.ca/search?q=blizzard+stock&oq=blizzard+stock&aqs=chrome..69i57.5918j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
This is what is happening and why Activision is starting to be unhappy with Blizzard and why we see what has been happening at Blizzard of late.This is also happening at other notable AAA companies like EA and Rockstar.

So expect downsizing,lower wages,faster game production to cut costs etc etc,it all adds up to what we see now a days,early access and unpolished games.

Scot

Well at least the "story team" has escaped the bullet so everything is fine.

MadFrenchie

Scot said:

Well at least the "story team" has escaped the bullet so everything is fine.

Thank GOD for that one, right guys?

.. Right guys??


... Guys?

Derros

This, combined with WoW (and overwatch the month prior) falling off of the SuperDate rankings makes it look like BfA really didnt hit the mark and people might just be moving on.

Kyleran

parrotpholk said:

This is certainly not a good sign but good for the employees taking advantage as it appears there is some writing on the wall.



That said soon all calls will be answered by a very nice man in India named Bob or Steve. I would wager with the cost cutting this will happen sooner or later and it will be combined with only maybe an 8 - 10 hour operating schedule.

No, more likely to be from Manila, Phillipines rather than India. The cost for customer service staff is less, they generally speak English far more clearly, and are more willing to work over night shifts without having to pay a premium.

The company I work for has shifted much of its customer service, human resource and other non technical support positions to Manila for the above reasons.

They even experimented with doing software QA there but it didn't work out as we moved to an agile model with more emphasis on colocation of teams.

Apparently and fortunately for workers in the US (including me) and India there's not a lot of developers trained there in the applications and frameworks we use.

Asheram

parrotpholk said:

alkarionlog said:

parrotpholk said:

This is certainly not a good sign but good for the employees taking advantage as it appears there is some writing on the wall.





That said soon all calls will be answered by a very nice man in India named Bob or Steve. I would wager with the cost cutting this will happen sooner or later and it will be combined with only maybe an 8 - 10 hour operating schedule.

or its a good thing, cleaning house so maybe new ideas will come can be what they need

Ummm this is customer service folks.  This is not going to spark the next great game idea.  

All it will do is stoke the fires something at Blizzard is very very off.

Unless the game is a simulation of what its like to work at a large gaming company.

Robbgobb

Looking at that graph for the stocks still shows Blizzard at being higher than it was 2 years ago. Guess it is not doing so horrible. It just had a couple of years where the stock doubled.

MadFrenchie

Asheram said:

parrotpholk said:

alkarionlog said:

parrotpholk said:

This is certainly not a good sign but good for the employees taking advantage as it appears there is some writing on the wall.





That said soon all calls will be answered by a very nice man in India named Bob or Steve. I would wager with the cost cutting this will happen sooner or later and it will be combined with only maybe an 8 - 10 hour operating schedule.

or its a good thing, cleaning house so maybe new ideas will come can be what they need

Ummm this is customer service folks.  This is not going to spark the next great game idea.  

All it will do is stoke the fires something at Blizzard is very very off.

Unless the game is a simulation of what its like to work at a large gaming company.

Sounds like Ian just got his next big idea.

Kyleran

I realise it's an entirely voluntary program, but for 100 employees in the same role & location collectively decide right now is a good time to do this is telling.

I'll be amazed if these positions don't reopen or already are in process of being filled elsewhere in the world.

Octagon7711

If they keep going like this E.A. will buy them out one day.

rojoArcueid

Torval said:

SBFord said:

I wonder if Activision's and Blizzard's customer service operations will be unified? It certainly feels as if Activision has a heavier hand in things, though it could be coincidental. The last 3 months of Blizzard's life feel so...uncomfortable, like sand inside your swimsuit at the beach.

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives. Seriously, ActiBlizz could start their own soap opera at this point.

They can call it ActiBlizzion: Real-Life Cases.