Feedback That Gets Results

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The following post was created from a combination of the presentations that Jill, Community Manager, and Wesley, Customer Support Manager, gave at the Player Advisory Committee.

Before you can fully understand how the feedback loop at Zynga works, it's important to know the basics of groups within our community.  There are two main channels of communication and knowing when and how to use each one will help you provide feedback that gets results.  All communities can be broken down into groups.  The Macrogroup is the community as a whole and represents who we are. In this case, we are all Mafia Wars players. Mesogroups are how we identify ourselves within the community. Fighters and traders are an example of two identifiable Mesogroups.  Smaller groups that exist within the mesogroup are known as Microgroups and examples of these would be a specific clan or trading site. Further breakdown ends with you the individual player.  

The feedback loop is the core of how we communicate with Zynga. We the players can deliver our issues to Community Management or the Customer Support Teams. They in turn report our issues to the teams responsible for the game itself. These include the Production, Design and Development Teams. Once issues are resolved or have status updates, the game teams report back.

Knowing which venue to take for your particular issue will save you and Zynga time.  Forums represents the Community and are public, shared and archived. Customer Support represents the individual and are private and not shared. Contacting Customer Support when your account encounters a Mission bug will work because they can help you complete the Mission.  Addressing this issue on the Community Forums would result in someone recommending that you contact Customer Support. Asking Customer Support to increase the Fight Loot drop rate would have no immediate effect. 1,000 players replying to a discussion thread on the forums would probably get noticed and reported to the team.  There can be overlap so it's not always a either/or situation.

Once you decide which path to take your issue(s), it's time to review how to present them.  In order to explain your issue it's important to focus and make sure that you are being objective. Subjective explanations are generalized and emotional.  They won't help to get your problem solved. Objective explanations are the way to go because they provide facts without all the extra fluff. Lets take the same issue and present it subjectively and objectively.  Try to guess which player will get better results because he provided better feedback.

Subjective Sam:
Mafia Wars blows.  I'm so mad that I'm going to quit. I've been playing for two years and nothing ever works. How do you guys expect us to finish a Mission when you can't even do what's required because it's broken. This game used to be great and now it sucks.  My entire clan said they would quit too if you don't fix my issue. 

Objective Ollie:
I'm unable to declare a war which is a required task for the Mission Pawnshop Is Open Late. When I attempt to perform the task, I get a message that the war feature is currently unavailable.  Please refer to the screenshot below which was taken today at 8pm PST

 

The Customer Support page is designed so the player can search for answers to his or her questions. Knowledge Based articles (KB's) are posted and updated frequently. If you don't find the answer to your question, it's time to create a Customer Support ticket.

Tickets can be created by e-mail or by the Live Chat feature. You will find both options on the far right of the Customer Support pages. Live Chat will appear when 2 things happen. An agent needs to be present and the queue needs to have vacant spots in it. If you don't see the Live Chat icon, you can try again at a later time or refresh the page. It's best to go to the Customer Support page through your Mafia Wars account rather than a direct link. If you or the agent are not available for a Live Chat session, sending an e-mail will also create a Support Ticket.  For detailed instructions on doing this, go HERE.  Remember Customer Support should be utilized for technical issues and not general game information. General information can be found in the KB's and on the Zynga Forum Boards as well as many of the community driven fan pages and websites.

Always save your e-mails once a ticket number is generated. This will help both you and Customer Support if the issue needs to be readdressed. Find your ticket number with the reply e-mail that is generated once you submit your e-mail. Remember to be objective for faster results.

There are a few other options to provide feedback to Zynga.

http://getsatisfaction.com/mafia_wars  Get Satisfaction was launched in November and it evolving at a nice pace. It's similar to the Forums in that it is a public setting.  It's a great resource as it has more versatile search options. It's also monitored by the Forum Moderators and Zynga employees. I'll go more into detail on this site in a future post.

feedback@mafiawars.com is a e-mail address that players can utilize to represent a voice within the community on issues that certain groups may experience. It can also be used to let Customer Support know if the KB's need to be corrected or updated.

Article written by Jennifer Patterson, Creator of the MW Loot Lady Blog, The Mafia Wars Loot Lady Facebook Fan Page and Co-Host of The Informant Podcast. All material is protected by copyright law