Customer support can be tricky business. Especially when a new product with new technologies is launched onto consumers. We interview Xbox Support Group Program Manager, Doug Park, on what its been like 'supporting' the Xbox 360.
Coola: Hey there, thanks for taking sometime out of your busy ass schedule to answer some of our questions. If you don’t mind, would you mind telling us your name and your title as well as what you do at that Microsoft place.
Doug Park: My name is Doug Park. Some people at work call me LumberJack, though… long story.
Lets see… I have worked at Microsoft for almost 6 years now and I worked at a call center company called Convergys for almost 4 years before that. I have been in Xbox-land for the past 3.5 years… I joined the team about 2 months before Live launched on v1.
As far as what I do… well, I have the great privilege of managing our Global Xbox Support Program Management team here at Microsoft. This wonderful team of individuals is one of the strongest links between our product groups and our customers that contact us. They analyze data, write support content (like that in the KB @ support.microsoft.com), contribute to training, handle product escalations, travel the world to visit our vendors, spend time in the fine forums at Xbox.com, and generally keep everything running in the background here. They are an outstanding group and you will not find a more passionate bunch of gamers.
Coola: For those curious about this Monty Python Lumberjack, check this video out.
Coola: So is “Lumberjack” Married and are there little “Lumberjackies” running around somewhere?
Doug Park: Yes and yes. My wife Rachael has put up with me, for some reason, for almost 8 years. Our son Jackson and daughter Alyssa grace us with their presence each and every day (whether we like it or not)… hehe. Jackson is going to be an all star on Xbox, as he has had his own prototype Xbox 360 controller since he was 6 months old and Alyssa, well, lets just say that I don’t see her joining the PMS clan anytime soon, as she would rather be outside than playing on the console.
Coola: Alright so as far as your dream car goes – what would that be?
Doug Park: I have to say that I have always been a fan of Nissan Skyline and now that it is supposedly coming to the states, it will have to get on my list for “what to buy when I am filthy rich”. And no, I am not talking about the rebranded Infinity, I am talking about the new GT-R, as the Infinity pales in comparison.
Coola: So working at Microsoft must have you doing something around a computer. What kind of personal computer do you own?
Doug Park: I actually just upgraded this spring to a new Gateway GT5034 (dual core AMD, 2 gig ram, 320 gig HDD)… it is lightning fast. Unfortunately, they only had them at one store in the entire Puget Sound area, so I had to drive 50 miles to Best Buy in BFE to get it. I bought that and a nVidia GeForce 7800 GT OC and I was off and running.
Coola: Speaking of ‘personal’ – what’s a normal day for you. Starting of course from last nights hangover.
Doug Park: How do you know I was drinking… is it that obvious? I think I suffer a bit from A.D.D. because I really never have a normal day. I have noticed that there is absolutely no routine in my work life and I actually quite like it that way. I guess if I have to pick closest to normal, I would say that I wake up around 6:00am, take a nice hot shower, groom myself a bit (I really don’t want to stink at work, you know), then hop in my ‘teg for a nice 1 hour drive through the back roads of the Eastside.
Once at work, I usually have general status meetings in the morning… I do any syncing with our EMEA team members, then head into the flavor of the day. In the afternoon, I try to wrap things up around 5 (because I know I will just be on later that night, anyhow) and I make sure to do any syncing with our APJ team members as their day is just starting. I usually get home around 6:00pm, have a spot of dinner and hang out with the fam and then, depending on how many meetings I had during the day, I hop back on email ‘till I either pass out or throw in the towel.
Coola: And the inevitable question that all Microsoftee’s love to dodge. If there is one thing you could change about Microsoft, what would it be and why?
Doug Park: Ok… lets see… first, I have to say that I love this company… I have been around a bit and you know, it just doesn’t get much better than this. That being said, the one thing I would probably change is the fact that we only have Diet Coke in our fridges… I mean, I really like Diet Coke with Lime and it just isn’t readily available for me… how is that… probably about what you would expect, huh…
Coola: Ok, since you’re an Xbox guy, do you have a favorite Xbox game? Feel free to include Xbox and Xbox 360 games.
Doug Park: I have so many!!! One of the perks of the job is that we get to see them all, so I can’t really say I have one favorite. Some that stand out, though include Fight Night Round 3, Battlefield 2, Call of Duty 2, Hexic, and Rockstar’s Table Tennis… and of course, I played the hell out of Halo 2 during the beta and after launch. I think I made it to level 13 or so in the solo Live games before another game tore me away.
Doug Park: Oh, they haven’t gone anywhere. As many know, if you happen to give us a call, we will confirm that the extended warranty has absolutely been applied. If you have been charged, we have extended your warranty. We did find that some of the literature hadn’t gone out to some of our customers, though, and we have been actively working on getting that resolved. You know how systems can be, though… one thing leads to another and it isn’t a simple problem or fix anymore. We hope to see a solution in the near future, as progress is being made and we definitely want people to have their paperwork.
Coola: Oh ok, because… if you were hiding mine somewhere I was going to roll up there and do the nasty. Here are some questions that we asked our readers to submit because I’m pretty ‘tard when it comes to questions.
Mahill: Would be great to know the percentage of machines sold that have generated service calls for technical problems, and the percentage of those calls that are dealt with over the phone (without having to return the console for repair/replacement).
Doug Park: So… I know you don’t want to hear it, but our official message on this is absolutely true. We are within the industry standard 3 to 5% of issues. Believe me… I am really close to this stuff. As far as phone vs. any other means, most of our support is handled via the all mighty telephone and we have a decent resolution rate. Of course, if something isn’t working, it isn’t working, so in the hardware world, we can’t solve nearly as many issues as we can in the services world. When we talk about Xbox Live, for instance we have a super high resolution rate, as you can imagine.
SuperCharlie [XF]: I got a real question… Is it true that the returns are now going Regular Ground instead of Next Day? I’ve read a few posts out and about that the next day thing has stopped.
Doug Park: So, here is the deal. We don’t really tell our service centers what method of shipping to use anymore. We just tell them how fast we want it to get back to all of you and then they choose based on the intricacies of your particular issue. If we have taken a little longer than normal, for instance, to repair your console, it might get back to you via next day. If things go as they should, though, it should come via regular ground. We strive to hit 3 to 4 days for that return shipment and hit it the vast majority of the time.
SuperCharlie [XF]: What are the top 3 issues you deal with?
Doug Park: This is an easy one… we want to be as effective as possible on Xbox.com, so all you have to do is go to the support page to see what our customers are asking us about the most. The top issues there are updated monthly to make sure we are keeping everyone up to speed and addressing the biggest concerns.
Doug Park, Microsoft Xbox Support Group Program Manager
MC Smoke: Have you ever loss your patience with someone who "just didn't get it"?
Doug Park: You know, I think people will tell you that I am one of the most patient guys around… of course, I do have my moments, just like everyone else. If you are asking me about our customers, though, then no… can’t really say that I have. If you are asking me about work or my personal life, then I have to say that it does happen from time to time, but I generally get over it after a good long cry.
Sypher Kon: What are the details behind an Xbox 360 Gold account when it is not cancelled but instead turns into a Silver account?
What happens to the friends list?
Doug Park: Nothing. You keep in contact with all your wonderful peeps!
Can the account be reactivated with the same name?
Doug Park: Absolutely. You don’t even really lose the account. Gold to Silver is basically like turning off some features.
Can we know if a friend has either cancelled service or changed name?
Doug Park: This is a tough one, as there is no real easy way to find out. The best thing to do here is for the friend to be a good gamertag buddy and to send a message to everyone on his or her friends list, letting everyone know what is going on. That is the beauty of messaging on Xbox Live!
Tank8131:
Is there someone higher up than a "supervisor" that I can talk to when I call?
Doug Park: Absolutely! The supervisors at the call center have the ability to escalate issues to us here at headquarters. We have a team of folks that deal with the really complicated ones, including new issues that we have never seen. Hopefully you don’t get to that point, but if a supervisor just doesn’t cut it, then you can continue to ask for your issue to be escalated or you could write a letter to Xbox Support.
I've sent my Xbox 360 in 4 times because of malfunctions. The fourth Xbox 360 has been at the repair center for 3 weeks. Is the repair center getting overburdened with so many defective Xbox 360's?
Doug Park: Absolutely not. Throughout the past 5 years, with both v1 and Xbox 360, we have been near perfect on obtaining our goal of getting all consoles repaired or replaced within 48 hours of receipt. In some rare instances, we don’t hit it, but I think the goal is 98% of the time and we haven’t missed that for an entire month since I have been in the group. Let Coola know some of your details and he can forward them to me so we can follow up.
I asked a supervisor for an address that I can send my complaints to about the horrible service I have received. Will they actually read that letter?
Doug Park: Funny that you should ask. Our group is responsible for handling all of the mail that gets sent to Xbox. We get some of the coolest stuff along with your feedback on our processes, too. Recently, we had an entire elementary school class write letters to us as a part of a business letter assignment they were doing. The letters were great and we read every one.
Do customer service representatives use their real names?
Doug Park: Sometimes.... We do ask that they use the same name all the time and let their supervisors know what name they are using so we can hunt them down and find them if needed. Usually, though, they use their own names unless it is hard to pronounce.
Why do you play techno music when on hold? And is there subliminal messages in the music?
Doug Park: Because we are all techno loving freaks over hear. We even have it pumped into the hallways via loudspeakers.
What types of games and accessories are people able to receive if they've had several problems with their Xbox 360?
Doug Park: This is a very case by case matter. We generally work with our customers to provide whatever will work best for them. Beyond that, there is no fancy algorithm or chart… sorry!
Are you tired of answering these questions?
Doug Park: I could answer these questions all freaking day. I mean, come on, if I didn’t work here, I would probably be as curious as everyone else. Being a gamer and working here does have its merits, you know.
Urizin: What will you do to increase overall customer satisfaction?
Doug Park: Ah… a question that is very near and dear to my heart. We are ALWAYS working on this, because no matter how hard you try, there is always room for improvement. Some of the things we are looking at include more online self help for our users, including the potential to create repairs and check repair status and ticket status on Xbox.com. More investment in forum support so we can really leverage the 24x7 power of one to many communications.
We continue to invest in training to ensure our agents hit the phones as ready as they possibly can be. We are also continually working on our KB content and working with the Xbox.com folks on the content they manage on the site. We get lots of great feedback from the community (every KB article has a feedback section, so use it) and from our agents, and we are always looking at how it can be incorporated.
That is about half of it… the other half is all about taking your feedback and analyzing the reasons people call us in the first place and feeding that back to the business groups so we can continually improve our products. We have a pretty good track record of making good suggestions back to the product teams and they are always willing to listen, so we have a really good relationship there.
Tupac: How often do you guys get questions about technologies that haven't launched or simply don't exist yet, like "When will MSN Messenger fully interface with Xbox Live on Xbox 360?
Doug Park: Not very often. People usually use the forums to talk about this kind of stuff, which is great, because the business group, support, and many others are frequently in the forums and it has a higher likelihood of getting noticed and answered by people that are more closely connected with future products and initiatives.
Coola: So what lies in the future for Lumberjack? Do you plan on working at Microsoft in the next 5-10 years or move on to something else?
Doug Park: At the risk of sounding scripted and like a company-guy, I seriously can’t think of a better place to be right now. I mean, I am a big geek that loves gaming, digital entertainment, digital media and all that good stuff. Where else in the world could I be involved in all of that like I am today? You tell me that and maybe I will be here for a shorter time than I thought. :)
Coola: Touché kind sir. Last but not least, what is the one thing you would want people to remember you for when you depart this earth?
Doug Park: My sense of humor and ability to have fun… I hate to be stuffy… I like adventure, having a good time, and living for the moment. If someone had to put something on a gravestone tomorrow, I hope it would be something along those lines, although I have a sneaking suspicion that it would be something from Monty Python about lumberjacks…
Coola: You’re definitely a Lumberjack… and that’s ok. Thanks Doug!
Doug Park: Thanks Coola!
XBOX365 Says
Monty Python + Holy Grail = Greatness
If you haven't seen Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail... go illegally download the torrent. It's a great movie. (or do that whole buying thing...)
