Welcome to Eye-Life. Push the fish, it's about to turn.

Some would argue that the old adage "The customer is always right" is an utter load of bullocks. Really, I think the viewpoint on this debate depends on if, where, or when you've had to be on the opposite end of an angry customer spewing so much bile at you that you could have sworn they were a frat boy hugging the porcelain god after an all night bender.

So, what does good customer recovery and service mean to gaming companies? Let's take a look at the good, the bad, and the pathetic.

If you find yourself to be the type to check gaming news sites at least once a day, then I have no doubt that you have read all about the big commotion coming from Camp Sony pertaining to the massive setback of the leap year bug that is currently causing so much trouble that you would think swine flu had somehow transferred from humans to machines.

I guess that would also mean someone made sweet, sweet love to their hardware (something that is only condoned in Kentucky and Arkansas, mind you). But, I digress.

Some would say that problems like this calendar issue happen and that these things must be suffered through. After all, we're buying a quality product from a company that cares, correct?

Whoa. Hold on just a second, Titch.

Firstly, I would say that crippling problems in programming that completely immobilize one's ability to use the hardware in question is NOT something that "just happens". I feel Sony has really dropped the ball on not only dealing with the problem at hand by saying to "just keep your system off for 24 hours. We hope", but I feel they are slowly losing the battle of customer service recovery.

Don't understand what I'm talking about? Take a journey with me, dear reader... A journey into the world of dealing with annoyed customers who like to yell.

In the real world I work as an orderly for a local hospital system. This means that I move patients in said hospital about the grounds, whether it be to their room upon admission or from and to different areas of said hospital for testing. As you can imagine, customer service is extremely high on the list of things I have to worry about. Why?

Because if the patient isn't happy, they won't come back. Apparently, that would make our administrators sad. And sad administrators fire snarky orderlies. It's a crazy system, but I see the simplistic beauty in it all.

So, what happens when a patient or family member is not happy? Service recovery goes into action! Basically, this means we do absolutely everything in our power to make sure they are either happy, or have forgotten what the hell they were even mad about in the first place. This is typically achieved by our recovery packets which include a variety of free crap, including phone cards, meal cards, and random swag with our hospital's logo.

I must add that giving an angry customer free stuff is only half the battle, as most situations can be diffused if the company representative is earnest in wanting to solve any problems that arise. Conveying this idea of actually wanting to deal with a problem and not just passing the buck involves communication, and a genuine regard for making sure your customer always comes back.

After all, unhappy customers go to get their prescription drugs and limb amputations at other hospitals. Please see my previous theory on the sad administrator and the snarky orderly if you need to know the end result. Don't worry, I'll wait.

What does this have to do with Sony? Simply put, they have no idea how to keep their customers happy in a way that isn't completely insulting to the fact that we make sure their executives sleep on the biggest piles of money possible. Look back to previous fiascoes involving firmware problems, the initial hardware errors at the PS3 launch, and now add in PS3Y2K and you have a fairly obvious view that Sony really doesn't care about their customer enough.

I'm not going to go the angry route that most of my fellow nerds would go and point out that we probably on average spend more money by being Sony loyalists (which I am, God help me). My beef is actually yet to come, as I am interested to see what Sony is planning on doing to keep people from being so utterly angry that they simply won't come back.

I have an idea of what they should do, and this is all thanks to a tiny, upstart company called Blizzard.

"Perhaps you have heard of them?"

Anyone whom has played World of Warcraft knows that the game is rife with errors, downtime, and in general "annoying occurrences". The most recent have been the problems with server downtime after a few recent major patches. Some downtime (which of course means that players that pay a monthly fee cannot play said game) lasted for extended hours, or even a day at some points. Blizzard, understanding the importance of recovery, did something that I consider to be one of the ballsiest moves I've ever been privy to and honed up to their mistake. What did they do? They gave out free playtime to those that were affected by the server outages. Not only this, but during the outages they were giving constant updates (either through the loading browser, or by pumping the information to any number of World of Warcraft blogs and affiliates.

Just so you understand how much money is involved with Blizzard giving players game time gratis, allow me to paint you a picture: WoW has roughly ten million active subscriptions (which may be a rough estimate). Assuming that every player was hit by server problems and game glitches that caused them to give players a free day to cover what was lost, and that the cost of that one day is subtracted from the 14.99 per month price of the game, one can imagine that a lot of money would theoretically go into covering the cost of giving all of these players a free day.

I won't even attempt to do the math (I'm a Communications major, so sue me), but the number would suggest that Blizzard surely has the cash to cover their own mistake and admit fault in attempts to keep people happy, which they did.

My point? I'm hoping Sony sees the inconveniences that PS3Apocalypse has brought upon their user base. Some people have lost save data, others have lost trophies. Sure, we don't know the extent to which these problems will go... But that doesn't take away from the fact that they happened. Sony needs to demonstrate excellent customer service and recovery, or this will just be yet another flick of the lighter to the stick of dynamite that is Sony's recent corporate problems.

Oh, that... and I want free stuff. But, never mind that., right?

William Harrison is a Communications major (and soon, Graduate) at Ohio University, and if you enjoy his inane ramblings about video games feel free to find more at the following:
 http://zeyepawdz.wordpress.com and www.myspace.com/10thingsihateaboutshadeh