WoW, that is customer service

A while ago I started playing World of Warcraft (WoW) again.  I don’t know exactly why I started playing, but it was something I felt that I had to do in a time of money crunch and unbearable stress.  I first started playing WoW almost two years ago when it first came out and I had a level 50+ troll priest to grind to 60.  I figured this was exactly what I needed to help detach enough to save my sanity, but there was one big problem…I had no idea what my password was.

Now normally this isn’t a problem, through the World of Warcraft homepage you can retrieve your old account name and password however since I opened this account most of my information most user-systems use to validate a person had changed once if not twice.  To retrieve my password I had to enter in my account name which I thought would be easy enough as in the past year I have only been using a couple of different names, so I entered in my normal username and it continued to the next page.  From this screen I had to answer a secret question, phone number, and email address.  My mom’s maiden name wasn’t going to change but my phone number changed at least three times and my email address twice so this I had some guessing to do.  I tried a number of combinations going through my various changes however none seemed to work so after an hour I was forced to call the support line. 

Calling the support line set me back a day by having to wait for regular business hours but I was determined to play my old account.  The next day I called the support line several times to just get placed in a queue and be put on hold for nearly an hour.  When I finally reached a representative that could help we went through the standard information and I explained my problem.  All I wanted to do was play my old account and after giving him my account name, which I validated myself on their homepage, I couldn’t authenticate myself.  My first reaction was I have been hacked; informationwas changed and I didn’t do it!  He then explained to me that no one can change this information once it has been set and they have never had a need to delete an account because it was not being used.  Frustrated and confused with myself because I couldn’t remember my information or why I would use anything outside of my real information I broke down and asked to speak with a manager. 

In most call centers this then prompts them to try to de-esculate or forward you to a fake manager, but this person handled things just like we all would want it done.  He put me on hold and after word that his manager was busy until 6 he asked if they could call me back.  This was nearly unheard of for me.  A place this busy was going to have the manager call me back?  “Great”, I responded and then let the poor guy go.  There was nothing he could do within his powers and guidelines but it was great to hear I would have a second chance. 

Later that night I received a phone call from Blizzard and we went around and around trying to figure out where I went wrong and how to get my account information.  After working with him for more than I care to admit he came up with the idea to search for my level 50+ troll priest and sure enough he was still living in the servers, and upon further research we found that the account I thought was mine wasn’t mine at all.  It turns out my account name was something different all together and what I thought was a unique account name someone other lady is probably still using today! 

Overall, the whole experience was pretty frustrating for me, but it was great to see Blizzards customer service and passion for their own product.  The persons I spoke to on the phone did all they could to help me get back into the game when they could have easily brushed me away under their terms of service.  For this I greatly appreciate all of their help and admire the company for hiring and training a great customer support staff.

Thanks! - Rob (now with a level 60 troll priest)