The Game industry has experienced consistent expansion in recent years. Particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, its growth intensified, defying the significant losses encountered by many companies in various other industries. As countries around the world implemented quarantines and other movement restrictions to stop the spread of the virus, people turned to games for entertainment and social interaction, and as a stay-at-home lifestyle took hold among consumers, games, web services, and other content that allowed them to spend time “at home” in a meaningful way took off.
But as the user base grows stronger, many game developers in the gaming industry are facing numerous challenges. As more games were released, the competition became fierce, and as a result, we had to grapple with talent shortages and uncertainty.
Against this background, game business managers face the significant challenge of “how to secure fans, create beloved games, and grow the business for a long time” from various perspectives. To make a Game successful, it’s not enough to invest in promotions or product development, which are directly tied to ratings and awareness. In order to receive high ratings from users who are already familiar with the game, it is necessary to strengthen the service aspect.
It may seem trivial compared to promotions and product development, game management is an important endeavor to build long-lasting fans. In an ongoing game, such as a mobile or online game, it’s essential to have an operation that manages user trends and downloads. It’s important to get into the user’s mindset in order to cultivate players who continue to enjoy the game and make purchases. As a result, game management can be seen more as a “service business,” prioritizing the user, rather than a creative business that produces great work. Therefore, it’s important to anticipate and prepare for possible operational risks.
As their user base grew, Game companies experienced an increase in complaints, inquiries, and other customer feedback. However, when a Game doesn’t have dedicated in-house gaming customer service staff, an ever-increasing number of incoming customer inquiries can quickly turn out to be an impossible task for developers. Providers specializing in Game Customer Service typically specialize in professionally managing these customer inquiries, and further aim to satisfy their user base throughout their overall operations. Many gaming companies are partnering with outsourcing companies like Latis Global to strengthen their in-house teams, in order to cope with the increasing number of inquiries and diverse operational policies.
What Is Game Customer Service?
Game customer service is a customer facing service feature offered to developers for the players of a specific game. These services include handling various complaints, answering inquiries, and conveying player feedback to game developers. While this may sound like the same work that a general customer support provider does, Game Customer Service agents target a much more specific niche.
Game Customer Service and General Customer Service
Game customer service is a completely different service from regular customer service, even though it may seem like just a small difference in the title. Gaming customer service jobs prefer service personnel with experience and interest in games. The personnel resolves various customer issues related to game play, rules, memberships, in-game purchases, game interfaces, features, and merchandise.
Gaming customer service personnel must have skills and knowledge that are more specialized to the gaming aspect than general customer service representatives. This expertise may include practical knowledge of the developers’ game titles, understanding the preferences and characteristics of the user base for the specific game, managing content on various social media platforms, and understanding the gaming platforms and hardware used by users.
Additionally, Game customer service agents might speak more than one language. While this is not a requirement, many games have recently entered the global market, and being multilingual is advantageous when responding to user inquiries.
Benefits of Outsourcing Game Customer Service
There are many benefits to outsourcing your game customer service to a partner, regardless of the size of your developers.
Here are some of the benefits that can be obtained by outsourcing business functions.
24/7 Real-Time Support and Availability of Multi-Channel Support
Most outsourcing companies are implementing shift work to provide continuous service across multiple channels for their partners.
This is very advantageous for Game companies with a user base that resides in different time zones around the world, enabling users to connect with Customer Service in real time, at their convenience.
Operating Cost Reduction
Saving costs is another attractive element in outsourcing game customer service. Using outsourced staff can save up to 70% of the cost compared to running a contact center in-house.
Additionally, outsourcing companies often bear the costs of hiring and training agents, tools, and the facilities where they work.
Improve User Relations
Many game users are already proficient in resolving various issues that arise in the game, and they don’t frequently seek escalation to the Customer Service team for well-known problems. But when these users need help, they don’t want an automated chatbot response that will eventually send them to a closed inquiry page, they want a “human” who can empathize with their pain points and help them solve them.
When a service representative with expertise in the game you are playing manages user inquiries, complaints about bugs or issues from users will decrease, and users will feel more secure.
You Can Prioritize Your Company’s Core Processes
Developers should prioritize game development above all else. However, since you can’t ignore providing game operation services to your user base, spending the funding and energy on recruiting, hiring, and training an in-house team of customer service experts will prevent you from being able to focus on game development. Outsourcing enables a business to focus on the core parts by freeing up money and human resources that would otherwise be spent on an in-house service team.
Why Latis Global Is the Best Game Customer Service Provider
With the increasing commoditization of the gaming market, the people in charge are constantly grappling with various considerations to make a Game that is both engaging and loved for a long time. Of course, the fun of the game itself and unique promotions are important. However, efforts to improve the user’s play experience can also be seen as a factor that affects game ratings.
In addition to approaching how to retain people who are already enjoying the game, it’s also a critical role for operations to make sure that the presence of the title is known to attract new players. Conveying user trends and behavior to the development department is also essential for the evolution of the title and the company’s profit margins.
However, it can be complex and expensive for Game companies to establish their own Game Customer Service. Users have countless questions, and as a result, there are numerous aspects that need to be addressed, such as determining the number of agents required, how efficiently they can resolve problems, the necessary skillset, and the languages needed for international users. If there are situations that cannot be dealt with internally, outsourcing to someone with expertise is definitely a viable option.
Latis Global’s Game Customer Service representatives speak the language of gamers, which is an important factor in ensuring smoother problem resolution. The agents we provide not only share the same language as you, but also have a wealth of experience in the industry. If you have any further questions about Game operations, please contact us at contact@latisglobal.com. Let’s give wings to your Game.
