Good morning Splintergang and Soulkeepers!
Let's take a moment to talk about Customer Service. This is something I am good at. No... GREAT at...
I don't post much about my "professional" life on here but today, that changes as I open a window into the IRL version of CaptainDingus.
I've been in customer service, one form or another, for 18 years. Seems like forever but remember: "A long length of time doing something, does not guarantee being "great" at it"
However, in addition to the countless hours of training and study I have done... Maxwell Leaderships series - I was a General Manager of a retail store for 3 years and owned a restaurant with 24 employees at one point.
Currently, I sell luxury vehicles: Acura, Audi and BMW to be precise.
If one were to Google Search the dealership where I work and look at reviews, one might see a very large number of 5-Star reviews with my name attached to them.
I currently hold the dealership sales record for most cars sold in a single month (I may also hold the yearly record but I don't actually care).
You could make the argument "but Jim, this just means you're great at SALES"... While you could make that argument, if you met me... I AM TERRIBLE AT "SALES"...
In fact - I hate "selling cars"...
Blech
If I am bad at "sales" and hate "selling cars"... HOW THE HELL DO I HOLD THE SALES RECORD????
BECAUSE I AM FUCKING FANTASTIC AT TREATING PEOPLE WITH RESPECT, LISTENING AND HELPING THEM ACHIEVE WHAT THEY WANT - ALL THE WHILE MAINTAIN MY PERSONAL ETHICS, INTEGRITY AND CHARACTER.
Right... sorry about the yelling... man... that is sure wordy, I wish there was a better way to sum up and describe what I typed in a neat little way... something like two words to wrap it all up... OH YEAH!!
It is called: Customer Service
So... introductions aside, how does that apply here, today?
Recently, in the game Soulkeep, there were some pretty drastic changes made with little heads up for the community (aka the Customers).
The biggest change was a 300% price increase for "Tickets".
100 Tickets previously cost 200 DEC
WHY is this increase an issue... why is ANY of this an issue?
In order to charge a premium for something, it must be of premium quality (or be in a premium location).
Think of your regular old Honda or Chevy... Decent vehicles, reliable, affordable and they get you from A to B - because that's what cars are for... it's their purpose.
So, why does Acura charge more for a "Fancy Honda" and why does Cadillac charge more for a "Fancy Chevy"???
More importantly - WHY ARE PEOPLE WILLING TO PAY FOR IT????
The definition of "Luxury Vehicles" can be summed up in 5 Main Points:
A. Style
B. Performance
C. Comfort
D. Sound (Reduced Noise + Badass Stereo)
E. Material/Build Quality
Because an Acura > Honda at all 5 of those and the same for Cadillac > Chevy... Acura and Cadillac CAN and DO charge MORE for a car, that at the end of the day... just gets you from A to B.
In addition, the way you are treated at Luxury Dealerships is often (subjectively) "better" than at an economy dealership because of the training the staff undergos and the expectations of the management on how to treat their clients.
Think about how you're treated at McDonalds vs a high end Steakhouse. They both sell food. Why does the Steakhouse charge so much for theirs and people pay it?
Product Quality is a big one... and as of right now... can anyone look me in the eye and say "Soulkeep is a fantastic game. It runs with little to no issues, bugs or crashes. Almost no lag and it has well described, easy to access game mechanics and level breakdowns so people can learn and understand how to play it"
Nope.
Ok... so "Quality of Item" is not in the "Luxury" category, so does one believe they could justify charging a "premium" for that experience???
Nope.
So, since the game isn't really of superb quality, if the customers: make no mistake, we "the community"... ARE the customers...
If the game isn't "suberb", if the customers are suddenly asked to pay 300% of an increase... without anything additional to show for it... can one reasonably assume the customers will continue to do so?
Certainly not - at least not at the same RATE at which they were doing so, previously... but how could one mitigate that?
Customer. Service.
One of the worst things you can do for your customers... is SURPRISE THEM... with something "Negative"... Examples:
More Costs
Less "use"
Less "function"
More "time" - "Your current hold time is 5 minutes..." 3 minutes later "Your current hold time is... 19 minutes"... WTF!?!?!
See what I mean??
Enter: Customer Service.
People... Humans... WE HATE BAD SURPRISES... so Customer Service 101 is simply mitigating the surprise:
Why? Because if we, the customers, know there are going to be issues... It doesn't suck NEARLY as bad as waking up to the discord full of:
"Why the F#$% are these 3X more expensive?!?"
Double Coconut, the fact that your Hive Presence is essentially ZERO is already an issue... Overlooking the small team, limited contact, game issues and other stuff... not having a decent Hive presence will hinder you... but not having decent Customer Service will kill your efforts.
Gaining customers for your game was relatively easy: 
All you have to do... is work on retaining us... and let me tell you with my 18 years of experience:
Offering a buggy, barely functional, crash heavy, game... paired with almost zero "Single Player" ability and ONE SINGLE FREE PLAY per day... along with little to no community engagement or anything from the Team... is bad enough.
To suddenly and without warning or explanation, increase costs associated with playing the game by 300%... is terrible.
Furthermore, to retroactively post this:
Means, they knew it would cause an issue... but didn't tell us until after...
One final issue I have with this entire thing is their statement:
"Initial price was a promo price for the launch only"
Oh yeah??? Is that so DC? A "promo"... Where EXACTLY does it say that in the White Paper you provided?
Hint: IT DOESN'T
Conclusion: I call BULLSHIT. I think it was a cheap shot to see what would happen if they tripled the price.
Probably had a thought along the lines of: "Man, these guys sure are spending some $$ to get these Tickets and play the game... I wonder how much extra we could charge... and then blame it on the "DEC Burn"..."
I get there are expenses... we all get that. No one is saying there isn't...
But if you, Double Coconut, aren't going to be very open and communicative with us, your customers... don't expect to have many customers for very long.
A. Top Tier Product (Nope)
B. Long standing Brand loyalty (Nope)
C. Amazing Customer Service (Nope)
A company cannot hope to fail at all three of these "pillars of value" with their product and retain much of clientele base. People will simply migrate to other, similar Products/Services that exceed what your company provides in these same categories.
In conclusion, DC, I hope you will learn from this and understand that you have a PHENOMENAL opportunity here:
You have a customer base that was GIVEN to you...
You have a customer base that mostly understands the game will have issues because we were informed about the rush job to complete and rollout the game (after many delays)
You have a customer base that actively wants to play the game you are providing and are excited about it...
You have a customer base WILLING to PAY for the privilege to do so...
All we are asking is to please let us know:
A. WHAT changes you are going to implement
B. WHEN you are going to implement them (NOT AFTER THE FACT)
C. WHO it will affect (Leagues/Fiends/Players/Etc)
D. HOW it will affect the game
Finally: be honest and transparent... we can smell bullshit a mile away.
Neither person nor company can claim "It was a promo for launch" when it was never mentioned as such.
Do you know what the word "promo" means? A "promotion" as such in the English usage - is a means to generate excitement, awareness, publicity, usage, etc of a product/service/company/feature by offering them at a discounted rate for a LIMITED time.
That "Limited Time" window of discount creates "Scarcity". Scarcity creates demand. It incentivizes us to play more and spend more during the "Promo period" and that helps launch the game/product/service by generating revenue to carry the company forward and create a runway.
Since Double Coconut NEVER ONCE mentioned it was offering us these Tickets at this "Discounted Rate" for "Limited Time"... once again...
I. CALL. BULLSHIT.
It can't be a "Promo" if it was never mentioned as such, by any conceivable means... BECAUSE IT ISN'T "PROMOTING" THE GAME or "Special Opportunity".
This is a failure on the company part and it shows a glaring lack of any recognizable "Customer Service" skills exemplified by the final statement made by Arhov upon the update:
"We will finalize it and update you when it is deployed".
This means to me, Double Coconut does not have enough experience as a company to understand that they should tell their customers... BEFORE... implementing changes, how they will affect their clients and what to expect.
That is Customer Service 101 and if you hope to succeed in this business or any other one... you must change this and quickly.
Because otherwise, without any other improvements... I won't be around to write articles like this... and there won't be any other Players left to read them.
It's not an unforgivable error - but it needs to be a learning experience and changes must be made in the way things are done... or can you REALLY justify asking players to buy 10 Copies of a Celene at $160 per copy... $1,600 NFT... so they can have a shot at winning the BIG prizes at the top (League 10)...
Only then to then TRIPLE the costs associated with playing... thus reducing the "Net Payout" of the Prizes?
By doing so, one must recognize then the VALUE of said "Game Pieces" must decline in response... that alone could cause a downward spiral in Player Retention.
These issue MUST be addressed, we - your customers - are begging you.
Cheers 🍻,
- CaptainDingus
