customer relations

There's a rather interesting interview over on the official blog with Cyn Linden. Courtney Linden is no Paisley Beebe yet but it's well presented and heck I liked it.

Cyn has always given me the impression of the lurking manager in the background, the one with the colgate smile, The girl with the curls and the sweet pink ribbon in her hair and the knife of steel, seen but not heard, trawling the corridors with the evil plan, The clown with the frown driving down to the sidewalk fair, finger on the trigger let me tell you gave us quite a scare......I watched a repeat of Minority Report last night so this character may be influenced by that.

Seriously, I hear so little from Cyn, I'm not even sure if her name is still on the window of an office in the Linden Estate services building, since Jack moved his office hour to the foyer I haven't explored the building much.

However in the interview Cyn and Courtney engage in some serious arm throwing and talk of issues such as support, what's on the ipod shuffle, what Cyn likes to do in Second Life and how they'd like to see the future of support in Second Life.

Right now of course all Second Life support staff popping their heads above the parapet risk the wrath of the lynch mob, pitchforks at the ready (I have one myself). Rightly so in cases such as the adult content moves which have been handled with such draw dopping disregard to inworld dynamics that they deserve brutal criticism, there's no way of putting lipstick on that pig. { Read more }

I've just received an email from Linden Lab informing me of the Openspace price rise. The mail starts with:

"If you are already aware of the changes to Openspaces recently announced in the Linden Lab blog, please disregard this email".

No no no, a thousand times no. FFS this is important information, don't tell people to disregard it, tell them that it has already been blogged but that people should keep the email for their own records. Good grief, what sort of customer service credentials do these guys have? If I had the time, money and inclination I'd go there and teach them some basic bloody customer service skills, they're obviously in need of customer service training.

The email also talks of a twist in Openspace usage, the only twist was Linden Lab shafting everyone with a whopping increase, even the most cynical amongst us didn't see that coming.

However I don't want to dwell on heinous management decisions, I wat to talk about business. More to the point, why are people so aghast at the idea of corporates having a presence in Second Life? There's more venom aimed at the idea of corporates having a presence than there is at evil land barons and I simply don't see why people have this attitude.

Corporates bring with them some baggage, they also bring money. Advertising is one of the key growth areas on the internet, I don't see why people are so worried about advertising as long as it's done tastefully......hmmm yes it's Linden Lab who'd have to organise this and they demonstrate all too often that they don't know their arse from their elbow but it can be done tastefully.
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