The gaming world is becoming increasingly competitive as more and more people around the world plug into consoles, turn on their PCs, and take their gaming on the go with mobile—making it even more important for gaming companies to provide a seamless experience for their gamers. Each element, from gameplay to player support, needs to add value to the gaming experience if developers and publishers want to stand out from competitors and build a passionate fan base.

Player support, in particular, is a crucial part of the gaming experience. Because let’s face it—no matter how talented your developers and designers are, sometimes technology doesn’t work with us. Players will always find issues that a standard QA team might have missed during development. Data errors or bugs can crop up while players are using your game, and the way your team reacts to these troubleshooting situations can determine your relationship with the gaming community.

Why Player Support Is So Important

Video game support is essential for providing a great gaming experience for your players. Things can’t always run smoothly, but like any business, this is where contingency planning comes to the rescue. It’s important to be prepared for situations where your players have questions, issues, or challenges when playing your game so you can get them back on track quickly.

For example, if a player encounters a data error and is unable to save their progress but can’t access the right support, they’ll likely feel frustrated—and could even leave your game. You stand to lose around 20% of customers after a single bad experience, so providing player support that is responsive, effective, and empathetic is pivotal in keeping your players happy. 

Gaming support also goes a long way in establishing meaningful relationships with your customers. Everything in the business world is an exchange, and in the gaming space, customers are especially loyal to the brands that appreciate them. Popular games have super loyal fanbases that often become their own standalone communities—spawning events, merchandise, and even their own cultures! So offering high-quality video game support capabilities is investing in your communities in the same way they invest in you. Grow these communities by showing you care and enforcing a code of conduct, providing an inclusive, fair, and healthy retreat for players who are on the lookout for adventure with their friends or in single-player games.

In addition, player support can also have internal value; with each ticket, an expert player support agent is able to analyze the metadata (platform, location, and language), looping back the feedback, bug reports, technical issues, and much more. The agent can then make sense of a jungle of information by filtering, formatting, and reporting it in an organized fashion to other departments such as marketing, quality assurance (QA), developers, artists, and community managers (CM).

Publishers can then use this data to improve sales strategies, find and fix bugs, adjust lightning, or focus on a new group of players to engage with and reach out to on social media channels. 

How You Can Offer Quality Player Support

Now let’s look at exactly how you can offer player support that best solves your players’ queries and adds value to their experience.

1.    Offer 24/7 Gamer Help

Most games have customers playing their games in a variety of locations and time zones at any one time. A key component of high-quality player support lies in making sure they can access that support whenever they need it. Whether you choose chatbots or a 24-hour helpline, as long as your players can get in touch at any time of the day, you’ve made the right move.

2.    Provide Localized Video Game Support

The beauty of digital markets like gaming is that you can build communities all over the world. But this also means you’ll need to cater to a more diverse audience. So just like you localize your games for different markets, make sure your player support is localized too. 

Contacting someone who speaks the same language as gamers offers two-fold benefits—they’ll feel more connected to and valued by your brand, and customer service will be more streamlined, avoiding any language barriers. 

This might mean having to coordinate different teams in different markets, but it’s worth it when you know you’re offering the best possible service to your customers.

3.    Make Multichannel Solutions Available

Gamers in today’s market want to be able to access support from a range of places—whether it’s a quick tweet or question for a chatbot. Limiting your player support to one method of communication can cause important information to be missed. Being available to your players via Twitter, Facebook, email, in-game chatbot, and other methods benefits your gamers and can help you discover internal improvements that can be shared across all departments. Making more player support channels available means gamers of all ages and backgrounds will have an option to get help should they need it, using the channel they feel most comfortable with.

4.    Hire Experts

While it’s tempting to onboard an internal team, you’ll also be cutting corners that will be detrimental to your player support. Instead, invest in player support specialists who have gaming expertise and passion for the game to ensure the best support experience for your players. Hiring sub-par teams can cause irreparable damage to your games brand, while an expert player support agent has a specific skillset. They tend to be social while also understanding the technical aspects and game play. Having a player support agent who is comfortable and confident is invaluable to your team. 

5.    Be Proactive

Let’s be honest, in today’s digital world, some people don’t want to talk to people if they can help it—in fact, 67% of customers prefer self-help options. So, to cater to those people and keep your customer service team from becoming inundated with calls and emails, create troubleshooting content that players can access if they’re having trouble with your game.

Building up knowledge base platforms is the most common and effective way you can be proactive. A well-structured and well-written database of problems and solutions to bugs, billing issues, and technical or account problems can be a real lifesaver for your players and have the potential to make a query submission obsolete.

Quality Player Support with TransPerfect Gaming

We offer localized, multilingual, high-quality player support options for developers and publishers, so you can focus on creating amazing games and leave the rest to us. Gain the ultimate peace of mind knowing that your players are in contact with customer service experts who specialize in gaming. Get in touch today to discuss your needs and level up your gaming experiences.