For many players, accessing console support is a painful experience — 63% rate it as the worst channel for customer service, 33% regularly face challenges, and 89% say they would contact support more often with easier access. Subway Surfer players felt the same frustration, which directly impacted player satisfaction and retention. But Sybo fixed it with seamless in-game support that resolved the issue instantly without breaking immersion. By the end, Subway Surfer achieved a substantial initial savings of $333K, a remarkable 95% deflection rate, and a notable 7 times increase in automation.
We found a true gaming customer service partner, not just a software provider. The roadmap of new features is remarkable and enables us to keep up with the rapid pace of technology.
– Vlad Oboronko, Player Support Lead, SYBO
With a growing demand for the gaming industry comes a surge in challenges. But with in-game support tools like automated FAQs and AI-driven bots, companies can provide real-time solutions that keep players engaged. Gaming companies, particularly those in sectors like igaming, require specialized customer support solutions that understand the unique challenges of real-time player engagement and regulatory compliance.
So, this article is mapped to deliver insights on: Challenges in gaming customer support and actionable strategies to address them, a curated list of tools to help you improve efficiency and maintain player engagement, and integrations that streamline your customer support operations.
What is Gaming Customer Support?
Gaming customer support refers to the assistance provided by the support team to help players resolve issues, answer inquiries, tackle technical glitches, and manage their accounts. The goal is to offer a seamless and enjoyable gaming experience. Gamers are a distinctive group — they are passionate enthusiasts, strong supporters, and occasionally sharp critics. Gaming companies know the importance of live, real-time engagement for players queries, and know that even minor glitches or disruptions can cause dissatisfaction. To cope with this, top-notch customer service in the gaming industry is an indispensable factor.
Challenges in Offering Customer Support for Gamers
CX managers and support agents in gaming customer service face unique hurdles, often magnified by gaming communities passion and vocal nature. Here are the three common pitfalls.
Offering a seamless transition between gaming and support
Accessing customer support often requires players to leave the game and switch to a separate channel, which disrupts their immersive experience. This inconvenience often leads to frustration and negatively impacts user satisfaction scores and churn rates. Research indicates that interruptions, even minor ones like advertisements or surveys, can harm player engagement. Similarly, directing players to exit their game environment to address issues can detract from their overall experience. Zynga, a leading game developer, encountered this challenge firsthand. Before 2015 (and using Helpshift), players seeking support exited the game and navigated to Zyngas website for assistance. This process disrupted the gaming experience and risked players not returning to the game after seeking help. Its clear from Zyngas experience that seamless gameplay is integral to player satisfaction and retention, and addressing such disruptions is crucial to your games success.
Lacking the previous context in support interactions
Imagine a player starting a game on a console, encountering an issue, and later trying to resolve it on their mobile device. They contact support only to realize they must explain their problem from scratch because agents cant access the previous interactions. Given the innovation today with AI in place, a context-aware, omnichannel support system is a reality. However, support systems are often outdated and fail to provide agents with the necessary context from previous interactions. This gap not only prolongs problem-solving but also diminishes player experience. In a world where cross-platform gaming is the norm, ensuring support systems track and transfer contextual information is critical.
Handling high volume of repetitive queries
All gaming companies battle repetitive support requests, such as account recovery, technical troubleshooting, and in-game purchase issues. This influx overwhelms support teams and makes it difficult for agents to juggle back and forth to resolve everything. For instance, Jam City, a prominent mobile game developer, received up to 90,000 support tickets monthly, with many repetitive inquiries. This high volume strained their support system, leading to inefficiencies and challenges in scaling customer support operations. Creating an automated system like a self-service knowledge base is one good way to support the ticket deflection rate and improve operational efficiency. It aids your teams to deliver high-quality support for complex player needs.
4 Strategies for Exceptional Gaming Customer Service
Level up the support systems and deliver the seamless, frustration-free experience players crave.
Provide in-game support without breaking the flow
Providing instant, direct support keeps players engaged by preserving the immersive gaming experience and addressing concerns in real time. Enable in-game support using an in-app messaging model that keeps help within the game environment. With Helpshift integrate: QuickSearch Bots to handle FAQs and basic inquiries instantly, AI Issue Classification to route queries to the right bot or agent for faster resolutions, and Push Notifications to re-engage players in ongoing conversations. Zynga, when faced with disruption in gameplay, implemented in-game support with Helpshift. Instead of forcing players to exit the game for help through emails, QR code integration allowed players to seamlessly transition support interactions to a mobile device. The impact was a 185% increase in contacts handled, increased agent productivity, and improved player satisfaction and retention.
Build dashboards that are context-aware and track inquiries across multiple channels
Context-aware systems track key information — such as the players issue history, in-game activity, and device data — and share it across platforms as a unified dashboard. Now, in a simple and sleek way, agents have all the information on issues, even when a player encounters them on a console and follows up via mobile. Now, you provide a quick resolution without requiring the player to repeat themselves, so players remain engaged and satisfied. Context-aware support turns frustration into trust, meeting the demands of todays cross-platform gamers and solidifying their loyalty.
Automate your support processes to boost efficiency and agent performance
Helpshift’s benchmarking report on the gaming industry shows: 70% of support issues can be fully automated, and an additional 20% can be handled partially through automation. So, making the most of it is a cost-efficient yet effective measure to handle highly repetitive queries. It also allows human agents to focus the remaining 10% on complex cases while keeping players happy. Automate your support processes with features like auto-tagging and assignment, autoreplies, time-based updates, and auto-resolve for simple queries.
AIDIS, the creators of Critter Crew, implemented a game-changing solution through automation. They streamlined their support processes using AI-driven workflows to deliver consistent, high-quality support across multiple languages and time zones. Within three months, AIDIS achieved 60% automation, which grew to 96% in under a year. Their FAQ system deflected 90% of inquiries, allowing players to resolve common issues instantly without human intervention.
Choose the right mode of customer support delivery
Since gaming companies focus more on products and their upgrades, they look for outsourcing when it comes to customer support. Outsourcing may seem budget-friendly upfront but racks up costs over time; the industry average rate ranges from $8 to $25 per hour, depending on location and service complexity. Nordeus, the creator of Top Eleven, faced this exact challenge. With just two in-house employees and 29 outsourced agents, the company was handling over 20,000 player issues, particularly during high-activity periods. With a comprehensive customer support tool powered by automation and in-game assistance, they automated 73% of inquiries, with 45% fully resolved without human intervention. They reduced outsourced support costs by 40% annually while maintaining high player satisfaction.
Top Gaming Customer Service Platforms
1. Helpshift
Helpshift is a leading customer service platform for gaming companies designed to provide seamless in-app support for mobile-first customer support. Our innovative approach integrates support directly within the gaming experience, minimizing disruptions and keeping players engaged. Helpshift combines AI-powered intent classification, sentiment analysis, and intelligent routing systems to automate and resolve 70% of customer queries, lower turn-around time, and build a seamless self-serve experience for your customers.
Helpshifts outstanding features include: in-app support to maintain player immersion, AI-powered automation to automate routine inquiries, Language AI that enables multilingual support, Smart Intent AI that classifies player requests intelligently, Smart in-chat Menus that offer contextual options, and asynchronous messaging.
2. Zendesk
Zendesk is a comprehensive customer service platform renowned for its robust ticketing system and omnichannel support. It enables businesses to manage customer interactions across various channels seamlessly. Key features include omnichannel support through email, chat, phone, and social media, efficient ticket management, self-service options, automation of routine tasks, and robust analytics.
3. Freshdesk
Freshdesk is an intuitive customer support platform designed to streamline customer service operations across multiple channels. With its AI-powered features and automation tools, it enables businesses to improve ticket management, reduce response times, and improve customer satisfaction. Key features include Freddy AI for workflow automation, AI-powered Writing Assistant, Ticket Summary Generator, Intelligent Agent routing, and multichannel support.
Conclusion
As gaming companies compete to deliver seamless experiences, the right tool helps you stand out with a winning gaming customer support strategy. According to Helpshifts recent benchmarking report, companies leveraging bots and AI experience remarkable efficiency. AI in gaming lets you handle massive traffic spikes and resolve player concerns without disrupting gameplay. The best part? Even with significant automation, CSAT remains unaffected, proving players value fast, effective solutions that immerse them in the game. Turn your gaming customer support strategy into a competitive advantage.
