Sanya has the story. I’m just now getting to it because I’m lame.

Anyone who has ever run one a service with CS costs is nodding their heads in understanding, whereas the customers are outraged. This is because your average customer cannot even IMAGINE the actual problem. It is not people who complain once a month or even once a week, but MULTIPLE TIMES PER DAY. Which is to say that the people who are the actual problem are not normal people.

Take the most high-maintenance girlfriend you’ve ever had, and multiply it by 100.

On Meridian 59, back in the day, we had 5 CS representatives, who worked both phones and as in-game GMs. One of them, Tom, apparently had a sexy voice, and we eventually had one housewife who would, on a daily basis, call phone support, loaded on qualuudes, with made-up issues that only Tom could help her out with. She would keep him tied up for HOURS if she could. During which time, our CS capacity for every other customer dropped by 20% (resulting in longer waits for actual problems). She was eventually kicked. Her calls dismissed.

Serial callers can easily consume an enormous amount of bandwidth. Example serial callers I’ve seen: female characters who report everyone who says anything more than ‘hi’ as harassers. RP fanatics who report every third name they see as being out of character. Characters who would rather hear the patch notes come from a GM in a chat box than read them on a web site. And a lot of people who just like attention and think that $15 bucks a month should buy them a friend and/or psychoanalyst.

The Sprint customers in the story Sanya links point this as proof that Sprint has crappy service. In actuality, the opposite is true – the result of serial offenders is the degradation of service for people with actual problems. But that doesn’t make nearly as good a Slashdot story.

Original comments thread is here.