Customer Service Part Two...or is it Three?

I need to give fair warning to everyone reading this, please sit down before going any further.

I have acquired space and time at the upcoming Education Faire Pavilion. That's right, yours' truly has been scheduled to speak to other Educators about Educating in Second Life.

The strange thing is, I was trying to sign-up to do my New Resident Q&A events there, to give the Education Faire a look at how real Residents learn about Second Life.

It went like this. After being admonished to play nice by Katt Linden, I thought I would go ahead and offer my New Resident Q&A events for the week the Faire was going on to Pathfinder Linden. That's exactly what I did too, explaining just how I saw my involvement and exactly what I would do. About a week later I got an apologetic email back from Pathfinder Linden asking what dates/times I would like to be added. I explained that I did my New Resident Q&A's on Monday's at 2PM SLT, Wednesday's at 3PM SL TIME, and Friday's at 10AM SL TIME and run 1 1/2 hours. I got an excited email back an hour or so later explaining I'd been signed up for those dates/times at the Main Pavillion and needed to let Pathfinder know what my Title should be, what my Talk would be about, etc. Now, I'm all for giving me 1 1/2 hours of time to speak to an audience in Second Life, but that's not even close to what I said I wanted to be doing. So, very sweetly, I emailed Pathfinder Linden and pointed out that I wasn't asking to Speak at the Faire, but to run my New Resident Q&A event. Once again I got back an apologetic email from Pathfinder Linden about the "mis-communication" and again was asked, what my Title should be, what the subject I would be speaking about, etc. I've yet to respond, fearful that if I do, I might be signed up to be CEO of Linden Lab all the sudden; oh wait.....that would be a good thing :)

OK, sorry, let's not get off track here. Now, before you Pathfinder lovers start screaming at me that he's busy and should be cut some slack, I agree. As a matter of fact, I think if one person is so damn busy, he probably shouldn't be alone in setting up something so important.

That's not my point here though. The point is, that when dealing with Customers, you should probably take a deep breath and very carefully read what's being transmitted. Pathfinder had two chances to get this right, but each time, chose to breeze through what I was saying and then decided on his own what I wanted my participation to be.

I'm not picking on Pathfinder here, but this is the problem at Linden Lab that I've been talking about for so long; employee's aren't listening! This goes for ALL employee's, not just Pathfinder. In the past 4 years, I can honestly say, I've not experienced one good Customer Service issue within Second Life. From being told to wait, after only explaining half a problem, to being talked down to by some New Employee. Customers should NOT be treated in such a manner and if Linden Lab doesn't wise up to this fact, they will be the next "Circuit City".

Now I have a dilemna. Should I try and get through to Pathfinder about the event I was offering or should I just go ahead and present a talk about educating in Second Life? The real problem I see is my bad habit of going off the prescribed subject and get into Linden bashing. The Education Faire would not be the right avenue for this. Then again, if I do a successful talk, perhaps I would be viewed as someone with intelligence by Linden Lab rather then just a vitrol acid spitting ass.

I think I'll give Pathfinder one more try and see if I can't get him to understand exactly what I've offered. If that doesn't work, I guess I'll just have to use my time and give one hell of a talk, wouldn't that surprise the hell out of most of you :)