It's Always Upside
From Jimmy's Kitchen to Nex Playground: Lessons in Customer Service
14 years ago I came across this quote on the menu of a restaurant called “Jimmy’s Kitchen” in Hong Kong and put it on Instagram:
Well, I had a great meal so I did not talk to Jimmy that day, but I imagine if I had to, he would listen and make things right.
To me, that’s what customer service is about. You do your best to satisfy your customers and ask them to spread the word when they are happy. You also know that you will come up short at times, so you proactively invite such feedback and commit to improving.
When I started building our support team for Nex Playground, I kept this quote in my head and visualize what kind of customer experience we would create would live up to that standard.
Prioritize Speed
No one wants to contact support in the first place. We know when a customer reaches out, the last thing you want is to keep them waiting. The longer they have to wait, the more frustrating it will get, especially for issues that should be resolved easily.
In the last 12 months, our help desk median first response time is 3 mins and median resolution time is less than 22 minutes. Is there room for improvement? The answer is always YES.
For one, our response time for support questions from our Facebook Community is not as fast because of the platform’s constraints. We are in the process of testing a more robust community platform that allows us to track and resolve issues faster, stay tuned!
Drive Quality through Consistency
While speed matters, it should never come at the expense of quality. It’s easy to provide quality service some times, but very hard to do that every time. We wanted to create predictable, reliable experiences so customers can count on us. To achieve that, we ask everyone on the team to:
Use the same templates and workflows to provide consistent answers. We obsess over every single word that went into those answers.
Review our interactions and fix inaccuracies and inconsistencies regularly. As soon as a new theme emerges, it’s time to write a new response template.
Know what’s going on. Whether it is a new game release, an email blast or a process change, we use a dedicated Slack channel and weekly huddle to keep us all on the same page.
Setting the right expectations at the right time is also part of driving quality. Nex Playground has been a hot holiday gift and last December we estimated tens of thousands of customers unboxing on the same day.
We knew we wouldn’t be able to maintain our usual “fast & quality” support experience with that spike, so we announced through email, social, website and community group in advance on “what to expect”, e.g. support response time will be longer, how we will triage issues and why we will turn off live chat, etc.
Not only did our customers appreciate that heads up, it mobilized many existing customers to help newcomers during that busy period — yes, our community is our super power.
Getting to the Root
This might sound strange, but I believe the best customer support people are those who actively try to work themselves out of a job. Rather than repeatedly answering the same questions, they identify the root cause of issues and ensure they're fixed. In fact, let me say this: if we see the same problem repeatedly and do nothing about it, we've failed.
This has become one of our operating principles:
Take responsibility for driving continuous improvement for customer experience and product quality.
We use dedicated Slack channels and compile weekly data to surface pain points, recurring issues, product reviews, and cancellation reasons with the whole company. Whether it's hardware, operating system, games, or even the wording on our website, it's all part of the customer experience. There's no such thing as "above my pay grade."
A good example is our upcoming switch to a new subscription management provider for Play Pass. Complicated Play Pass management has been one of our top customer pain points, primarily because our current provider isn't fit for purpose. Though changing a critical piece of our infrastructure is both painful and costly, it's the right thing to do because it fixes the problems at the root.
Lead by Example
If you are in the Nex Playground Community on Facebook or on Reddit, you know David is frequently answering customer questions himself.
Many of our customers said they are surprised a CEO would spend his time doing this. I am more surprised most CEOs don’t do this, because as Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box, tweeted — it’s always upside.
A clear and practical take on customer service, emphasizing speed, consistency, and actually listening to customers. It shows how real trust is built by not just responding quickly, but continuously improving the experience.