Hello everyone,

ever wondered, how exactly WG EU Support service works? A former Czech employee decided to talk to Carramba66 about this and the conditions they worked under. The Czech original of this interview can be found in the “Deník Nooba” WoT magazine (can be found here). I think it’s quite interesting, several points at least.

How did you get to work for WG?

I lived near Paris and I lost my job. I didn’t want to return to Czech republic straight away either. Because I wasn’t fluent in French and didn’t have French education, most legal open job positions were unavailable to me. While looking for jobs on the internet, I typed in the keyword “Czech language” and that’s how I found Wargaming was looking for someone for the Customer Support department, speaking English and Czech. I sent them my CV and motivation letter, but I recieved no answer. After three more months of looking for a job, I modified the motivation letter (I wrote what they wanted to hear), applied again for the same position and within the space of 10 days, I got hired.

Can you describe your usual working day?

If we skip the “commuting” part, the usual day was generally monotonous. We arrived at 6, 10 or 14 o’clock (by now the shifts are different), a stop in the mess hall for fresh fruit, then a trip to open space offices on 8th floor. Then we logged on our computer, the choice of tickets (questions of players) and their assignment to our account. We had to handle 70 tickets per day. The on-hour break for lunch we were allowed to take whenever we wanted, apart from the first and last hour of the shift. The work itself consisted of writing the answers to player questions, looking for pieces of information in internal databases or in knowledge database, consulting colleagues and testing (playing) WoT. Sometimes, we also translated news, guides etc. from English to Czech. And then after 9 hours of work, time to go home.

There are nasty rumors about WG EU support running around, such as answer templates being prepared in advance. How exactly does support work?

A player usually submits his ticket – in ideal case, he picks the correct category and language, otherwise we have to assign that ticket manually. All the tickets are centralized and sorted by category, language and other details via a back-end helpdesk software called Kayako Fusion. A support member logs in to his account and he assigns himself the tickets according to the orders of his team leader. The team leader can assign him the tickets as well, as can (after consultation) a colleague of his. In my case and the cases of my colleagues, it was only Czech, Slovak and English tickets. Theoretically, any employee should be able to solve tickets from all categories, but in reality, everyone had his own preferences and deeper knowledge in certain fields. For example, I hated tickets such as “why didn’t my shot penetrate when I was aiming there and there”, in other words nitpicking questions. I preferred tickets about rules breaking and payment issues.

Generally speaking, technical, account and payment issues had priority. Furthermore, the time of last communication from our side was also considered. Each employee creates his own templates (pre-defined answers for various questions) from his first day at work – in the company, they call it macros. I don’t know why. The reason for that is mostly work effectivity. Many questions are repeated all the time (for example HW problems) and to write new answer from scratch every time would be a waste of time. These templates are sorted thematically for example as MS Word documents and when the need arises, one is picked, modified for that current case and sent as support reply. We didn’t share our templates between one another for this very reason, so that all the answers aren’t the same. In cases of some serious game problems (for example incorrectly programmed game competition evaluation that couldn’t be fixed right away, or some issues with patches), we recieved a pre-written template answer from our superiors. Otherwise, we recieved unique tickets quite often (unique as in the support employee hasn’t answered them before). In such a case, the issue had to be understood first, the employee had to study the information databases, consult colleagues and formulate an answer. These were commonly for example technical issues, or payment problems, where we had to contact third party (payment portal).

Did you know other Czechs and Slovaks in the WG EU branch?

I knew mostly colleagues from my department (customer service). I knew that there were Czechs working in content and community departments as well, but I was never in touch with them. Partially due to the various shifts and partially because I am a reserved person.

How did you get along with Czech colleagues, were there any common events?

If by “events” you mean meeting a few Czechs in a bar after the shift, that was quite common. Official events, organized by the company were company-wide (for example Christmas party, company anniversary party) or department-wide (team building party). There were no events, based on nationality or ethnicity. I got along with my colleagues without any problems, I consider a few of the guys in the department to be my friends.

How big an influence do Czechs have in WG EU?

I don’t think that any nationality would have significant influence on the way the company operates. Don’t forget that the European branch in France mostly deals with support, marketing and – to a certain extent – testing, all of this aimed specifically at EU market. Important decisions are taken in Belarus company center, where the high management and most of the programmers are and from where, orders what to do are sent to the branches around the world. Of course, details are adjusted and decided based on local markets within certain margin. For example, Belarus doesn’t decide community events in Czech Republic – the community department has certain budged and within it, they do what they can. I don’t know any details.

Using the internal communication network, it is possible to send your notes or feedback to anything, but I don’t think this would influence any decisions in Belarus. For example asking for tanks of new nations, the “famous” problem with high ping are examples of what WG EU cannot influence. Simply put, the company has other priorities and has limited programmer resources, so at first, they have to deal with the most important things, which is also connected with the ratio of paying customers in that respective country. It is worth noting that there is no Czech in the company on any high or management position, so what can a regular employee influence?

What would you say about working for WG EU?

It was my best paid job to date and the environment was very professional and international.

Why did you leave?

I left because my job didn’t satisfy me and it wasn’t fun. I want more. I also had trouble with long commuting times (up to 4 hours per day), but moving closer would mean my rent would go up significantly. Furthermore, they switched the shifts around non-stop and in the end, shifts were switched every month, which meant that for two months, you didn’t have free time over weekends, but on other days of the week, while ending your shift at midnight. When you are alone, you could “suffer” through it, like most of my colleagues did, but when you have a girlfriend who works shifts as well and you practically don’t get to see her, you have to realize where your priorities lie. Generally speaking, unless you speak very well French or don’t have friends around where you live, most of your life will consist of an “isolation” of your workplace. Noone had social and personal life outside of work, apart from the French and people with girlfriends. The idea that you at least learn a bit French is false, because you don’t have time or opportunity for that.

What are you going to do next?

In ideal case, I will study university (I have one already) and I will work on a small business thing I have going for me, we’ll see if I can make profit off it. Maybe I will lose the investment and will have to find another job. In such a case, I will try Germany.

Thank you for your answers.