NBA League Pass Customer Service Update

When we last left off, I had been accused of online harassment and possible vandalism by an NBA League pass customer service representative for pressing them for a partial refund for the several incorrect feeds over the course of the season. Needless to say, I was not thrilled and took the fight to the streets, er, Sactown Royalty

Today I got an e-mail from the VP of Business Operations at NBA League Pass and we spent about 15 minutes talking about the exciting adventure that was my customer service experience (coming soon to theaters near you!)

Actually it was all very polite.

First, from a technical standpoint with the incorrect feed, apparently they had been experimenting with some more automation behind the scenes, and that obviously went awry. The night that the Kings/Spurs was messed up was a "cluster" and prompted all sorts of meetings and changes in procedure. Long story short, the people running the show behind the scenes will now be better able to correct things when they go wrong so it hopefully won't happen again, or if it does, it will be corrected quickly.

On the, uh, interesting customer service experience I had, the VP explained that like many companies they have a third party customer service company, and the experience I had was obviously not what they had intended. No attempts made to defend it. The person who sent me the threatening e-mails has been put on probation and has had their other customer service exchanges looked into. Frankly I'm very glad the guy/woman wasn't fired because the last thing I need is the karma of an unemployed person in India or wherever they're based hanging over my head.

For the partial refund, he explained the challenge of having 500+ people simultaneously demanding a refund or partial refund, and I also understand that if word gets out that there's free money all of a sudden there's going to be a bumrush on League Pass. At the same time, I feel like there could be some sort of credit for next year in deference to the fact that the service is so expensive, if not obviously for everyone then at least for the people who submit tickets while the outage is going on. He's going to think about some options, so we'll see.

Lastly, because my customer service experience was particularly egregious, they're going to upgrade me to full access for the season, though he made it clear that they couldn't grant upgrades or credits merely for messed up feeds.

Ultimately I think this is a fair resolution and I appreciate the time he took, though I still think they should have a procedure in place to compensate people who submit a ticket when the service is badly messed up for an entire game. We talked about the costs involved and they kind of have to charge what they charge for the League Pass service, but I also think there's a perception of value when you're paying $100, and they're going to run into this problem again down the line if there's not an appropriate remedy. Still, I understand that business is business.

Hopefully this is the end of this story.