Following on from my recent post where I named and shamed my worse customer support experience. Here is my shouting from the roof tops my praise for great customer support. 

The following companies truly get customer support. 

All I can say is that both times that I had to contact AEG to get replacements for damaged or missing bits from games I’d bought second hand, AEG have stepped up and sent replacements. Both times my expectations were I had to pay, well it wasn’t their fault. But each time AEG generously replaced for the bits for free.

But this isn’t the reason why I’m shouting their praise. No they responded quickly to my emails, and had the replacement bits in the post quickly. That quick response can’t be over looked. I’m still waiting to hear from Fun Forge three weeks and counting since my last chaser email.

A small company but a really amazing level of customer support. Not only did the guy respond quickly to my email (while he was on vacation) but had the missing bit in the post and in my grubby mitts within a week! This really did take my breath away. 

A very slick, professional service using a call tracking system. Not the fastest response times compared to the two above, but still within acceptable time limits. But they did keep to within the deadlines they set for getting things resolved. I kind of felt this was the less personal of the contacts with the support departments. But still they did the Biz.

At first I thought this one was going to be a problem. Free delivery of replacement cards in the US but not to rest of world!

But after a rant it turns out they were only asking for a contribution to postage. Well that could have been communicated better. 

However still, quick responses and quick delivery won the day. 

An honourable mention…

I love Portal games but somehow gremlins are conspiring to sabotage this. What saves Portal is that they get social media, respond quickly, and try and resolve issues quickly. My only real issue is that stuff posted by them seems to take longer than other companies.

But still it’s hard to be angry with such a lovable company. Especially when they appear to working so hard to solve the issues. 

I’d love to hear about your support issues.

In this weeks Dice Tower podcast starring Tom Vassel and Eric Summerer they do their top ten overrated games.

I think in the last year I’ve played two games that would make it onto my list.

The first up is Between Two Cities, the tile drafting game, ranked 423 on bgg.

When this came out it was getting some good reviews, a little buzz. But when we played it, it left us feeling “meh”, and rather unsatisified. There was nothing about the game that excited us. Jonathan and I couldn’t see what all the fuss was. I personally think this game is too high up on the bgg rankings. I would easily drop it a couple of thousand places.

My second game that would make this list is a more recent darling of the gaming world, and that is Quadropolis.

This was an even bigger “meh” than Between Two Cities. How this got to position 286 on bgg is a mystery. I can only think too many people fell for the hype for this city building game.

This game is just dull. No redeeming qualities. And should be so so much lower down.

So there you have it my two overrated games. Which I’m sure would get me lots of heat if this was a widely read blog. But I know regular readers will be of a similar opinion to me on this.

UPDATE: it was pointed out to me over on Facebook by Jonathan that he’d add the newly crowned Kennerspiel winner Isle of Skye (IoS). Now I liked IoS more than Jonathan, there were bits to like. Which is more than I could say about my two selections above. After playing IoS for me at least I came away thinking I’d played an OK game. Should it be 209th on bgg? Or even have won the Kennerspiel? No way.
UPDATE: on Instagram this morning nettersplays finally played Quadropolis. You can see her reaction below, sounds like her reaction was just like mine. As is one or two of the commenters.