Gabe Newell Tackles Customer Support Issue Like a Boss

[[Coi] Mr.CLuBBeR]

Customer support done the right way

Gabe Newell's a busy man. It comes with the territory of managing Valve, a massive company with billions of dollars in equity. He's also personable and surprisingly accessible for someone in his position, as a Steam user in need of support recently found out. After submitting a support request to Steam and not receiving a response in a week's time, the user figured he had nothing to lose and everything to gain by contacting Newell himself. He was right.
There's an imgur post and Reddit thread that are gaining traction on the web, and it's because of the exchange between Steam user that_earlyguy and Newell (credit to Kotaku for the heads up).
"Hello Gabe, I heard you answer fan email, despite your busy schedule. I thought that was just amazing, but I couldn't believe it. So, I'd like to put it to the test. Do you think you'll reply faster than Steam support? I gave them a week head start," that_earlyguy wrote.
He was surprised to not only hear back from Newell, but to get a response with a few hours of sending his email.
"What's your ticket? At the end of the day, everyone here at Valve is in support," Newell responded.
After replying with his ticket number, that_earlyguy received an email from Steam Support letting him know that his issue had been resolved.
Naturally, the Steam user wanted to post his experience to the web, but politely requested permission first, considering that it could lead to a mountain of support requests. To his surprise again, Newell was cool about it, reminding him that everyone at Valve is in support "so it's fine for people to contact me or anyone else here if there are problems."
Wouldn't it be nice if all company bigwigs acted like this?
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