Just before the holiday rush comes to a head, Nintendo of America will reportedly start outsourcing its customer service support in October. However, the company disputes that it’s doing anything but continuing to “evolve and expand [its] customer service experiences.
IGN reports that Nintendo of America is shifting all its customer service-related operations from the U.S. to South American countries. The contractors who performed these duties–which include “back office teams, fraud, financials, chargebacks, customer services, chatlogs, customer phone and email support, refunds, account bans, remote data transfers, repair support, everything customer support,” as one described–will see their contracts phased out at the end of September. It’s estimated that 200 workers will be impacted, many of whom have worked with the company for years. One contractor said that while there are still a few people running these operations on-site, “it’s all going away.”
According to the contractors IGN spoke to on the condition of anonymity, Nintendo of America didn’t provide any communication on the decision. However, as their employment comes to an end, the contractors must still help train the new hires before leaving their roles.
This, along with the language barrier, has created frustrations for everyone, the contractors said. As a result, the workers being let go fear that the quality of Nintendo of America’s customer service will suffer in the long term. Contactors said Nintendo of America’s decision has already produced a noticeable increase in irate or belligerent customers, with one person saying they’ve seen customers use racial slurs towards agents.
Nintendo of America said the claims in IGN’s article are “inaccurate,” refuting them in the face of its “high-quality” service:
“While we have nothing to announce about our internal business activities, the claims shared with IGN include inaccurate information. At Nintendo of America, we are extremely thankful to have partnered with several companies and their talented contractors over the years to deliver high-quality customer service experiences. We continue to evolve and expand our customer service model with external partners that have deep experience in all the markets we serve across the Americas. This approach allows us to support the full scope of our customer service mission in both North America and our growing Latin American markets, and better scale to seasonal needs for consistent support. As always, our top priority is to provide excellent customer support, and we are pleased that customer satisfaction with the service provided by all our partners remains positive.”
This all comes on the heels of the Nintendo Switch 2’s massive success. Outpacing the original just a handful of months on the market, the console-handheld hybrid has already sold more than six million units globally. The Switch 2 is an evidently very in-demand console right now, and as it enters its first holiday season, “high-quality” customer service will remain more important.
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