Many major MMO companies have huge customer service departments full of temporary $10/hr employees. Having once been one of those employees, I have nothing but respect for the work that is done there. That being said, there are lot of blow ups associated with greenhorn CSRs.
Alan Crosby, now producer of EQ2, once Global Director of Communication for Sony Online Entertainment, once told me about the difference in SOE Community Relations and those of another rival mega-corporation. He pointed out that forum moderators of this particular game were given generic usernames such as moderator13. He said that one day the trolls would get to moderator13 and he would rage, threaten to ban everyone, and burnout in a fiery and often comical (to third-parties at least) forum rant. A few hours later the posts would disappear, and no one would hear of moderator13 again. At least until a month or so later, when a new fresh-faced moderator13 would emerge — no explanation needed.
Customer service is extremely difficult, especially over and through the Internet where anonymity sometimes “empowers” usually calm, rational people to act like reality TV show characters.
Broken Toys wrote about a CM breakdown over at SOE. Rather than treating the incident like a car wreck, I read through the poorly considered by forum posts by the CM and then read through the 2 pages of very passionate comments by present and former Starwars Galaxies players. In the end, it is important to understand the community you have been charged with managing, especially if you’re replacing another manager, or you lack the social capital to pull your weight in a particular situation.