Amazing company; terrible customer base. Avoid support.
Pros
Would you rather love your work but hate your company or hate your work but love your company? The latter is what I found with Blizzard Support. Blizzard is, unquestionably, the best company I have worked for. On the other hand, the work I did as a Blizzard Support employee was the most mind-numbingly boring job I've had, while, at the same time, a regular source of aggravation. As part of Blizzard CS you will be paid more than fair wages (frankly, wages are high relative to the skill level required for the work), outstanding benefits, bonuses, profit sharing, and tons of Blizzard swag (merchandise, games, Battle.net Balance, etc.). You will find the office culture is unmistakably a gamer culture; a unique combination of the super casual with the passionately competitive. In terms of the overall compensation, workplace environment, and low level of skill required at entry - not to mention the cool factor of working for a major gaming company - you will not find a "better" job in the CS Industry.
Cons
The Bad: Blizzard Support has many "good" problems that other companies can only wish they had. These problems are nonetheless facts potential employees should be aware of. There is zero opportunity for rapid advancement. If you want to "move up" - even into entry-level management - you have to start at the bottom and be prepared to commit to years as a front-line representative. Previous experience is irrelevant; they only promote internally and the representative hierarchy is structured such that you would need to be there minimally 1.5-2 years before even being able to apply for another position. Even then, while there is no official seniority system in place, there are clear preferences. Assuming you did everything perfectly up until that 2 year mark, you'll find you're competing against employees who have been there 5+ years. The above is assuming such a position even opens. People like working for Blizzard; as a result, attrition is incredibly low. You could wait years for a single position to open up. Now add to that the fact that most of the people working in Blizzard Support are over qualified for the position, and many are vastly over qualified. (I suppose this is part of the reason why their Support is so good and consistently rated so highly.) Where else would you find people with years of business management experience, or bachelor's or even masters degrees - even science degrees - working front-line Customer Support? The facts above imply a corollary effect on the workplace culture. There's a subtle, unstated, yet ever-present statement floating behind the daily tasks and routine conversations: you're lucky to be working for Blizzard. While partially correct, this can lead to a schizophrenic sort of geeky happiness occupied by unfulfillment and a sense of self-betrayal. "I'm over qualified for this position, I'm bored out of my mind, the customers I interact with are childish idiots, I'll be stuck in this same position for years and even then may not move into anything else, but I do get to work for Blizzard, after all." The Ugly: This is a review of Blizzard Support, and not the Customer Support industry as a whole, so I'll refrain from commenting too much on the latter. Suffice to say that Blizzard Support has many industry standard practices that I find ethically questionable. And I don't mean not helping customers; to the contrary, I mean helping customers whom should not only not be helped, but should be told off. I would love to see companies adopt Manoj Bhargava's "no aggravation" policy and apply that to their Support philosophy. Alas, with Blizzard Support, as with most support, the opposite is the case: embrace aggravation and reward destructive behavior. Everyone focuses on "how" to deal with destructive customers instead of asking whether or not one "should" deal with those customers to begin with. One of Blizzard's core values is "Play Nice, Play Fair." In the case of Blizzard Support, as with most support departments, it's much more accurate to say the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Which is an appropriate metaphor, since the customers you'll be interacting with most frequently in Support could be described, both psychologically and physically, as greasy. Interacting with the bottom 1% of the gaming community on a daily basis was, far and away, the most miserable part of the daily work. While not "difficult" skill-wise, it's mentally and emotionally draining. For someone of my personality type, I would describe it as akin to prostitution: providing a "service" for some of the slimiest, ignorant, and yet still self-entitled people in the world. In the Support Industry as a whole, the expectation for the way a front-line support representative handles certain conversations is well below an acceptable level of human dignity. This expectation is, unfortunately, no different at Blizzard Support. As with most Support departments, you are not merely expected to provide support for Blizzard products and services. You are also expected to provide emotional support for the psychologically unstable and face toxicity, not only without reproach, but with acceptance and rewards. While this will not come as any surprise to someone familiar with the industry, it will be a shocking experience for anyone else. Don't go into it unprepared.