Customer Storm: free customer service game for upset customers

What is Customer Storm?

Buffer runs the support desk at Pebblebox, a made-up home goods shop, and the inbox is full of upset customers: late parcels, double charges, a broken app. For each one, build a reply from six sentences that acknowledges the problem, apologises for the right thing, gives a concrete fix with a time and never blames anyone. Three shifts, and the shop's rating rises or falls with every reply.

Customer Storm is a free customer service game with Buffer. Pebblebox, a made-up online shop for home goods, has a support inbox full of upset customers: a birthday present that never arrived, a card charged twice, a promo code that failed, an app that crashed on the day an invoice was due. For each ticket you read the message and the order notes, then build a reply by picking sentences.

Every ticket offers six sentences: three that calm the customer down and three traps that sound fine at a glance, like "Sorry if you feel the delivery was late" or "We'll look into it". Your reply passes up to four checks, and the shop's star rating rises or falls with each one across three shifts: Monday morning, flash sale day and an app outage.

At a glance

Category

Adventure

Difficulty

Medium

Play time

3–5 min

Price

Free, in your browser, sign-up optional

How to play

Read the ticket

The customer's message and the order notes: what really happened and what you're allowed to offer.

Build the reply

Tap 2 to 4 of the six sentences, in order. Three are good, three are traps: blame, a non-apology, a vague fix.

Pass 4 checks

Acknowledge the problem, apologise for the right thing, give a fix with a time, never blame. Every sentence is explained after you send.

Watch the rating

4 checks: +0.2★, 3: +0.1★, fewer and it falls. Under 3★, Buffer takes over. 25 points per check, +20 for a perfect reply, plus your final rating.

Scoring

Each reply is graded on four checks: acknowledge the problem, apologise for the right thing, give a fix with a time, no blame. 25 points per check, plus 20 for a perfect reply.

The shop's rating starts at 4.0★: +0.2★ for a perfect reply, +0.1★ for 3 checks, and it falls for fewer. Under 3★ the run ends. Your final rating adds 5 points per tenth of a star. Your best score is kept in this browser.

What it trains

De-escalation

Acknowledging what a problem cost someone before explaining anything.

Real apologies

Spotting non-apologies ("if you feel", "sorry, but") and apologising for what actually went wrong.

Concrete promises

Replacing "soon" with an action and a time you can actually keep, never blaming the customer, a colleague or the courier.

Strategy and tips

Read the order notes first

They say what really went wrong and what you can promise. A fix that isn't in the notes is a promise you can't keep.

Name their problem

"A present that missed the party" lands better than "your order". Acknowledge what it cost them, not just what happened.

No "if", no "but"

"Sorry if you feel…" and "Sorry, but…" cancel the apology. Say sorry for the specific thing that went wrong.

Always add a time

"Soon" and "as soon as possible" make angry people angrier. Today, tomorrow, Thursday, 3–5 business days.

Never blame, even when it's true

When the customer typed the wrong address, fix it first and apologise for the stress, not for a mistake you didn't make.

Why play Customer Storm?

Calming an upset customer is a skill with a clear shape: acknowledge, apologise for the right thing, fix with a time, no blame. It works the same in a shop inbox, a help desk or a team chat. Customer Storm trains you to spot the polite-sounding traps (non-apologies, vague promises, quiet blame) that make a bad day worse, and to keep every reply honest about what you can actually do.

Frequently asked questions