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This is what any company with global brand recognition would say. Anything more would open them up to horrendous lawsuits, and anything less might cause more cr
by calinet6 14y ago
This is what any company with global brand recognition would say. Anything more would open them up to horrendous lawsuits, and anything less might cause more criticism. It's a well-crafted statement of fact with an invitation to solve issues through their customer service department—basically admitting they were in the wrong (but not too much), and that their policy has been clarified.
The robotic language is a legal necessity for corporations and it does not reflect on their attitude towards customers in the least.
- chucknelson 14y agoExactly. The bigger you get, the more you need to protect yourself, especially in customer relations communication. You can't keep the casual startup mentality forever (well, in many cases anyway).
- kmfrk 14y agoI still think there is plenty of legal wiggle room to sound like a carbon-based lifeform. I am not really sure what legal case this would open them up to, but we have to assume they've consulted with their attorneys prior to writing the statement. There is also an opportunity cost to going all legal, which is the attrition of brand perception and customer relations. Apple managed to pull both off during Antennagate. Maybe Amazon cut the cord to US-East as a diversion and hoped that and the Apple keynote would distract from this screw-up. :P EDIT: Which is not to even touch on the subject of assuaging the fear that consumers might suddenly lose all access to their entire library in the cloud. There is a lot at stake here, and Amazon have done nothing to dispel this apprehension arisen in light of this event. It's not just a customer catastrophe, it's an e-book/Kindle catastrophe.
- TillE 14y ago"Thank you for your interest in Kindle" at the end is absolutely not necessary and comes across as patronizing, clueless, and robotic.
- DodgyEggplant 14y agoAmazon can handle the possible legal issues of human like messages
- jellicle 14y agoNope. While "content-free" statements may well be encouraged by lawyers attempting to be risk-averse, there's no basis in fact or law for that. Indeed, studies in medical malpractice have shown that doctors and hospitals that promptly admit fault and apologize are less, not more, likely to be sued for malpractice. The content-free statements are not only infuriating to your customers, they are actually counter-productive in a purely fiscal sense.
- travisp 14y ago>Indeed, studies in medical malpractice have shown that doctors and hospitals that promptly admit fault and apologize are less, not more, likely to be sued for malpractice. There's a huge context difference here. These studies are dealing with the doctor apologizing to the patient (or their family) and being less likely to be sued by that patient (or their family). This has a lot to do with emotions and how the patient or their family feels about the doctor and the doctor's actions. In the case of Amazon here, it's essentially making a statement to the world that could be used by anyone as part of a lawsuit. I imagine the class-action lawyers looking at these things aren't going to let their feelings about Amazon change their minds.
- darkarmani 14y agoThe problem there is what if your insurance company requires you (or more likely them) to sue the doctor to get the medical expenses paid?