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> And always refund customers who cancel right after the first bill This. I signed up for an Amazon Prime trial, and forgot to cancel it (even though I'd setup

> And always refund customers who cancel right after the first bill This. I signed up for an Amazon Prime trial, and forgot to cancel it (even though I'd setup a calendar reminder I missed). I remembered a week later, and was a bit unhappy that I'd been charged. I logged in to cancel it so I wouldn't be billed again the next year, and Amazon said as I hadn't used the service since they billed me they would provide a full refund.

sophacles 13y ago
And as a result of this - I am reading another "good guy Amazon" story on the net. This reinforces my concept that Amazon is reasonable to deal with, and I'll be more likely to buy from them, other things being equal. Similarly this is why I have a preference for Square and Stripe over other similar services, my local $preferred_brand car dealership (over other local ones) and so on with other reasonable to deal with companies. At the end of the day, I'm willing to pay even a bit more if the hassle is lower, or expected to be lower should I need something 'weird' (defined as: not just purchase and walk away forever). Generating a little bit of good feeling towards your business is totally worth some overhead cost.
- corobo 13y ago
  To throw another into the pot (Good guy stories beget good guy stories) I ordered something or other from Amazon which didn't arrive a few days later than their estimate, they sent me a new one for free. Couple of days later both arrive, I offered to send one back they told me not to worry about it :)
- cpr 13y ago
  I ordered a fairly expensive lawnmower from Amazon, and it arrived slightly damaged (really horrible packaging with no real protection--I think it wasn't Amazon's packaging). I called Amazon, and they sent another overnight(!) and told me to just keep the first. (I fixed it up at low cost and use it at our farm.) They clearly have factored in goodwill as an offsetting benefit to any costs of selling entirely remotely. (BTW, the best customer service I have ever experienced was from Anthro, the computer furniture company. I had used one of their desks (MDF construction) for 5 years and it was sagging in the middle. I called to complain and they apologized, explaining they had re-engineered that design with an additional support leg in the middle. They then, at no cost and no promting from me, overnighted me a replacement new-style desk ($900 desk, $300 shipping), five years into the life of the original desk. Astounding.)
- jnardiello 13y ago
  Regarding Amazon, i've been working with them closely on the marketplace for about 2yrs and i can say they are evil geniuses. Their policy is: - They know were flaws are (packaging, products, marketplace partnerships, deliveries, etc..) but still make nothing to fix them. They rather estimate that a certain amount of customers will complain and will just refund them with no questions, so everyone is happy. - During this process, flaws expenses and drawbacks are thrown on third party partners so that financially they keep up. - The result is that they look like the "wow" guys, partners take full responsibility. - The more they become a monopoly, the more they can play this game. Quite horrible, honestly.
  - abjorn 13y ago
    Part of me believes that's awful, and part of me is just impressed at how smart that is.
  - sokoloff 13y ago
    There is no way to ship $71 Billion of product and get every product and every shipment perfect every time. I don't think it's fair to say that they're doing nothing to fix them. I regularly get product and packaging surveys, and I've seen products be pulled and descriptions updated based on content in reviews or based on feedback from customer care. I've returned a product for not meeting the description, and within 15 minutes of me getting the email saying they'd received the product, credited my card the full amount, I went to the site and the product was un-orderable. Several days later, the description was corrected and the product was again orderable. That violates the "[they] still make nothing to fix them" claim I think. I think you're ascribing a mercenary "screw it, it's cheaper to not fix" mentality when an alternative and more likely (IMO) possibility is "look, we can't fix everything, so when we fail our customers, we need to be very good at making it right".
    - jnardiello 13y ago
      > There is no way to ship $71 Billion of product and get every product and every shipment perfect every time. Yes, exactly. But they don't explain it to the customer. They ship right-away another packet. Why? Because what they are actually doing is either saying to the courier "You failed to deliver in our crazy-efficient time table, we won't pay you" or to the third party seller "You failed to meet our standards, we have sent a replacement but you'll cover all expenses". > I've returned a product for not meeting the description, and within 15 minutes of me getting the email saying they'd received the product, credited my card the full amount Again, as above. They usually do this with marketplace products. What they did behind the courtains is saying to the seller "The product didn't meet customer expectations. We refunded it, you will pay all related expenses". > everal days later, the description was corrected and the product was again orderable. That violates the "[they] still make nothing to fix them" claim I think. This was probably the third party seller who fixed the description to avoid paying again. Note: At this point you say "Wow, they are just pushing sellers for quality" WRONG. Because customers are not always right :) Most of the times they are dead wrong actually (or they are just abusing the fact that they know that Amazon consider them always right). It is rotten ethic to just dump all expenses on sellers without even giving them (most of the times) the chance to reply or to take action. > I think you're ascribing a mercenary "screw it, it's cheaper to not fix" mentality when an alternative and more likely (IMO) possibility is "look, we can't fix everything, so when we fail our customers, we need to be very good at making it right". No, i'm saying that they place crazy efficiency requirements and while they understand - as you said - that shit might happen, all they do is dumping all costs of their policy on partners. And partners can't do literally nothing. Why? Because Amazon pays out every 2 weeks, they will just keep the money from your wired amount. Because if you don't comply they just ban. And if they are the only marketplace, you are shut down. This isn't even considering the amount of stress and pressure that this 0 tolerance policy is causing on their own employees and connected partners employees.
- jug6ernaut 13y ago
  I buy almost everything i buy off of amazon because of this. There customer service is simply amazing. In the past 5-6 years I can not count how many times I have had to contact them, and left with an amazing experience(all being handled in 5-10 minutes) where with other companies it would have been days and only slightly beneficial to the consumer.
- dtjohnnymonkey 13y ago
  One of my favorite Amazon experiences: I rented a movie via Amazon Instant Video, but had some bandwidth issues which caused the movie to pause and buffer at least 10 times. The next day, Amazon sent me an email saying they noticed I had a poor connection and refunded me the rental fee.
- naveensky 13y ago
  Adding to good Amazon story, this time for their AWS platform. From one of my client, he was charged about $400 due to a bug in the code from his developer. He called up AWS billing support, explained them the situation. Not only they considered his case, they refunded this charge which is pretty awesome !
- ulms 13y ago
  Absolutely. Years back, my wife bought me an AppleTV as a gift from Amazon, but had it shipped to an old address in the Bronx - whose current tenants happily signed for and took the package. When we realized it was delivered and signed for, we called them with the situation, and with literally zero hassle, sent us a new one to a new address, free of charge. I don't expect that this is common, and I would never expect them to do it for me again, but it won my customer loyalty more than any other company has thus far.
- benzoate 13y ago
  And another... I ordered a wake up light clock from Amazon, whilst under a free prime trial. There was a problem with the courier so I contact them and a week later they send me another which arrives the next day. Later, they get the original clock back from the courier, and refund my order (so free clock). Additionally they extended my prime trial by another month.

sophacles 13y ago

And as a result of this - I am reading another "good guy Amazon" story on the net. This reinforces my concept that Amazon is reasonable to deal with, and I'll be more likely to buy from them, other things being equal. Similarly this is why I have a preference for Square and Stripe over other similar services, my local $preferred_brand car dealership (over other local ones) and so on with other reasonable to deal with companies. At the end of the day, I'm willing to pay even a bit more if the hassle is lower, or expected to be lower should I need something 'weird' (defined as: not just purchase and walk away forever). Generating a little bit of good feeling towards your business is totally worth some overhead cost.

corobo 13y ago
To throw another into the pot (Good guy stories beget good guy stories) I ordered something or other from Amazon which didn't arrive a few days later than their estimate, they sent me a new one for free. Couple of days later both arrive, I offered to send one back they told me not to worry about it :)
cpr 13y ago
I ordered a fairly expensive lawnmower from Amazon, and it arrived slightly damaged (really horrible packaging with no real protection--I think it wasn't Amazon's packaging). I called Amazon, and they sent another overnight(!) and told me to just keep the first. (I fixed it up at low cost and use it at our farm.) They clearly have factored in goodwill as an offsetting benefit to any costs of selling entirely remotely. (BTW, the best customer service I have ever experienced was from Anthro, the computer furniture company. I had used one of their desks (MDF construction) for 5 years and it was sagging in the middle. I called to complain and they apologized, explaining they had re-engineered that design with an additional support leg in the middle. They then, at no cost and no promting from me, overnighted me a replacement new-style desk ($900 desk, $300 shipping), five years into the life of the original desk. Astounding.)
jnardiello 13y ago
Regarding Amazon, i've been working with them closely on the marketplace for about 2yrs and i can say they are evil geniuses. Their policy is: - They know were flaws are (packaging, products, marketplace partnerships, deliveries, etc..) but still make nothing to fix them. They rather estimate that a certain amount of customers will complain and will just refund them with no questions, so everyone is happy. - During this process, flaws expenses and drawbacks are thrown on third party partners so that financially they keep up. - The result is that they look like the "wow" guys, partners take full responsibility. - The more they become a monopoly, the more they can play this game. Quite horrible, honestly.
- abjorn 13y ago
  Part of me believes that's awful, and part of me is just impressed at how smart that is.
- sokoloff 13y ago
  There is no way to ship $71 Billion of product and get every product and every shipment perfect every time. I don't think it's fair to say that they're doing nothing to fix them. I regularly get product and packaging surveys, and I've seen products be pulled and descriptions updated based on content in reviews or based on feedback from customer care. I've returned a product for not meeting the description, and within 15 minutes of me getting the email saying they'd received the product, credited my card the full amount, I went to the site and the product was un-orderable. Several days later, the description was corrected and the product was again orderable. That violates the "[they] still make nothing to fix them" claim I think. I think you're ascribing a mercenary "screw it, it's cheaper to not fix" mentality when an alternative and more likely (IMO) possibility is "look, we can't fix everything, so when we fail our customers, we need to be very good at making it right".
  - jnardiello 13y ago
    > There is no way to ship $71 Billion of product and get every product and every shipment perfect every time. Yes, exactly. But they don't explain it to the customer. They ship right-away another packet. Why? Because what they are actually doing is either saying to the courier "You failed to deliver in our crazy-efficient time table, we won't pay you" or to the third party seller "You failed to meet our standards, we have sent a replacement but you'll cover all expenses". > I've returned a product for not meeting the description, and within 15 minutes of me getting the email saying they'd received the product, credited my card the full amount Again, as above. They usually do this with marketplace products. What they did behind the courtains is saying to the seller "The product didn't meet customer expectations. We refunded it, you will pay all related expenses". > everal days later, the description was corrected and the product was again orderable. That violates the "[they] still make nothing to fix them" claim I think. This was probably the third party seller who fixed the description to avoid paying again. Note: At this point you say "Wow, they are just pushing sellers for quality" WRONG. Because customers are not always right :) Most of the times they are dead wrong actually (or they are just abusing the fact that they know that Amazon consider them always right). It is rotten ethic to just dump all expenses on sellers without even giving them (most of the times) the chance to reply or to take action. > I think you're ascribing a mercenary "screw it, it's cheaper to not fix" mentality when an alternative and more likely (IMO) possibility is "look, we can't fix everything, so when we fail our customers, we need to be very good at making it right". No, i'm saying that they place crazy efficiency requirements and while they understand - as you said - that shit might happen, all they do is dumping all costs of their policy on partners. And partners can't do literally nothing. Why? Because Amazon pays out every 2 weeks, they will just keep the money from your wired amount. Because if you don't comply they just ban. And if they are the only marketplace, you are shut down. This isn't even considering the amount of stress and pressure that this 0 tolerance policy is causing on their own employees and connected partners employees.
jug6ernaut 13y ago
I buy almost everything i buy off of amazon because of this. There customer service is simply amazing. In the past 5-6 years I can not count how many times I have had to contact them, and left with an amazing experience(all being handled in 5-10 minutes) where with other companies it would have been days and only slightly beneficial to the consumer.
dtjohnnymonkey 13y ago
One of my favorite Amazon experiences: I rented a movie via Amazon Instant Video, but had some bandwidth issues which caused the movie to pause and buffer at least 10 times. The next day, Amazon sent me an email saying they noticed I had a poor connection and refunded me the rental fee.
naveensky 13y ago
Adding to good Amazon story, this time for their AWS platform. From one of my client, he was charged about $400 due to a bug in the code from his developer. He called up AWS billing support, explained them the situation. Not only they considered his case, they refunded this charge which is pretty awesome !
ulms 13y ago
Absolutely. Years back, my wife bought me an AppleTV as a gift from Amazon, but had it shipped to an old address in the Bronx - whose current tenants happily signed for and took the package. When we realized it was delivered and signed for, we called them with the situation, and with literally zero hassle, sent us a new one to a new address, free of charge. I don't expect that this is common, and I would never expect them to do it for me again, but it won my customer loyalty more than any other company has thus far.
benzoate 13y ago
And another... I ordered a wake up light clock from Amazon, whilst under a free prime trial. There was a problem with the courier so I contact them and a week later they send me another which arrives the next day. Later, they get the original clock back from the courier, and refund my order (so free clock). Additionally they extended my prime trial by another month.