Dear Jeff Bezos - Here's How Amazon Lost Me as a Customer - Forever

Dear Mr Bezos: Let me tell you how, earlier today, you lost me as a customer – forever.

A month or so ago, on Amazon's website, I pre-ordered the second and third book in the 10-book series, The 39 Clues for my nephew.

Book two, One False Note, was published on December 2, 2008. It was my nephew's much-anticipated Chanukah gift. He didn't receive it.

The third book, The Sword Thief, is scheduled to be released on March 3, 2009. I also pre-ordered the card set that goes with the second book to help him play the online 39 Clues game. I chose the shipping option “Group my items into as few shipments as possible.”

Would you think that meant do not ship the book that comes out in December until March 2009? I didn't.

Nobody likes to wait
But as the customer service person for whom I waited for on hold for seven minutes said – that means all items in the order will be shipped when the last one is ready. To whom does it mean that? I wonder.

What would be the next thing the customer service person might have said: “We’re sorry your nephew didn’t get his Chanukah gift. I can imagine that was a major disappointment to an 11 year-old boy. Please let us send the book to him by overnight delivery – at our expense. And we’ll include a $10 gift certificate with the book.”

I guarantee you that would have been the response from customer service at Zappos, or LL Bean, two companies that live and breathe customer service and are wildly successful as a result.

What did your customer service person say when, exasperated and more than a little angry after 20 minutes on the phone with him, I asked his last name or employee number? He said “We don’t give out our last name, just our last initial. We don’t have employee numbers.” When I asked the name of his supervisor, he said, “We don’t give that information out.”

Customers are not always right
Mr Bezos, the only people who don’t use a last name, or at least have an identifying number, are hookers and people who don’t want to be held responsible for that they are saying or doing.

I'm not saying that customers are always right. Because they're not. Idiots exist, and try hard as you may, you will never make every customer happy. And there are those, too, who try to take advantage of a business' good intentions. But this was not one of those situations. And your customer service people should have enough training to know the difference.

Would that really have been such a big deal Mr Bezos, if Ronnie T in Manilla has offered to ship the book to my nephew overnight at your expense? Somehow I don’t think so.

What's a big deal to you?
Given the thousands of dollars I have spent on Amazon - and the fact that I have complained to Amazon maybe once before in the past 10 years - I think it wouldn’t have been a big deal at all.

When I finally got to speak to a supervisor, nearly an hour into this experience – which I documented on Twitter – Lauren R in Manilla finally agreed to ship the book overnight at your expense. Please don’t fire her, even though she was a total pain in the butt to deal with.

Nothing Amazon sells is unique
As far as I’m concerned, there is nothing Amazon can do now to win back my business. I’m done with you. Today was the worst customer service experience I can remember (besides Microsoft and Dell anyway, and I don’t do business with either of them anymore either) There is nothing – not one single thing – you sell that I can’t buy somewhere else.

But before I go, let me tell you that there is nothing – whatsoever – that matters more than how you treat your customers.

You should have well-paid executives handling customer service calls, not some outsourced clerks in Manilla. You should be treating customers like gold. Because we’re all you have. Without us, Amazon is nothing.

Sincerely,
B.L. Ochman
Former Amazon Customer

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In November I ordered some things for my wife for Christmas. We're still waiting for items that were supposedly "in stock". I'm not giving up on them, but I won't use Amazon for Christmas any more.

I read this completely and thought you could have been referring to one of Canada's pseudo-monopolistic telcos – Bell. Bell is a shit company to deal with. Level-one customer service reps are in India and speak little English. It is not uncommon to have to repeat yourself three times or more, even when using simple monosyllables, for the simplest of requests.

Bell started losing my business when it failed to move an Internet account to my new address shortly after I moved. I ended up spending more than 5 hours on various calls. Bell service technicians – who portend to be Bell employees but who work for third-party contractors – failed to establish my Internet on no fewer than 3 service visits. I had enough, and eventually cancelled my Bell internet service. It should not take 12 (yes, 12) calls to customer service and technical support for any product or service, period.

Since then (about 2 years ago), I have cancelled my Bell satellite TV service. I was a Bell Mobility customer, and cancelled that about 5 years ago because of poor customer service. And within the past month, I convinced my parents to cancel their Bell internet and home phone service. Putting bad customer service aside, their new provider will save them $40 a month.

Amongst my parents and I, we subscribed to at least 6 of Bell’s subscription-based products. Today, there are none. Effective, responsive customer and technical support would have kept us as customers. Instead, we will have nothing to do with Bell – ever.

Amazon has terrible customer service. I'm sad to hear that they messed up your Chanukah. However, since they dominate the market, they seem to keep getting away with this. Thanks for letting people know just how bad Amazon can be.

It really is sad that with all the struggles authors/publishers have to go through now to even make a sale, we also need to be concerned about stuff like this. No system is perfect, but when it's so easy to treat people with respect, why do everything you can to avoid it?

Seems like customers now take seriously the line that used to be a joke, "We offer fast delivery, good price, and good service--pick one". As long as people are willing to do without good service, Amazon won't have to improve or change I guess which is also very sad.

Cheryl Pickett
www.publishinganswers.com

What a great blog post! I really enjoyed reading it. Unfortunately, this post is applicable to other online businesses as well. It's a shame that companies lose their focus on service usually after one becomes their customer vs being a new customer.

- @skimshady

I'm sorry about your terrible experience, and more sorry for the lack of Channukah gift.

I'd have to agree with Bookish reader that this is the case with many companies that hold a monopoly. Comcast in Iowa provides terrible service even though I'm quite positive their customer service team is based in the US. But what can you do? You either have cable or you don't.

That being said, online there's plenty of other places to choose from, and what's even better plenty of opportunities to truly voice your opinion (like here).

I hate to be the one to say this, but what else would he have thought that instruction meant? I'm always happy to pile up on the big,monolithic corporation, but in this case they are simply right. Also, whether we like it or not, the privacy of last names is necessary in a world of rage and revenge-seekers. There's a distinct lack of reality awareness in this complaint from beginning to end.

Jan - lemme guess: you work for a big company. if customer service people don't use last names (even fake ones) they need to have an ID number. Why? Because if you need to report them, or reach them again you will NOT find them by saying "He said he was the only person there named Joe."

Trust me on that.

And sadly, with the on-the-job-retirement point of view of many in customer service, you need to ask as soon as you start a call "What is your name, to whom do you report," unless you don't mind being treated like you don't deserve good service.

Puh-leese!