Mon 18 Sep 2006
must be a good amazon customer or something
Posted by rt under UncategorizedIs this AWESOME? [ \Y/ or N ]
A package I ordered recently (two cheap-ish optical trackballs) never arrived though Amazon and UPS both claimed it was delivered. I suspect that it was delivered to the building office and then disappeared from there, but I’m not sure either way. Regardless I sent their customer support a quick little email describing the situation and asked what the process was for things like this.
I got back a prompt reply, totally apologetic, offering to either deliver a new order or refund the money. Now that’s service. Whether they are doing it because I spend a lot of money at Amazon or if that’s normal business practice for them, I don’t really care — I’m sold. Rock on!
September 19th, 2006 at 7:03am
Yes, but because you chose to combine shipping, those trackballs wont arrive until October, 2009 since only 1 is in stock.
September 19th, 2006 at 9:54am
Except for my experience with the amazon/abebooks interface, which SUCKS because when there’s an error in data transmission (resulting in them thinking you’ve ordered the wrong book), neither of them will take responsibility for it, my experience with amazon’s customer service has always been good.
Whenever i’ve reported something not received, this is the response i’ve gotten.
September 19th, 2006 at 10:17am
joh3n: yeah that’s the one thing about amazon I find most annoying.
aphrael: yeah that’s the one thing about amazon I find most annoying.
Apparently there are two things I find most annoying! This is why I (A) use Amazon Prime to avoid order combination and (B) only order items that Amazon proper fulfills. And it ends up being a pretty good service when you do that.
September 19th, 2006 at 10:24am
Amazon prime is, in fact, awesome. I don’t understand how they aren’t losing their shirts on it. I know that I spent several times the cost of a membership in shipping the year before they introduced it.
On another subject, your fans are yearning for a kansas city fix.
September 19th, 2006 at 10:30am
aphrael: According to a friend of mine who works there who I will name, Amazon knows full well that they don’t make a profit directly on the Prime service — just that they make up for it in volume. Namely the increased volume of purchases that Prime customers like yourself and I make when we know that stuff will conveniently arrive in 2 days for “free”.
September 19th, 2006 at 11:06am
For retail in general, it’s like that, but there’s a mark place in your file…two many strange returns and they clamp down. When I worked for Williams-Sonoma, you could basically walk in, say “I lost a $40 gift certificate but have no idea of the number, can you replace it” and be given one. They tracked it, so no one could pull it twice, but went by the theory that most people are honest and they’re better off getting scammed a few times than pissing off a customer. They feel it’s more cost effective to just look for the big scammers. That’s probably exactly what Amazon is doing.
(Much like netflix gives you no trouble if, once or twice, you say “hey, I never got it!”.)
September 19th, 2006 at 11:07am
Oh, and I’m still gonna get you! You sleep with your mouth open! Hah! Tonight at midnight, I’m in there!
September 19th, 2006 at 11:19am
spinach: Quite likely they do just that, except you’d think with a business model like Amazon they’d have to be more wary of potential scammers. I bet it’s a combination of factors such as (a) how many times you’ve reported items not arrived; (b) how much money it costs vs. how much you’ve spent; and (c) the likelihood of the item itself to be one customers want to rip off (like batteries or razors).
September 19th, 2006 at 12:57pm
Spinach: i’ve been getting a surprising number of cracked or scratched and unwatchable DVDs from netflix of late.
September 19th, 2006 at 1:00pm
aph: me too. :-( They are quick to replace them when they are that way but it’s still annoying when you want to see the one that arrived.