My Christmas story ”” the one I’ve been telling and retelling these last 10 days ”” began on Friday, Dec. 21.
It was early in the morning, and I had awoken with the sudden, sinking realization that a present I had bought for one of my sons hadn’t yet arrived. It wasn’t just any present either; it was a PlayStation 3, a $500 item, and a gift, I happened to know from my sources, that he was hoping for.
Like most things I buy online, the PlayStation had come from Amazon.com. So I went to the site and tracked the package ”” something, thankfully, that is a snap to do on Amazon. What I saw made my heart sink: the package had not only been shipped, it had been delivered to my apartment building days earlier and signed for by one of my neighbors. I knocked on my neighbor’s door, and asked if she still had the PlayStation. No, she said; after signing for it, she had put it downstairs in the hallway.
Now I was nearly distraught. In all likelihood, the reason I hadn’t seen the package earlier in the week is because it had been stolen, probably by someone delivering something else to the building. Even if that wasn’t the case, the one thing I knew for sure was that it was gone ”” for which I could hardly blame Amazon.
Nonetheless, I got on the phone with an Amazon customer service representative, and explained what had happened: the PlayStation had been shipped, delivered and signed for. It just didn’t wind up in my hands. Would Amazon send me a replacement? In my heart of hearts, I knew I didn’t have a leg to stand on. I was pleading for mercy.
I shudder to think how this entreaty would have gone over at, say, Apple, where customer service is an oxymoron. But the Amazon customer service guy didn’t blink. After assuring himself that I had never actually touched or seen the PlayStation, he had a replacement on the way before the day was out. It arrived on Christmas Eve. Amazon didn’t even charge me for the shipping. My son was very happy. So, of course, was I.
I hope that customer service representative gets a raise (I wonder if s/he knew who s/he were talking to). Jeff Bezos couldn’t buy as much free advertising as he got in this article if he tried. Hooray for a service person who provided real service!
The problem with Amazon is that if I only [i]just one more [/i]book, I’ll get free shipping. And I do it every time. So, I’m ordering something from Amazon today, and plan to let them know why. And I’ll end up with at least 3 books. :cheese:
I’ve had two excellent customer service experiences this holiday season. First was an AT&T tech support guy. One day in early December, just after I’d gotten back for home leave, my DSL service went out for apparently no reason at all. Turns out it was a problem with a needed software upgrade on my Linksys wireless router, nothing to do with AT&T. But the AT&T tech rep talked me through it step by step including how to re “bridge” the DSL modem and the wireless router after the Linksys software upgrade. The whole process took a total of 30 minutes and yet the tech rep was extremely thorough and patient. It was incredible…
I was so glad when the following day AT&T followed up and asked me to rate my customer service experience and I could give this guy 5 stars in every category. I’ve never been so impressed with telephone tech support as I was in this case.
My second story is with a small family-owned company that sells silver Christmas ornaments which I’ve dealt with for almost 10 years, called Sterling Collectibles. An order I placed with them went astray with UPS, and the help they provided over 3-4 days in the week before Christmas, their busiest time of year, in tracking it down was extremely appreciated.
LL Bean is another company I always find it easy and pleasant to do business with, and whom I know I can count on to get things delivered in the time they specify…
Customer service does make a HUGE difference and does often determine where I shop, either online or brick & mortar stores. I’ll gladly pay a little bit more or drive a few miles further if I know the shopping will be easy & pleasant.
Oh and by the way, I’ve got to give a shout out to one other service that made my Christmas VERY pleasant and much easier: The US Post office’s Flat Rate priority mail boxes and the ability to print out and pay for postage labels online and have my local mail carrier pick up the boxes from my house.
I can’t tell you how nice it was not to have to stand in line on three different days to mail out about 30 different priority mail packages around the country and overseas! Way cool!
I’ve been buying regularly from Amazon since back in the days when I was using Lynx as my browser — and one of the features of Amazon back then was that it had a very usable text-only web interface — and off the top of my head I can’t recall ever needing to talk to their customer service. That says something in and of itself.
I have to say that my own experiences with Amazon have also been excellent. I ordered several books recently and qualified for free shipping. Of course free shipping usually means it will leave on the next camel caravan. I don’t really even have any complaints about that. So I was pleasantly surprised when I got an email the first business day after placing my order telling me that it had been shipped and was even more surprised when I had my books in hand three days later.
This stands in sharp contrast with the lack luster (to put it mildly) service i received when ordering an icon and baptismal cross from a certain Orthodox book store for my Godson’s baptism. Weeks after the order was placed and despite repeated communication by email and phone I still had not received it on the Friday before the big day. This necessitated an unplanned drive all the way into San Francisco to buy what I needed at the gift and book shop run by the ROCOR Cathedral.
One of these businesses can count on my continued patronage and favorable references.
Amazon is wonderful. Joe needs to get some neighbors whose head injuries have healed better.
I bought a CD of the Vienna Boys Choir singing a Bach Christmas concerto from Amazon back on Dec. 5. It never arrived and I e-mailed them about it a couple of days after Christmas. They not only replaced the item, they gave me free 2nd-day shipping.
Oh, and true to form, the original order arrived two days after the replacement order did (via USPS).
Amazon is top-notch.
I like Amazon, and have a 90% or so success rate. But I have watched in wonder as items from across the country arrived weeks before something shipped from within my state and have had the wrong item appear at my door. The ability to track those orders was like something out of a Joseph Heller novel. I wish I had Mr. Nocera’s customer service rep’s name for the next time I have to call.
I’m too cautious, I guess. I won’t deal with Amazon because they require me to set up an account with a password and they keep credit card info on file. If they ever get hacked it will be a major mess. For books, I go to B&N;.
And Karen B., I’m amazed to hear you had a good experience with AT&T;. Maybe I will reconsider in a few years my rule against dealing with them. I got burned by BellSouth/Cingular, and I got slammed by AT&T;, and both episodes cost me money.
I like Amazon for the most part (when I was in college they had great prices on textbooks and loved the quick shipping), but several years ago I ordered a gift for my niece in Washington. Last year my sister received a letter addressed to me (but to her address halfway across the country O.o) informing me that their database had been hacked and it is possible my credit card (check card, actually) number could have been stolen.
The good news is that the card I used back then was from my personal bank account (as opposed to my husband’s and my joint account) which has been closed for the last couple of years so I don’t have to worry about the hacker draining my account since it doesn’t exist any more.
Bad news is that it happened in the first place. But then any company can be hacked….
What he doesn’t seem to know is that giving his son Playstation is utterly irresponsible. Why would a father give such a gift? LM