What Jeff Bezos knows

I have been a big Amazon fan and considered them a prime example of a customer-first company. But with their digital downloads, they have lost their way. I just spent three days via email and over an hour on the phone with Amazon support just to be able to download an MP3 album. I bought it late one night and tried to download less than a day later, with no luck. I was told by a support person that I had to download the file within 12 hours of purchase, a small bit of useful info that is not presented to the customer at time of purchase. Does it even make sense to restrict the time of the first download like that? Surely they can track when you have actually downloaded a file and shut off from future downloads if they feel the need.

"We always obsess over customers."

I have no doubt of that. The problem is that Jeff has lost track of who his customers are.

As the Orwell/Kindle incident shows, Amazon's customers, first and foremost, are publishers. Amazon gives them what they want, even if it's the wrong thing for end users.

The people who actually buy books are merely vehicles that Amazon needs to please the publishers, without which Amazon would be selling an e-book reader sans e-books.

Bezos' apology was filled with the worst kind of customer-unfriendly doublespeak since, well, '1984.'

Jeff said "we will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward," a marvelous, flowery mea culpa that never answers any of the numerous questions Kindle owners have about their device.

For all their "heartfelt" apologies, Amazon has never a) promised they won't delete purchased books from Kindles in the future, b) explained why they would build a device with such a customer-unfriendly "feature" in the first place, or c) taken the one step that would provide a real customer benefit: removing the remote delete functionality for good.

Once Amazon has done that, they need to come clean about what other big brother functionality is built into the Kindle. For starters:

-- If I download a copy of '1984' in Australia, where it's in the public domain, does Amazon reserve the right to delete the book once I return to the U.S.? It's clear they have the capability to do so.

-- If I download a DRM-free e-book from other sources, will Amazon allow me to copy that e-book to non-Kindle devices?

-- What data does Amazon collect about my reading habits, and in what form is that data provided to publishers or advertisers? Is that data limited to titles purchased on the Kindle, or does it include documents from other sources?

Until Amazon decides to answer very reasonable questions like this, Jeff Bezos can put on a good game face, but Amazon is miles away from being a customer-friendly company.

Wow, sounds like some unhappy Amazon customers in the first 2 comments. I think the Kindle is pretty silly and that Barnes & Noble has that right - download instantly to any device I want to read on, including my blackberry, with no need for an extra device. But anyway, I still think Amazon is amazing, and Jeff Bezos is amazing, and the Zappos purchase is amazing, and Jeff's 8-minute You Tube announcing Zappos was also amazing. Memorable. Career grounding. Brilliant! And I don't know a better customer-centric, customer-serving brand than Zappos. So it's an amazing marriage. Yep, amazing.

"We always obsess over customers."

Not true in my case.

I *was* an Amazon customer until around three years ago, when they publicised a rebate which didn't actually apply. Without going into the whole thing, and without trying to extract "any link juice", here's my story:

http://lutrov.com/blog/how-to-lose-a-customer-amazon-style/

At the time, Amazon *knew* that I was from Australia but their website still advertised the rebate to me, even though the rebate was only applicable to US customers.

Whether their website software was to blame, or whether the software manufacturer misled them, doesn't matter.

If they cared about the customer, they would have done something which proves it.

Not sure I learnt much beyond the oft-repeated cliches. For some detailed insights and thought-through remarks on Amazon's culture/processes I suggest you link to the 2007 HBR interview...

Sanjay

This customer-first philosophy is lost on me as an amazon customer. I have to sign in 4 times during one purchase in order to turn on and use one-click, trying to contact customer service is impossible, and all of the alternate vendors they use makes it impossible for the less-web-saavy to place and order and know who it's coming from. in addition- it's so frustrating to order four things and have to pay shipping 4x because it's so difficult to figure out how to simply order from one store within this one web store. Customer focused? I really don't think so.

Only four comments here but they reinforce a big lesson for customer-obsessed companies: One poorly handled incident or poorly performing product line can wipe out years of brand equity.

The other lesson here is that when you present on this subject, those most motivated to reply will be customers that have had a bad experience.

I provide another example of that. I love Amazon. And when you think about the numbers of transactions they complete each day, it's stunning. There is no other online retailer that compares. Period.

Which brings me to my one complaint. As an early adopter to the Kindle, I didn't feel "put first." I dropped one Kindle while in its case...something I've done dozens of times to cellphones...and the screen inked. When I called customer service, they informed me that was my error. Further, they found that they had processed my purchase transaction incorrectly, and were then going to have to retroactively bill me.

I have no doubt that if Jeff were on the phone, my experience would've been dealt with differenty by Amazon. This is the problem with growth, of course. The principles of the leader can be difficult to translate through thousands of employees spread across the world.

I still love Amazon. I've given away Kindles. I love my Kindle. And I love Amazon. But I no longer view them as akin to a neighborhood retailer. I now accept that they are a very large retailing corporation. My pace of transactions has NOT slowed, but my connection with and evangelism of the brand has grooved back in line with other companies I do business with.

PS As an example of this, back when the company was taking its first transactions from non-family members, you can bet I'd receive a direct reply from someone at Amazon concerning this comment. I'm not emotional about that. It just is what it is.