1to1 Magazine
Newsletters
Web Exclusives
Webinars & White Papers
Events
Resources
Maybe the Service is Too Good
I’ve been shopping at Amazon.com for years. I have an Amazon rewards credit card, I send gift certificates as birthday and Christmas gifts, and I’ve placed over two dozen orders in the last year. I’ve always enjoyed great service, fast shipping, and overall an excellent experience buying from the company. For the first time yesterday, I was actually frustrated with Amazon. The reason why might surprise you, since nothing about Amazon or their great customer service suddenly changed.
My brother gave me an Amazon gift certificate for my birthday, so I went online to see what I should get with it. The problem? Amazon wouldn’t tell me what to buy! I’d purchased some recently-released DVD’s the week before and I couldn’t think of anything else to spend it on. I hear the response of “well then just save it,” but then from Amazon’s perspective that’s not a good solution. I went to my recommendations page and checked off what seemed like an endless list of boxes saying “I already own this item.” Still, none of the new suggestions that came up appealed to me. For the first time, I was a loss when it came to what I should buy at the largest online retailer. I decided to hang on to the gift certificate and wait a few weeks to see if I needed anything then.
That’s the problem (if you can even call it one) with providing such personalized, great service. My expectation after using the site for a decade is that when I log in, the site will know me well enough that I’ll see what I want without having to search for it. Okay, so maybe I don’t actually expect that, but I was honestly frustrated that I couldn’t think of anything to buy.
Have you ever set your expectations for a company too high and were then disappointed by a problem that most consumers would be happy to deal with?
Leave a comment