It’s no secret that Amazon has an award-winning customer service team that consistently puts the customer first.
According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index’s survey of over 80,000 consumers in 2019, Amazon is at the top of their list of companies that they are satisfied with.
If you want to please your customers, why not learn from the best?
In this blog, we are going to dive deeper into one of the values that Amazon uses to provide top-notch customer service to its customers. Amazon’s customer-obsession
Here at Captevrix we specialize in providing top-notch Customer Service. Take a look at our Customer Service solutions for your business and our in-depth guide to providing incredible customer service.
“The most important single thing is to focus obsessively on the customer. Our goal is to be earth’s most customer-centric company.”-Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.
Amazon reflects Bezos’s sentiment in many aspects of their business model.
Salesforce wrote about how Bezos required all managers in Amazon to attend a two-day call center training. Why? So that every member of the Amazon workforce understands who the customer is and what they need.
How do they do this?
By learning how to listen.
If you can’t listen, then you can’t know how to get the information you need to understand your customer. It’s one of the reasons why we included listening in our last blog post, “Top 5 Customer Service Skills to Develop”.
When a company understands their customer, they know what their business model needs to be in in order to please their customers in every way that they can.
Why this obsession?
Because customers hold a tremendous amount of power over the reputation of a company.
Word of mouth has amplified in recent years. In 2019, 79% of people in the United States used social media according to Statista. Of those social media accounts, Facebook is the most popular and the average user has about 338 friends reports Brandwatch.
It used to be that if one person had a bad experience, then word could get out to 5 or 6 of their friends, but now with the press of a button, a bad customer service experience could get out to hundreds of that person’s friends.
And imagine, if 5 or 6 people have a bad experience and each post on Facebook about their experience, this quickly could be 1500 to 1800 people who have heard about a bad experience with a company simply because the company wasn’t providing the best customer service. The reverse is also true. If 5 or 6 people have a positive experience, then they can quickly spread some positive PR for your business.
Amazon is hyper-aware of these numbers and does everything that they can to please all of their powerful, connected customers.
It goes without saying that customer experience with Amazon is very user-friendly. They have invested in the following:
- Fast, reliable delivery
- Using data to personalize the shopping experience for customers online
- Providing prices that are low and competitive with other major retailers
- Giving customers access to music and video streaming services like Amazon Music and Prime.
Another key component to Amazon’s customer obsession is their constant asking for and receiving of feedback from their customers.
Amazon provides a smooth customer experience and then wants to continue to improve their process. Customers like to feel like they’ve been heard and the review community on Amazon is a testament to that.
Additionally, Amazon sends out Customer Satisfaction Surveys like this one (Photo from Amazon):
Then, they use the information that they receive to learn more about what the customer expects and generally, they will give the customer what they want.
This philosophy bleeds into their return policy, as well.
According to Amazon’s website:
“Products shipped by Amazon.com, including Amazon Warehouse products, can be returned within 30 days of receipt in most cases. Some products have different policies or requirements associated with them.
Amazon Global Store Return Policy
Products can be returned within 30 days of receipt through the Returns Center. Once returned, the product may take up to 25 days to arrive. Once the product is received at our distribution center, it takes 2 business days for the refund to be processed and 3 to 5 business days for the refund amount to appear in your account.
Your return label will require you to return the product at your own expense. Amazon will automatically reimburse you for up to $ 20 for return shipping costs upon receipt of the product.
If the return shipping costs exceed $ 20, you can contact our Customer Service Center to request a refund of the remaining shipping costs. If you return a faulty, damaged or incorrect product, you will be refunded the full shipping cost, as well as the import duty deposit, once your return has been processed.”
Amazon’s dedication to making the return process as smooth as possible shows their dedication to their customers. They also give the option of making hassle-free returns to their Amazon Books stores which require nothing more than the email confirming you want to return the item.
To sum up their customer-centric approach, Amazon describes leaders as being the following on their website:
“Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.”
Start today by learning something new about your customers or asking them for their feedback on a product or service that you are providing.
In doing so, you are communicating to them that their voice matters and taking a step toward building trust. Ultimately, customers return to Amazon because they trust Amazon to be fast, reliable, and fair.
)
