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My toddler was playing with my Kindle the other day, and he bought a £600 (yes, six hundred) volume of books. I was unable to refund them automatically, and when looking for help I was confronted with a "fuck off" contact page. After finding the option to talk to a human, I was put through within 5 seconds, and the woman had the item refunded in about 1 minute.

Was pleasantly surprised.



Amazon seems to be going for a model where they keep support costs down by making it progressively harder over time to actually contact a person, but when you do manage to you get a good experience. It's an interesting idea, and I suspect that the pleasant surprise at the end makes up for a lot of the frustration getting there.


Also, your first N refunds are automatic for smaller prices. I think the only reason GP needed to talk to a human was the larger price. But once you're used the mechanism a few times, the site starts offering the benefits of good customer service less and less.

I don't know if it's individual, regional or country-wide, but I've lost free UPS pickups for returns and I'm offered free trials way less often now.




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