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Digging in a Habari sandpit

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Sunday 23 November 2008

Blog Friendly Unit Shifter

• Recent Posts

  • open letter to Mark Burgess
  • has your company got a Community Manager ?
  • open letter to Tony Hawks
  • more fun with keyword searches
  • black screen of death

confession time

Dear Jeff Bozos

It is 39 years and 7 months since my last confession.

Back in 2001, I opened an Amazon Associates account, placed a link to a wonderful Oracle book I wanted to buy on my personal Web site, clicked through on the link and purchased the book from Amazon (UK). This abuse of the referral program credited my newly opened Amazon Associates account with the princely sum of 1.55 GBP.

I have never claimed the money which has subsequently sat dormant for over 4 years in my Amazon Associates account. This was partly because I was wracked and tormented by feelings of guilt. Even when I tried to forget about my heinous crime, the Quarterly Associates Newsletter email from Amazon kept reminding me of my sin.

Another reason was that the paltry amount was below the minimum required by Amazon before you can actually withdraw the money.

I could have continued to abuse this system more fully to make even more money (maybe even as much as a fiver) when I consider all the purchases I have ever made from my favourite online retailer.

However, now is the time to reveal my secret and take my punishment like a man.

Shamefully yours

Norman Brightside

CRM

A lot of people make a lot of money out of customer relationship management (CRM) but here is a real-life example of how customer service affects the relationship with the customer. A few weeks ago I ordered a wireless USB card and a CD (Antics by Interpol) from Amazon. I received the normal 'Your order has been dispatched' email within 24 hours. I waited for 10 days but nothing turned up which was unusual because normally Amazon deliver pretty promptly (even with the SuperSaver option). I know the package hasn't been left on my doorstep in the pouring rain by the postman and subsequently stolen as I specified the delivery address as my place of work, specifically, to avoid this. So I send Amazon a polite email informing them of the problem and asking what can be done. Amazon replied promptly, helpfully confirming when the package was dispatched and that, unfortunately, there was no way of tracking the item. Please note that we take full responsibility should any item become lost or damaged while being delivered, and we are more than happy to replace these items at a cost to ourselves. If your package does not arrive by September 23, 2005, please contact us to confirm that it has not been received and that your delivery address is correct for your order, so we can investigate and take the appropriate action. Now what was interesting about this reply was:

• Amazon actually read my email and answered my specific questions. It was not a standard form letter.
• If, after waiting two weeks and checking the delivery address was correct, the package still did not turn up, Amazon were prepared to send me the goods free of charge for a second time.

Anyway, this story had a happy ending as the package was actually sitting in the post room at work and they had simply forgotten to inform me. Now, after I made the initial order I discovered I could have got the identical wireless USB card off the shelf for the same price, without any delay in Tesco and I could have saved a whole three pounds (33%) on the CD (at CD-WOW!). However this excellent customer service gives me a increased level of confidence of buying goods from Amazon. Could I be guaranteed the same response if another, more expensive package from another retailer went missing ?

dot bombs

Returned from holiday to find correspondence lying on my doorstep from two internet companies. Both were big names and continually in the news during the internet boom in 1999.

Firstly, two cheques resulting from travelocity's takeover of lastminute.com. Back in 2000, I applied to buy shares in lastminute.com for me, my wife, my auntie and my dog. Thankfully, the share offering was massively oversubscribed and I only received the minimum allocation which reduced my subsequent losses five years later. In fact, the lastminute takeover was very timely as I had two separate, small shareholdings which I was stuck with as dealing costs would have swallowed up most of the proceeds.

Secondly, a thick wad of legalese all the way from the United States of America regarding a class action by shareholders (and corporate lawyers) against Amazon. I couldn't be bothered to read all the twenty seven pages of small print but the gist appeared to be that people bought shares expecting to become dollar millionaires overnight and, unsurprisingly, were bitterly disappointed when this failed to materialise. Remember, people, the price of shares can go down as well as up. If you want to become a dollar millionaire, don't buy shares become a corporate lawyer.