Customer service is NOT dead...

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I am on the generic Amazon dot com customer e-mail list. Occasionally users receive offers and suggestions for products based on their previous purchases and ratings at the site.

Several days ago I received an e-mail with this one, 100 Words for Lovers. as a featured product for me.

Any reader of this blog would know this is a product that might interest me, no surprise there. But what was a surprise was the fact it was tagged with a '1% Off' 'sticker'.

My gawd..!! 1 percent..!! Quick, do the math, six cents..!! Be still my beating heart..!!





Well, that was just too rich and too silly to let pass 'uncommented'. So I dug through the Amazon website, found the customer service email address and dashed off a quick note to them:

hey there...

I appreciate in these tough economic times that you are going all out to help the struggling consumer.

Your recent e-mail notice of a $5.95 book offered at 1% off is a great example. It is not every day that a consumer can save _six_cents_ on a purchase. I mean, every penny counts . . .I guess.

So thanks again.


...tom...

I mean, I just had to thank them for their marketing savvy..!!


They state at the site that they will try to respond in less than 24 hours . . .and respond they did:

Hello,

Thanks for sending us your comments! We want to provide service on a level customers will remember, and it's great to know we've succeeded.

We look forward to filling your next order!

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

--snip--

Best regards,

Anu S.
Amazon.com
We're Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company

...sigh...

"...and it's great to know we've succeeded."


Well, I guess I should have expected the 'form letter approach' rather than a 'yeah, that is a pretty silly offer, ehh..??' reply.


Go get 'em, Amazon dot com. You certainly wowed this customer.


...tom...
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My desktop, October 15, 2009...

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Yes, there is a theme here. Astronomy pics often take my breath away. Particularly those of Astronomy Picture of the Day. The one shared here is from September 27, 2009.


At about 100 meters from the cargo bay of the space shuttle Challenger, Bruce McCandless II was farther out than anyone had ever been before. Guided by a Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), astronaut McCandless, pictured above, was floating free in space. McCandless and fellow NASA astronaut Robert Stewart were the first to experience such an "untethered space walk" during Space Shuttle mission 41-B in 1984. The MMU works by shooting jets of nitrogen and has since been used to help deploy and retrieve satellites. With a mass over 140 kilograms, an MMU is heavy on Earth, but, like everything, is weightless when drifting in orbit. The MMU was replaced with the SAFER backpack propulsion unit.


Beautiful, just beautiful. Certain worthy of greeting me each day as I sign onto my home computer...


...tom...
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