I had an interesting (and very positive) interaction with Amazon today.
I received this email from Amazon yesterday:
They were refunding me for a product they thought I didn’t receive. The thing is, I actually did receive the package, and I’m using the product.
It was only a $7 product, but I tried to figure out a way to contact Amazon and let them know this was an error and I shouldn’t get this refund. I looked around in Amazon’s website, and couldn’t find a way to deal with this.
So I did a Google search and found out that Amazon has a customer service email address: cis@amazon.com. It’s manned (personed?) by real people, so the website I found this address on said don’t be surprised if it takes a while to get a response.
So I forwarded the email to them, along with this reply:
I already received this item. I don’t need a refund. I’m not sure why you think it wasn’t delivered, but it was.
Thanks.
Dan Thomas
As long as the email didn’t get rejected because of an invalid email address, I wasn’t really worried about the response. I figured it was my ethical responsibility to report it, but once I did, the ball was in their court. If they didn’t respond, well, I did my part.
If it had been for a large amount of money and I didn’t hear back, I’d try to contact them some other way. But for $7, it was hardly worth anyone’s time.
Imagine my surprise when I received a response less than an hour later! Better yet, here’s the response (emphasis mine):
Hello,
Thank you for writing to us and letting us know that the product was delivered to you. We appreciate your conscientiousness and your loyalty to us.
It looks like the email was sent and the refund issued owing to a technical glitch from our end. Please accept my sincere apologies for that.
Since the refund has already been issued and submitted to your bank for posting, I would request to you kindly keep the product as well as the refund on this occasion.
It is our privilege to have you as our valued customer. If there is something else that I can help you with or if I missed anything, please let me know.
We appreciate your association with us and look forward to hearing from you again soon. Have a great day ahead.
We’d appreciate your feedback. Please use the buttons below to vote about your experience today.
Best regards, Towseef M. Amazon.com
So they told me it was their error, and to keep the refund.
Now, I’m not an idiot. I realize that Amazon surely has a policy in place for this, and depending on the amount, this is SOP. They’ve surely decided that it would cost more money to reverse the refund than it was worth, and letting me keep the refund is good for their public image. And I’m sure this is a boilerplate response.
But none of that is relevant. What is relevant is that they responded this way, which is the way businesses used to do things, “back in the day”.
And they were right about thinking it would be good for their public image, because here I am reporting it.
So in a day and age where I complain so often about how business treat their customers, I figured it was only fair to point out when they do something good.
Later.
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