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5

It isn’t over yet. Amazon just rocks!

 

Kindle-Lighted-Leather-Cover

Kindle-Lighted-Leather-Cover

Image Courtesy (Amazon)

 

It isn’t over yet! You may tend to feel that I am biased towards Amazon, but I have to write this. While I was still going gaga over the replacement of my Kindle, I never imagined what more could I expect. To be precise, I was facing this peculiar issue of Kindle getting restarted on it’s own and a faster than normal battery drain. I read on some forums that some people have faced this issue and strangely attribute this to the leather cover for Kindle (non-lighted).

I thought I was in the same boat and decided to call up Amazon customer care again.  In just about 5 minutes:

  • I was refunded the amount for the leather cover.
  • And Amazon offered a US$ 25 promo to purchase the lighted cover.
  • And Amazon offered to refund the customs and shipping costs incurred to get the new cover  shipped to India.
  • And they proved that they are really building “Earth’s most customer-centric company” as they claim.

The cover is already on its way and will possibly reach India before I am there.

What more could I write!

59

Amazon customer service – It doesn’t get better than this!

The Kindle!

The Kindle! (Image courtesy- Amazon)

I’ve just experienced what might be the best customer service in my life! It is definitely the best so far. The story goes like this. Eyeing an eReader for a long time, I had ordered a Kindle back in November. Since I one of my friends was travelling to India from the US, I got my Kindle delivered in the US. Once I laid my hands on it, it was definitely one of the most prized gadget I ever owned (yes, there are emotions involved).

The Kindle worked flawlessly for a couple of months and I kept reading on and on until that day! Yes, I was travelling to Riyadh and had put my Kindle inside my bag. When I took it out, I saw my screen frozen with some horizontal and vertical lines on it. That was it. My Kindle was broken. And my heart as well. I was in such a state of shock that I didn’t even bother to contact the customer care to get it repaired. Since the Kindle was damaged because of possible baggage mishandling, there was no way I could dream of a warranty claim.

After about a month, once I gathered myself, I simply called the Amazon customer care from India to check on the options of getting it repaired ( of course at my cost). It was like a routine call and little did I expect that it would turn out to be the best ever customer care experience I have witnessed to date (and possibly will ever witness). I explained my situation. And the executive on the other side listened to me patiently. Once I was done he said, let me see what I can do for you. And beyond that, it was like a charm. I can keep writing about it, but let me be precise for the readers:

  • Amazon offered me to *replace* my Kindle free of cost under warranty.
  • Amazon offered to ship my Kindle free (priority International shipping) to India (note that my Kindle was shipped to the US originally.)
  • Amazon agreed to bear the custom clearance formalities, custom duties etc.

As if the above was not enough, Amazon agreed to pay for the shipping charges incurred to ship my defective Kindle back to the US.

I have no words to appreciate this gesture. Kindle is by the the best eReader out there. I might have purchased a new one even if Amazon did not offer a free replacement. But they did. And I am a customer for life!

I have my new Kindle already with me. Amazon has not just replaced a piece of hardware. It has given back a lot more which I can’t even explain.

Thank you Amazon!

 

Update: I have stopped tracking this post. But it seems that Amazon is still amazing people with its customer friendliness! Here’s a more recent experience from one of my colleagues:

The Rare Case Of Replacing An Out Of Warranty & Broken Kindle (For Free)

1

Amazon may have tamed the cloud but…….

Recently I got an opportunity to attend the Amazon Web Services cloud computing event held in New Delhi. I am not going to blog about the cloud computing stuff and all. However, it is worth mentioning that the lead Amazon has got in the cloud computing race is definitely going to be worth observing. I really like the simplicity they’ve brought-in onto the complicated infrastructure and deployment related issues which enables one to scale their application without bothering much about the underlying details. This is definitely going to stay!

So why was I there?

I was hoping to win the Kindle ;-). I didn’t!

However, there were a lot of interesting observations during the event. The event was attended by almost twice the number of people the venue could accommodate. Amazon decided to distribute complimentary T-Shirts to all the attendees. Boy! did they imagine what this would mean? Definitely not. The moment the T-shirt distribution was announced, all the composure of the audience fizzed off! People started invading the counters from all nook and corner. And we are talking about senior people from reputed organizations. Honestly speaking even I was interested in getting the freebie, however I was quite willing to remain in the queue and wait for my turn. Poor organizing staff at the counters really had a horrible time.

And then there was more to it. Over-sized people getting small T-Shirts and skinny people getting XXL. That was definitely not worth their effort. So people flocked the counter to exchange the T-Shirts. AND then, imagine the T-Shirt stock getting over and those people who didn’t get one. All sort of sweet words were heard all over (yes pun intended!).

Did I talk about the dinner? Two plate counters and hundreds of people trying to eat at the same time? I’ll leave you to imagine this one.

I was wondering Amazon might have tamed the *cloud* but can they tame the *crowd* ?  Hmmmmmm……