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NYT: Amazon succeeds with customer experience
Jan 7, 2008
NYT on Amazon's success: columnist Joe Nocera puts it well (emphasis mine below). Amazon is winning because it focuses on the customer experience.
Also interesting that the Wall Street analysts can't see the forest for the trees. (Bloviating about "R&D expansion" pays the bills a lot better than simply saying "Amazon is doing well because of its commitment to customer experience.")
From the column:
When I spoke to analysts and investors, they had all kinds of reasons for Amazon's performance last year. "They finally reached a point where their R&D spending was not expanding as fast as their revenues," said Citigroup's Mark S. Mahaney. He and others also talked about Amazon's success in international markets, its fast-growing (and high margin) merchant market, which allows merchants to sell goods alongside Amazon, and its rapidly expanding Web services business....
But I couldn't help wondering if maybe there wasn't something else at play here, something Wall Street never seems to take very seriously. Maybe, just maybe, taking care of customers is something worth doing when you are trying to create a lasting company. Maybe, in fact, it's the best way to build a real business — even if it comes at the expense of short-term results.
It is almost impossible to read or see an interview with Mr. Bezos in which he doesn't, at some point, begin to wax on about what he likes to call "the customer experience." ... "They care about having the lowest prices, having vast selection, so they have choice, and getting the products to customers fast," he said. "And the reason I'm so obsessed with these drivers of the customer experience is that I believe that the success we have had over the past 12 years has been driven exclusively by that customer experience. We are not great advertisers. So we start with customers, figure out what they want, and figure out how to get it to them."
Interesting. I wrote about this, too. While Wall Street is clearly evil, they are not always a culprit, just acting like owners.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy:
http://www.usablemarkets.com/?p=186
I was going to diversify my online shopping a few years ago and tried Alibris, ordering an out-of-print Canadian book for about $8. The Alibris shopping cart had on file an old address (over 2 years old), which I replaced with my current address. After checkout I found that the checkout process used the old address, so my book was shipped there (and not forwarded by the post office). After a dozen e-mails to their "customer support" people, they concluded there was nothing they could do about it because the book was ordered from a bookseller and they only passed the (incorrect) shipping information along. Couldn't send the bookseller corrected information, couldn't refund my $8. No amount of complaining could get them to fix the problem, so I've never been back. Their software screwed up my order, and their answer was "we can't do anything about it". No wonder Amazon wins big.
I recently demoed to the usability team at my company what I thought was one of the more amazing "delighters" of the Amazon experience. If click their Help link (next to Your Account ) it brings up a "customer service" button . Pressing that button it brings you to a page where you can have Amazon call you. It fills in your number and all you have to do is press the "Call Me" button. Pressing that button rings your phone...I mean it rings it immediately (I literally jumped the first time I did this ) ...then, guess what? you get to talk to a live person and ask them questions!!!! I love it ...it puts the Amazing in Amazon. What's in your customer experience 2day :)
I get lots of $10 Barnes & Nobles gift certificates from co-workers as thank yous. If I buy a paperback, I usually have a couple of dollars left on the g.c. Their stupid system won't let you use more than one certificate per order. Since I am on a very limited budget, I usually can't afford to pay the extra cost of a book, so I have a pile of certificates with balances under $4 lying around, basically useless to me. I will never buy someone a B&N certificate, and it makes me not want to shop there. I've never had such a frustrating experience with Amazon.
I wrote about this as well: Rise of the UX Economy.
Companies that do not recognize customer service (see: user experience) must be their number one priority over the next decade will see a sharp decline in sales.