Nandini Vaidyanathan is all praise for Amazon for its ‘customer delight’ attitude
I think the first two decades of the 21st century will be known as the Amazon decades and everything before will be BA (Before Amazon) and after will be AA (After Amazon)! It has been ages since I went to a shop to buy and thanks to corona, even window shopping has been epitaphed. Although I do buy stuff on e-commerce sites, my go-to is Amazon and only if I don’t find it there (which is very rare) do I head to other shopping portals.
I live in Jaipur and my partner and I decided to open an Indo-French eatery here about two months ago, just before lockdown was announced. Except for the property to house the eatery, every single item for the eatery has been bought on Amazon – furniture, interiors, lights, crockery, cutlery, even strings for baggage tags! It never ceases to amaze me that they are like Mahabharat. It is said that what is there in the world is there in Mahabharat and if something is not depicted in Mahabharat, it is because it does not exist in the world. I could say the same for Amazon, A to Z as their branding suggests!
As we went about setting up the eatery, we realized that without Amazon we could not have done it during lockdown when markets were shut and all access was cut off. It is unthinkable that we not only set up the eatery in record time without a hitch but we even managed to kick off home delivery operations during lockdown, thus protecting our investment.
There are three things about Amazon that in my books are a huge plus. One is their huge inventory. I understand inventory of regular fast-moving items. But they seem to have an inventory even of obscure products – the ones that Chris Anderson wrote about in his seminal book, The Long Tail.
The second reason why I find Amazon endearing is the brilliant way they have empowered their teams to solve customer problems. Unlike other call centers, the Amazon guys don’t parrot templatized scripts and annoy the hell out of you. They are trained to listen to you, understand your problem and redress it – all on one call. And then back it up with a mail. I don’t know how Amazon does it but the whole experience from order-taking to fulfillment to after sales service is exemplary.
This is not to say they are six sigma flawless. I have had my share of skirmishes with them from time to time. But I no longer get into a tizzy when a problem occurs because my brain is wired by my previous experience to say: hey chill, this is Amazon, the problem will be sorted. I don’t know too many companies that have managed to give its customers that kind of confidence not once or twice or a few times, but literally every single time!
Like I said, it is not that they are perfect. For instance there was a phase when I had problems with 2 out of 10 deliveries. The problem was that the app would show a particular item as delivered and I would not have received it. I think the delivery teams were playing hookey. But when I’d call up customer service, nary did they argue, give me excuses, whitewash a lie. Nada. They’d cut to the chase saying, if you don’t receive the product in the next 24 hours, we will give you a refund!
It brings me to the third reason why I love Amazon. The ginormous convenience of returning a product. And I do believe this is where Amazon scores over everyone else. On another portal I once bought a book. I was delivered the wrong book. When I called up the call center, I was told to suck it up. Not literally but in intent pretty much. They said the seller has made a mistake, we can’t do anything about it! And I argued till the cows came home (and went back several times for grazing) that since I bought the book from the portal and not from the seller, the portal is responsible. And for some reason the girl at the other end refused to see the simple logic!
Like I said, I love the convenience of returns. Schedule pick-up within 24 hours, ask for replacement or refund, both follow excellent processes that leave no scope for any iffiness or lapses.
During lockdown I saw that the traders’ body complained that whilst they were asked to shut shop, Amazon was permitted to deliver even non-essentials. And I said to myself, there is a reason for it. We bought some baking equipment for our bakery from a vendor. We were told there were no warranties except for the motor, but there should not be any problem and if there is, we would get a replacement, no questions asked. As Murphy’s Law would have it, the very first day we operated the machine, there was a problem. When we approached the vendor to replace the machine he said he does not have any! And if I wanted a replacement I could buy the deluxe version, paying an arm and a leg! That’s when I realized why I love Amazon. They don’t waste time talking. They simply deliver.
Years ago, I read a beautiful definition of quality. Quality is when your customer comes back and not your product. I think Amazon has built its business model around this simple home-truth. That’s why they have my heart
The Columnist is about to commence her fourth professional avatar with her bakery and restaurant business in Jaipur (www.concoctions.fr) with her French Michelin-star chef life partner. Email: nandini@carmaconnect.in
