Consumer Forum

I’m travelling for the first time with my new Kindle book reader.  Fabulous invention and great product, as it would need to be to complete with the Apple, Google and Microsoft alternatives.  Anyway, it broke: the screen froze causing frustration and annoyance in a forgetful hotel in a featureless city in the middle of America.  I checked Amazon’s Kindle site and found their section for broken Kindles quickly.  They have two of three basic questions, including requesting your mobile number, and then a big obvious button to press.  Instantly your mobile rings, and you are held – but informed – through a small waiting time: less than a minute in my case – before connecting to an after sales care rep. He asked a minimal but sensible number of questions, identified the problem, apologised for my experience, didn’t question whether the fault was caused by my mishandling in any way, told me the malfunction was covered by warranty and offered to both ship a new devise to my home straight away and email me a freepost envelope label for me to return the broken reader anytime within the next 30 days.  He then directed me to the place on their site where I could download an app to my laptop and enjoy reading my book from that.  Five minutes after the call, I received two emails: once confirming time of delivery of my new devise, the other with the label and instructions for return of the old one.

From angrily discovering the fault, to being surprisingly satisfied with the response, with solution, speed and empathy, took perhaps 15 minutes.  Great customer service Amazon.  Just thought I’d share as its given me food for thought for my own business.

And, yes, I will be investing in a Kindle wallet to protect the devise once I get home.

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