Over the weekend, we took an evening to relax by renting a movie. I’ve been a big fan of Amazon Video on Demand for the past several months and, like many nowadays, rarely leave the house to rent a movie anymore.
Building up goodwill through positive experiences
Throughout all of my experiences with Amazon, I’ve been pretty satisfied with the service. In this case, I’m using the term “satisfaction” to mean that each time I’ve used the service, it worked as expected. The movie I ordered played almost instantly, the streaming was uninterrupted, I was billed the correct amount, and incurred no problems whatsoever. So by “satisfied,” I’m meaning to say that I received what I expected when I paid for the movie rental.
And then the problem…
This weekend, however, I had an unfortunate experience renting from Amazon. About 10 minutes into the movie, the streaming stopped. Fortunately, it restarted again within a minute or two. This wasn’t a major pain, as it picked up where I’d left off in the movie without much work on my part. A few minutes later, this happened again and then again another 2 or 3 times.
Tapping into that bank of goodwill
Now as I said, I’ve had several good experiences with this service, so I gave Amazon the benefit of the doubt on this one. Because of all of my positive experiences, I even started troubleshooting my own network, assuming that it may have been an issue on my end. Eventually, we were able to finish the movie with only a few minor headaches. Because of Amazon’s history of delivering repeated positive experiences to me, I brushed this one off. I did not complain, tweet, etc. because Amazon had built up some goodwill with me based on past experiences. And let’s be honest, the effort it would require to complain wasn’t worth the $3.99 to me. After all, $3.99 worth of gas these days barely gets me home from the gas station.
If this had happened a second time, I probably wouldn’t have been as forgiving, but I expect there are a lot of customers out there like me.
The surprise service recovery!
As I mentioned, I had not complained or communicated in any way to Amazon that I had encountered problems. So much to my surprise, I received an email today that read as follows:
Hello,
We noticed that you experienced poor video playback while watching the following rental(s) on Amazon Video On Demand:
Tangled
We’re sorry for the inconvenience and have issued you a refund for the following amount(s):
$3.99
While Amazon Video On Demand transactions are typically not refundable, we are happy to make an exception in this case. This refund should be processed within the next 2 to 3 business days and will appear on your next billing statement for the same credit card used to purchase this item.
Please visit our troubleshooting page for tips on ways you can potentially improve your viewing experience: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200256920
We hope to see you again soon.
Amazon Video On Demand Team
How great is that? I didn’t complain. Honestly, I wasn’t even that annoyed by the initial problem. But this message very clearly communicated that Amazon wants my business, and they did it PROACTIVELY!
From Amazon’s perspective, this communication was a soft push to their troubleshooting site so that both parties (me and Amazon) can avoid this again. They said “hey, we’ll take care of it this time and here’s how you can prevent it in the future.” It seems simple but it’s really refreshing given what we expect from the companies we do business with today.
The Result – A Tweet, A Blog, and Many Recommendations
I may have recommended Amazon Video on Demand once or twice prior to this experience. But now I feel compelled to praise the service and recommend it to my friends, my family, and obviously on the Internet. For less than $4, Amazon:
- Created an opportunity to educate me on causes of potential technical problems
- Did so by diffusing any ill will with mention of the refund first – a very effective strategy
- Turned a generally satisfied customer with one less-than-stellar experience into an extremely satisfied evangelist
Simple but brilliant.
About the author
Brian Backer is an experienced consultant in Customer Experience measurement, insights, and management. As a Director at CFI Group, Brian and his team consult blue chip organizations in optimizing customer satisfaction and loyalty, utilizing customer metrics to drive process improvements that deliver positive ROI. Contact Brian at 734.623.1375.
Brian Backer is an experienced consultant in Customer Experience measurement, insights, and management. As a Director at CFI Group, Brian and his team consult blue chip organizations in optimizing customer satisfaction and loyalty, utilizing customer metrics to drive process improvements that deliver positive ROI.
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Great post Brian – thanks for sharing your experience. That’s an example of customer communications at their absolute best, and Amazon is one of the very few companies to crack that nut. I’ve blogged about my (positive) experiences with the company here – http://tinyurl.com/6b8yjgt
Rod – thanks for the feedback! Amazon is truly a leader is customer communications. Their communication strategy leads to a “Zero Call Resolution” by setting expectations and keeping us in the loop proactively. I completely agree with your sentiments in your blog post. Thanks for sharing that!