How to Improve It The Amazon Customer Experience

The Amazon Customer Experience: How to Improve It Amazon is one of the largest companies in the world. It is the retailer to which most consumers turn to when they wish to make a purchase, particularly if the consumer has Amazon Prime, which offers free, two-day shipping on many goods. This might lead most consumers to assume that Amazon customer service is superior to any and all alternatives. However, like all large companies, Amazon has had issues arises with its customer experience.

Overall, Amazon has earned very positive reviews in terms of its customer relationships, but there is always room for improvement and Amazon strives to set a higher and higher bar for itself, not merely surpass its competitors. In fact, according to Coleman (2018), Amazon calls itself the most customer-centric company on earth. This sets a very high level of expectations for consumers.

What Amazon Is Doing Right According to CEO Jeff Bezos, he still reads customer complaints, to gain a sense of what the company is doing wrong and what it can do better (Clifford 2018). According to Bezos: “Their expectations are never static — they go up. It's human nature. We didn't ascend from our hunter-gatherer days by being satisfied. People have a voracious appetite for a better way, and yesterday's 'wow' quickly becomes today's 'ordinary'” (Clifford, 2018, par.13).

Bezos says that he takes both metrics and anecdotal evidence under consideration when constructing company policy, to ensure that there is an alignment between processes and growing customer expectations. One example of what Amazon is doing right is its willingness to take responsibility even for mistakes which are not necessarily its fault.

For example, when a PlayStation needed for a customer’s Christmas was stolen off of the porch of the customer’s home, technically this was the responsibility of UPS, not Amazon, given the shipping company had left it in a vulnerable place. Amazon sent a new toy for free of charge so the family would not be bereft at Christmas. The free publicity, Bezos noted, that Amazon received from the incident more than paid for the product (Mello, 2018).

In previous eras, customers would simply tell a few friends if they had a positive or negative experience with a company. Today, customers can post reviews read by thousands of people online. Not only do consumers post reviews on Amazon; they also go to social media on Twitter and other public arenas that can be read by thousands of people.

In another small but significant encounter with a consumer, when Amazon learned that the customer had incorrectly purchased AA batteries from Amazon, they offered to send the customer the needed AAA batteries at no costs, because the cost of shipping it back it would take to process the return would outweigh the value of reselling the returned merchandise (Coleman, 2018). On a psychological level, Amazon has also overcome many customers’ resistance to paying for shipping and handling costs.

Of course, paying for Amazon Prime and allowing one-click shipping is a service customers are paying for; but by charging them a monthly fee on their credit cards that they come to take for granted, the shipping feels “free” and thus generates positive feelings about the company and shopping at Amazon. The use of Prime shipping is itself an incentive to order from Amazon, given the desire of the consumer to maximize the value of the service.

Problems with Amazon Customers use Amazon as a source of information for reviews. However, there has been a great deal of controversy about the veracity of its user-generated content. There are concerns about fake customers being paid for reviews and reviews of friends and family members being used to “pad” the five-star reviews of products on Amazon, although Amazon does try to filter its reviews.

Unethically given reviews are a major concern, given the multitude of products on Amazon which are difficult to police and the variety of sellers from all over the world who may have flexible ethics. Amazon could make it more difficult to review products; for example, preventing people from reviewing products they have not purchased or could not have purchased (such as products which have not been released yet).

At minimum, it could indicate if “there is a firm purchase history, or by implementing a user review ratings system” like Yelp (Charlton, 2008, par.11). Given that trust in reviews is such an important component of the attractions of Amazon, policing its review system to provide better customer service and allow customers to filter information to make better quality purchases is important. Amazon could also include more reviews of sellers and vendors as well as products themselves.

At present, it does offer a star-system on some vendors of used items, such as booksellers, but expanding this to all sellers would encourage vendors to provide better service to customers when dealing directly with the customer and when Amazon is not involved. Although Amazon strives to make good on its promises, and even steps in to make up for the inadequacies of third parties, allowing ratings of sellers and companies.