The subject matter for this post is a little out of the norm for the blog, but having good customer service is certainly a cornerstone to running and maintaining a successful business. So as marketers, if you’re focusing on driving traffic to your business, you’d better be sure your house is on order on all sides. Customer service being at, or near, the top of that list.

What brought this up was the experience I had with Amazon recently when trying to return an item. Which you’d think would be a no brainer, except I seemed to have stumbled upon their Achilles’ heel because what I needed to return was larger than a hardcover edition of Lee Child’s latest thriller.

It’s actually a hybrid trainer; meaning it’s half elliptical and half recumbent bike and truth be told, I’d love to be able to use it and didn’t really want to return it. However after running into some issues with key pieces of the equipment not coming together as they are supposed to and receiving ZERO help from Proform customer service, I decided to join a gym and return it. (Extinguishing my dream is home workouts and multitasking during weekend TV binge-watching.)

Welcome To The Jungle

What happened next is hard to describe concisely, but I’ve tried to whittle it down to the main plot points of the story, which began with a simple “chat” session between myself and customer service. On this chat I explained the issues with the equipment, the lack of support from Proform and that I was ready to give up and just return the darn thing. The person on the other end was sympathetic and said they would begin the return process, all I needed to do was take apart the equipment and pack it up, they would provide a prepaid UPS label and schedule the pick-up.

All of that sounded simple enough, until reality set in and I realized a couple things: #1 The original box and packaging had been recycled and was gone. But more importantly, the box had been the size of small refrigerator. Where in the world was I going to find something that size to hold everything? #2 This thing is the size of a smart car and extremely heavy. When it first arrived I had to open the box where it had been left and take it in piece by piece. So how exactly was this repackaging going to happen… in my front yard? That’s classy.

I reached out to Amazon again, explained my story for the 2nd time and included the aforementioned details that had occurred to me after the initial call. This new person said Amazon has a “large item returns” department and he would pass along my information to them – and since it was the weekend so he said they would call me on Monday.

Well no one ever called, however someone did schedule a pick-up with UPS and they came to my house twice trying to collect the equipment. I had to call UPS, apologize for the miscommunication and cancel the pick-up. (Frustration was beginning to build.)

The following Tuesday, I called Amazon and explained for the 3rd time what was going on. This person was less sympathetic, told me my item did NOT qualify as a large item return (read: baffling) and brought back the original course of action: pack it yourself and we’ll give you a label. (Frustration is now rising from defcon level 5 or 4.)

It was clear I wasn’t going to get anywhere with this person so I asked to speak to a manager, she got on the phone and recanted my story for the 4th time. Her solution was even better than any I had heard so far… she wanted to know if I could just take the equipment to UPS and have them pack it up? Yes, you read that right. In the stunned silence that followed, I fought back the urge to tell her how completely asinine that idea was and to ask if she knew the difference between returning a mixing bowl and returning an elliptical machine? I finally responded and said that was not a viable option and wanted to get back why the mysterious black-ops large item return team couldn’t help me?

But you could tell we were getting close to passing her level of influence, so she told me she’d reach out to them and call me back. A few hours later she did call back (twice actually) but unfortunately I was not in a place to take calls and planned to get back to her shortly. However when I checked the two messages she left on voicemail, neither one included a call back number. Neither one. She did say in the messages that the large item team had agreed to help and that I needed to call them back to set it up. Which would have been fine and dandy if I’d had a phone number to reach them. (Defcon level 4 moving to level 3.)

Following these completely useless voicemails, I emailed Amazon and told the whole story for the 5th time. What I got in response was unbelievable.

The person who emailed managed to simultaneously apologize while also rescinding the offer of large item team helping. He then trotted out the old “pack it yourself” routine and signed off with an insulting offer to apply a $10 credit on my account for my troubles. It was at this point we completely skipped over level 2 and landed firmly at Defcon 1. Man your battle stations people.

After giving myself a chance to calm down, I called Amazon yet again. When I was connected with a customer service agent I started the conversation as follows, “I just want to put this disclaimer out on the table; I realize what’s been going on is not your fault and I am certainly not blaming you. But I want you to know that I am beyond frustrated by what’s happened over the last few days.” The woman thanked me for my candor and said she wanted to help.

So for the 6th and final time, I told the whole sordid story. After hearing everything I had to say, reviewing the notes on my account and speaking to her manager she responded with this, “Well I have good news and bad news. The bad news is I can’t help you return the item, but the good news is we’re going to issue a full refund.”

Wow. I didn’t see coming.

And while I’m extremely relieved the situation has been resolved and grateful they were willing to “make it right”, it leads to the bigger issue I’d like to address. Why did it take 6 different encounters to find someone competent who could actually help? Although I think everyone can agree this situation is not limited to Amazon, but applies to all companies with customer service departments; it’s all in who you talk to. But why? Don’t they all go through the same training and isn’t there testing to pass the training??

Let’s also call my situation what it really is… making it right is just the nice way of saying they paid me off. And sure, a couple hundred dollars isn’t even a blip on the radar for a company of their size. But if they keep doing that because folks are continually subjected to their gauntlet of ineptitude then surely it will start to affect them at some point.

Looking at the bigger picture; investing in better training, on-going training and spot checks (aka secret shoppers) would help shore up these gaps. In the meantime perhaps they should discontinue including, “Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company” in their email signatures, as I don’t think they’re there just yet.