Comments on: Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company

By: Gabe

Gabe — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 01:43:48 +0000

You purchase from Amazon UK right? Because it has free shipping to Australia with a sufficiently large purchase. I just heard this on my last trip to Sydney.

By: Annelise

Annelise — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 12:41:10 +0000

I agree about the long list of long emails. She possibly only read (or scanned) the email up to “And I thought I’d ask why this is so”, figuring out what kind of standard response to write. That only makes the exchange more absurd, though, because it’s hard to imagine a person who would request all those books in one sitting.

By: Simon Holloway

Simon Holloway — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 00:32:55 +0000

Corrected. You are a nitpicker, Sean.

Thanks for the advice, Daniel, but I don’t think I’m that interested in taking my complaint further. In future, however, I’ll know that if I have a real problem with something, customer service may not the department to whom it should be addressed! I would make the assumption that this was an automated response, but I imagine that automated responses get written by people with a reasonable command of the language in which they are writing them. As a result, I suspect that Q. Pheevr is right, and will perhaps blame the fact that mine was another in a long list of irritating messages that “Melody G.” had to deal with.

By: Q. Pheevr

Q. Pheevr — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 19:48:53 +0000

Wow. I guess the moral of the story is that subtlety and irony will go unheeded, as will non-initial paragraphs. (Maybe even non-initial sentences?)

By: thnidu

thnidu — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 02:52:58 +0000

Eh, maybe he originally wrote it as a wiki post.

By: Sean Cohen

Sean Cohen — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 01:52:03 +0000

I generally agree, although I am inclined to consider the thought experiment where there is no editorial control at all, much like the genealogy Internet. If I may draw a technology parallel, this may be thought of as the difference between the Apple and Android app stores. Cathedral and Bazaar, as it were.

Also, not to nitpick, but you didn’t actually italicise anything here:

“They’re a delightful bunch, these “historical revisionists”, and the only reason that I italicise the term is because that’s merely what they claim to be.”

By: Daniel Lipman Lowbeer

Daniel Lipman Lowbeer — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 10:35:07 +0000

LOL! Thanks “Melody”, if that is indeed your real name. Seriously though, resend your letter as a letter (like, on paper) to the CEO, copying Chairman of the Board, Head of whatever departments are relevant, etc. I suspect you sent it as an email to customer service, which is always a mistake.