Amazon.Com, The Best Customer Service on the Planet?

I have always used amazon.com to buy books, DVDs, and music but also recently became an Amazon Prime member. I soon discovered I could get a lot of the other things I typically would buy at Wal-Mart or Target even cheaper here and have it delivered to my door in 2 days for free. What could be better than that?

I started to buy items like diaper genie refills, water filters, tools, grocery items, even car parts here and got some great deals. But I think the biggest surprise of all has been their over the top excellent customer service. This is even more surprising in today's world where customer service is practically nonexistent. If I have a problem with an order which is rare they will bend over backwards just to make it right, even if it means they lose money. All without having to wait on hold for an eternity like most merchants customer service.

Here are just a couple of examples I want to share with you. I had an item I sent as a gift to a friend that was stolen from his front porch before he arrived home from a trip. I contacted Amazon customer service via their chat option expecting the usual run around; ending with the sorry you're out of luck excuse. Instead within a couple of minutes the representative had placed a replacement order at no charge and had it express shipped to my friend who received it the next day! Another recent example I bought three bark collars that used a citronella compressed air spray to deter dogs from barking. The item didn't work for my dogs at all and upon explaining this to the Amazon rep they told me that due to shipping regulations the collars could not be returned once the compressed canisters were activated. Once again I prepared to be out of luck but instead the rep offered a full refund without even returning the collars. I was stunned! And to the credit of Amazon at that moment they turned an already loyal fan and customer into a lifelong customer who will sing their praises to everyone I know. This is truly a brilliant business lesson it would pay a lot of other companies to learn.

Now to make the deal even sweeter every Amazon Prime member also gets access to unlimited streaming of over 10,000 movies and TV shows, which I also take full advantage of. I plan to do all my holiday shopping on Amazon because it makes it easy to buy and have items shipped express for free to any of my friends and family. They'll even include a free gift note and for a small fee add holiday wrapping paper. I'd say Wal-Mart and Target might want to look out Amazon Prime could be their downfall, they got me anyway!