John DiJulius | Customer Experience Blog

To be the most Customer-centric company in the world - I love Amazon.com both as a consultant and Customer of
world-class service! They are one of the top 10 Customer service companies in the world. Jeffrey Bezos, Amazon’s founder and CEO, is fanatical about the Customer experience. In an excerpt from my book, What’s the Secret? he explained his “obsession” with Customers: “I’m so obsessed with the drivers of the Customer experience, I believe that the success we have had over the past 12 years has been driven exclusively by that Customer experience. We are not great advertisers. So we start with Customers, figure out what they want, and figure out how to get it to them.” Amazon has really had only one stated goal since it began — To be the most Customer-centric company in the world.

Anticipatory Service - Here is just another example of how Amazon.com is so amazing at world-class service: Recently one of The DiJulius Group’s team members, Nicole, received an email from Amazon:  

Dear Nicole, We thought you’d like to know that eligible songs from “New Wave” by Against Me, a CD you purchased in 2007, are being added to your Cloud Player library. This means that high-quality MP3 versions of these songs are available for you to play or download from Cloud Player for FREE. You can find your songs in the “Purchased” playlist. In addition, we’re excited to announce AutoRip. Now when you buy any CD with the logo, the MP3 version of that album will instantly be delivered to your Amazon Cloud Player library for FREE 

Experience Epiphany - Who does this? Most businesses would see this as an opportunity to upsell you, but instead, Amazon is providing their Customers with the free downloads of the songs from a CD purchased six years ago! 

The Answer’s Yes…Now what’s the question - This is one of my favorite Customer service mantras. “NO,” is the #1 word heard by Customers today from businesses. Recently Seth Godin wrote a great blog post titled “On behalf of Yes” (see below); 

Yes, it’s okay to ship your work. 

Yes, you’re capable of making a difference. 

Yes, it’s important. 

Yes, you can ignore that critic.

Yes, your bravery is worth it. 

Yes, we believe in you. 

Yes, you can do even better. 

Elegance without warmth is arrogance.