Dylan Hunter

Just wanted to relay a superb story about a job very well done by Amazon. A couple of weeks ago, in an attempt to let me get more of my thoughts out,* poked around a bit, saw some great reviews on the most recent version of Dragon’s /ScanSoft’s / Nuance’s Naturally Speaking, and, after seeing the Preferred version on Amazon for $120 after rebate, (really wanted the Pro version, but come on, $600+ - did they hire somebody from MS to do their pricing?) plopped down the credit card and *phoosh*, 5 days later had my hands on a bright new copy of Dragon. Installed,** and was off to the races.

Inside the box was the rebate form, which said that this wasn’t a periodic rebate to try to push product toward the end of the year / in prep for the next version launching next summer, as I thought, but was really just an upgrade rebate, so applicable to, at most, maybe 1 in 10 of the folks who might see. Short version, after complaining to Amazon about how misleading I thought this was, (and yes, it apparently is shown similarly on CompUSA and several others, so it’s not an Amazon-only thing) without an ounce of complaint, etc., their customer support rep decided to take the hit for the $50 schuyster from ScanSoft even when I hadn’t asked them to, and in so doing, cemented themselves as an excellent example of the kind of business practices we all should have, (listening to their customers, empowering their workers to make the calls, and going above and beyond what’s being asked, knowing that the long-term value of the customer relationship is worth _much_ more than a single point-in-time issue, so make it go away - they’re not all the way up there with L.L. Bean - they’d have to offer to take back any book after you’d read it for years and years, no questions asked to get there, or at least have switched the way that it’s listed on their site for everyone else, (i.e. it’s still included here as part of the standard price - but, for me, I’m very happy, and they deserve a solid “Atta Boy!”

Snippets from the text of the incredibly short (again, right on target) email exchange is below:

——————

<snip>

Thank you for writing to us at Amazon.com.

First, I would like to convey to you my sincere apologies for any inconvenience you may have experienced with your order.

I understand your concern over the rebate which is only available to a small subset of the population.

Customer satisfaction is my priority. In an effort to compensate for the rebate I have requested a refund of $50.

This refund should be issued to your credit card within the next 2 to 3 business days. We will send you another e-mail to let you know when it has been completed. You may also view refunds by
clicking the “Your Account” link at the top of our web site, then clicking “Go!” next to “open and recently shipped orders.” Completed refunds appear at the bottom of an individual order’s summary page.

In addition to our large selection, one of the benefits we’d like to offer our customers is convenience, and I realise that we have not met that standard in this case. I hope that you will give us another opportunity to prove the quality of our service to you in the future.

I hope this solution is satisfactory. Once again I apologize for such an inconvenience.

Thank you for shopping at Amazon.com.

<snip>

Best regards,

Rupal Mehta
Amazon.com Customer Service
http://www.amazon.com

<snip>
>
> COMMENTS: Just wanted to send along a note as to how disappointed I
> was by your inclusion of ScanSoft’s upgrade rebate, which is only available
> to a small subset of the population, rather than being available to all, as
> part of the mainline price displayed for this item. When I purchased this
> product, I was expecting to eventually pay $120 for it, which is probably
> the most this was worth to me.
>
> From a legal perspective, I’m sure you guys are more than covered, but
> from a customer loyalty perspective, I think it misleading to include these
> kind of heavily restricted rebates as part of what you suggest is the true
> cost of the item, (is the equivalent of listing the MS Office full edition
> for the price of the upgrade one - it’s just not the same).
>
> In the past, I have had nothing but good things to say about my
> experiences with you guys, and not going to make a huge issue about this
> one, (i.e. I’m just going to suck it up as having been beaten out of $50)
> but wanted to let you know that by including this rebate in the
> regularly-suggested price, I’m afraid this feeling of having been
> schystered out of $50 I just wasn’t planning on having to spend really
> leaves a bad taste in my mouth in doing business with you, (and I’m sure
> I’m not alone in this of the people who purchased this) and next time, I’m
> going to have to think twice as to how comfortable I’m going to be in
> purchasing from you, (and yes, I could certainly do while reading the
> legalisms of this, that and the other, but you know what, I just want to
> buy something from someone that I feel comfortable isn’t going to make me
> waste my time jerking around with legalisms - there is a strong value to me
> of buying from folks who do “what’s right,” not just “what’s legal.”
> Thanks, Dylan

<snip>

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* Am sure I’m not alone in losing _so_ much that I once knew / experienced, for the simple reason that, quite frankly, typing is a pain in the butt and inefficient - talking is _much_ better, but can’t afford to have a perma-secretary transcribing my every thought!

** And to hopefully save others even the $120, honestly, even after several hours of reading training docs, it still only works sufficiently to be a curiousity, not as a real interface - come on, Folks, I know voice recognition is hard, but for even recognition of a single individual to be as hit-and-miss as this is after all that time blathering Dilbert and 3001: The Final Odyssey, (or whatever) there’s _no way_ that “Beta” shouldn’t be stamped all over that thing, (I don’t care if it’s Version 8, it’s just not good enough to call itself a finished product). Also, as relates specifically to this issue, I know there are some ridiculous shelving fees being charged at the SKU level by retailers, but sorry, an Upgrade-only price, (which is really what this turned out to be) is a different product, different SKU, not a rebate!