Frozen Kindle Screen
Half the screen on my wife’s Kindle froze in the screensaver mode.
It didn’t affect her ability to read it – as long as the book was no longer than 5 lines long.
Or perhaps, if she’d seen the film, she could piece together what should have happened in the missing bits.
In other words, it became useless.
“Can you fix it, David?”
“Hmm… let’s have a look.”
A Google search suggested all sorts of things.
But reboots, resets, and releasing-from-a-great-height made no difference (only kidding about the last bit, but we felt like doing it).
So desperate were we to find a way to fix it that I even went to page 2 of the Google results!
Can Amazon Fix The Kindle Screen?
As a last resort, I decided to contact Amazon.
And I was impressed with what happened.
On the Amazon website, there’s a process of narrowing down the problem. But if your issue isn’t resolved with that process, a box appears in which to enter your phone number so that a technical person can call you.
A few seconds after submitting my phone number, the telephone rang and the warm Irish dulcet tones of the Amazon representative put me at ease.
“How can I help you?”
I explained the problem.
“Ooh, it sounds like a faulty screen…
Yup, I know that.
“It’s way out of warranty though…
I know that too.
“But we want to help you…
That’s nice.
“So we’ll credit your account with £20…
That’s even nicer. In fact, that’s unexpected, and very generous.
He continued…
“But you don’t have to spend it on a Kindle if you don’t want. You can use it for anything you like.”
I found it hard to believe what I was hearing.
Talk about great customer service.
I couldn’t wait to tell everyone about it!
But did we buy another Kindle?
And did we buy it from Amazon?
We certainly did, on both counts – simply because we wanted to!
So why have I told you this story about our Kindle?
Well…
If you’d like your customers to want to buy from you.
And if you’d like them to tell their friends how fantastic you are (and maybe even write a blog post about you so that readers worldwide will hear about their great experience).
And if you’re looking for a way to keep your customers loyal.
Try Amazon’s method.
Go OTT. Shock them with an unexpected result.
It cost Amazon twenty pounds.
But they got the sale. They made a customer very happy. And that customer is now telling you about the experience.
Money worth spending?
All I know is it worked for Amazon and this particular customer.
You’ll have to work it out for your own business.
Have you had a similar experience of unexpectedly amazing customer service? Pop it into the comments box below and let’s collect some great ideas for treating customers fantastically well.
Hi David – I had a similar experience with Microsoft earlier in the year, due to an error of my own – I had put credit onto my Son’s Xbox account to subscribe to Live for another year (bday pressie) but found out after I’d transferred the money that it couldn’t be used to pay for the Live service (only to purchase games etc.) and it was non-refundable – when I sp to customer service, they very kindly offered to give my son the Live subscription for the year (approx £40) as a goodwill gesture, which meant he still had £40 of credit on his account (much to his delight!!) – I was really impressed and pleased at how they handled what was an error on my part and it left me feeling, as a customer, quite special. Just goes to show how even the smallest of gestures from a company can go a long way to securing your customers loyalty!
Thanks for sharing your experience, Paula. Well done Microsoft. Indeed it’s gestures like that which make us feel special and appreciated.
Bottom corner of mine broke but I’d purchased mine from a well known supermarket and sadly was 2 months over the guarantee contacted amazon and they replaced it free of charge totally impressed with them they didn’t have to as it was a 3rd party seller but nope they replaced it