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Originally Posted by HansTWN
There is more to great service than just a "face-to-face" experience. Amazon makes it easy to evaluate and research products,
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It's rare there's more info available than what's on the package, in my experience. You can read samples of many books, yeah, but in a book store you can read a lot more of it. On electronics goods, more often than not, I have to go to Google to find the technical specs I need. Mind you, for what they do, a web based mail order outfit, they do it well, but they're inherently limited by the format.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
they make it easy to return the items, even ebooks can be returned.
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It's eaiser - and certainly faster - to do so in a brick & mortar store. Again, there are inherent limitations because of the mail order format.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
They offer and stock almost everything.
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So does Walmart.
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Originally Posted by HansTWN
They follow up questions by e-mail quickly, quite often they even replace Kindles with broken screens -- though they wouldn't really have to do that. Their automated system can, to some extent, replace a salesperson.
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Only if you want to do something they anticipated. When you step outside what they expect, they have a reputation of being hard to get to a real person who can actually fix the problem. Again, an inherent limitation to the mail order format.
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Originally Posted by HansTWN
After I have looked at an item and didn't buy it they send follow-up mails if that item has been replaced by a newer version or reduced in price.
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They have, fortunately, stopped spamming, and resetting preferences to turn spamming back on, like they did in their early days.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
They also suggest competitive products. Now this is all automated, but I think it is good service.
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I find a recommendation from a live salesman to be far, far, infinitely more useful than a statistical analysis from a computer.