Amazon gets outdone by... Comcast?!?
Apr. 15th, 2009 06:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prusikI've read Amazon's reaction to the events of this weekend. On one hand, I'm happy to know that it's unintentional. On the other hand, in trying to deny that what happened looked (accidentally) homophobic, they actually look more so, not less. Yes, they did this in an vain attempt not to look homophobic at all. Well, that ship has sailed. It's unfortunate, but when you classify books about homosexuality as "adult" regardless of content, you're going to look homophobic even if you hadn't intended to classify those books that way.
The best they can do (It's not too late!) is apologize for the unintended slur, reinforce (or create) their policy of support for free speech and civil rights, and explain what they are doing to prevent this from happening again. Of course, by "apologize", I mean "express understanding of how they have unintentionally distressed a segment of their customer base." It is not necessary to use the words "sorry", "apology", or express actual sincere regret. Doing any of those is worth bonus points though.
In synchronous contrast, I just got an email this morning from Comcast apologizing for an email service outage on April 4th. They actually used the word "apology." They explained what happened, pointed me at a blog entry with more details and what they are currently doing to prevent future outages. Furthermore, they showed they know that email going down is more than just a slight inconvenience and pledged to do better.
Ok, they don't really go into details about how they'll fix things. It's the usual "we're going over everything with a fine-toothed comb" boilerplate. That's totally acceptable. Amazon, no one is saying you have to have the exact answer right now. We just need to know that you're going to do something more than revert back to the status quo and hope it doesn't happen again.
What Amazon said is equivalent to if Comcast had asserted that there hadn't really been a service disruption because not all of their email servers went down. Yes, Comcast pointed out that it didn't affect everybody, their network stayed up, and they didn't lose any email. That's not what they led with though. They led with an explicit apology then called what happened "a significant disruption of our email service."
I totally get that it's easier to apologize for email going down than for accidentally making yourself look like a homophobe. But if they don't do this in clear, explicit terms it will look intentional. This is not the impression they want to give. Right now, I'm a bit stunned that they appear to have been outdone by Comcast, not exactly known for being customer friendly themselves.
Since it took Comcast 11 days, I should really stem my disappointment at Amazon until the 22nd. I do wish Amazon would make a forthright statement. It'd make it easier to decide whether I want to continue shopping there. (Yes, I read the blogs. Amazon's current statement is obviously sufficient for a bunch of people. I still don't see why this won't happen again though, and do I really want to support a company where, at a random whim, they can derank books?)
Note: I think a boycott is kind of silly. What I am doing is I am weighing experiences I've had among competitors then choose the one that I currently like best. e.g., even before this weekend, I some times bought from iTMS even when the Amazon MP3 store was cheaper for a given album. Other people may take the same experiences into account and draw different conclusions. Reasonable people may differ after all. A boycott is when I decide where you should or shouldn't shop.
The best they can do (It's not too late!) is apologize for the unintended slur, reinforce (or create) their policy of support for free speech and civil rights, and explain what they are doing to prevent this from happening again. Of course, by "apologize", I mean "express understanding of how they have unintentionally distressed a segment of their customer base." It is not necessary to use the words "sorry", "apology", or express actual sincere regret. Doing any of those is worth bonus points though.
In synchronous contrast, I just got an email this morning from Comcast apologizing for an email service outage on April 4th. They actually used the word "apology." They explained what happened, pointed me at a blog entry with more details and what they are currently doing to prevent future outages. Furthermore, they showed they know that email going down is more than just a slight inconvenience and pledged to do better.
Ok, they don't really go into details about how they'll fix things. It's the usual "we're going over everything with a fine-toothed comb" boilerplate. That's totally acceptable. Amazon, no one is saying you have to have the exact answer right now. We just need to know that you're going to do something more than revert back to the status quo and hope it doesn't happen again.
What Amazon said is equivalent to if Comcast had asserted that there hadn't really been a service disruption because not all of their email servers went down. Yes, Comcast pointed out that it didn't affect everybody, their network stayed up, and they didn't lose any email. That's not what they led with though. They led with an explicit apology then called what happened "a significant disruption of our email service."
I totally get that it's easier to apologize for email going down than for accidentally making yourself look like a homophobe. But if they don't do this in clear, explicit terms it will look intentional. This is not the impression they want to give. Right now, I'm a bit stunned that they appear to have been outdone by Comcast, not exactly known for being customer friendly themselves.
Since it took Comcast 11 days, I should really stem my disappointment at Amazon until the 22nd. I do wish Amazon would make a forthright statement. It'd make it easier to decide whether I want to continue shopping there. (Yes, I read the blogs. Amazon's current statement is obviously sufficient for a bunch of people. I still don't see why this won't happen again though, and do I really want to support a company where, at a random whim, they can derank books?)
Note: I think a boycott is kind of silly. What I am doing is I am weighing experiences I've had among competitors then choose the one that I currently like best. e.g., even before this weekend, I some times bought from iTMS even when the Amazon MP3 store was cheaper for a given album. Other people may take the same experiences into account and draw different conclusions. Reasonable people may differ after all. A boycott is when I decide where you should or shouldn't shop.
