Kindle Customer Service

Other than the fact that they didn't solve the problem, that was a pretty helpful customer service experience.

First my problem: I bought Among the Mad (A Maisie Dobbs mystery) by Jacqueline Winspear on my Kindle. I read and enjoyed it. I then removed it from the Kindle. It should have still been listed with all the other books on the "Manage My Kindle" page at Amazon and I should have been able to find it under "Archives" on my Kindle. It did not show at either place. So I wrote them an email and after about 24 hours of not hearing anything I decided to call.

The initial calling experience was really cool. I was on-line, logged in, and clicked the "contact us" button. They said if I wanted them to call me right now I should click the "call me" button. I did, AND MY PHONE RANG, like immediately. When I answered I heard a recording asking me to wait for someone to talk to me, but a nice young man picked up in less than a minute. So I explained my problem. Now of course he thought that I was probably confused about how to use the manage page, but first he confirmed that I had bought it and then he sent it my Kindle. Then he went and checked on the other part of the problem.

Bemused (I've been wanting to use that word for a while), he said, "I can confirm that you bought Among the Mad. I can see it on our list of your orders, but I can see that it is not on your list."

"So you can see that I can't see it?"

"Yes, I can see that you can't see it" he laughed. "Um, that shouldn't happen."

"I agree."

He said that he would try to figure it out and while he did I told him about how they really needed to give us organizational folders for all our books. He said that they weren't working on that project yet, but other people had suggested it and he would pass my request along. I said that was good because if they wanted me to buy lots and lots of books the least they could do was let me get them organized.

He then very kindly said he needed to put me on hold (you know, so I would stop talking to him and he could figure it out). Then he came back and said that he needed to send me to the second level people who might be able to figure this out.

The second-level guy was less fun. He said, "I understand you are having trouble with one of your Kindle purchases?" I explained. He offered to send it to my Kindle. I said the last guy did that, now I was hoping he could fix the next part. He said he needed to put me on hold while he checked it out.

He came back and said, sounding mystified, "Well, it is on our list of orders. I can definitely see that you bought it, but for some reason it isn't showing up on your Manage My Kindle page."

I said, "uh huh."

He assured me that they absolutely knew that I had bought it. I didn't have to worry about it. Their records were clear. Then he said he was going to put me on hold so he could check some data bases.

Finally he came back and said, "I want to assure you that it is clear that you bought the book and if you need it put on your Kindle again you can call us anytime and we can put it right back on for you. I am going to have to write up a ticket on this problem and I will expedite it. The team will get working on it right away."

So we said nice things to each other, and hung up. I find this to be a pretty worrying problem, I mean, how many books might I buy that disappear? On the other hand the customer service people were trying to be helpful and I get that they can't fix major problems with the site's software, or whatever.

Okay...now I have to tell you about the next part.

When I clicked the button saying I wanted to call them I got a little pop up window on my computer. Throughout the call it warned me not to shut the window because doing so would hang up the call. (Odd, but that is what it said). Once the customer service guy and I hung up it said something like, "We hoped we were able to resolve your issue. Your feedback is important to us. If we resolved your issue, please click here. If not, please click here."

So I clicked the second link, said that the customer service people had been really nice and that I hoped the issue would be resolved soon.

Two hours later I got an email saying,

"Hello,

Thanks for writing about your Amazon Kindle customer service experience.

Strong customer feedback like yours helps us continue to improve the service we provide, and we're glad you took time to write to us. I'll send your comments to the Kindle team.

Thanks for your interest in Amazon Kindle.

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

If yes, click here:

If no, click here:"

I clicked the second link wrote, "Cool. Is this an infinite feedback loop where I tell you that my problem is not solved and then you thank me for giving me feedback and ask if thanking me for feedback solved my problem?"

I haven't got anything back from that one yet.

And Among the Mad still does not appear in my on-line library.