Source: AMZN Letter to shareholders
Published: April 2013

Automation to Put the Customer First

Circulated: April 2, 2020

We build automated systems that look for occasions when we’ve provided a customer experience that isn’t up to our standards, and those systems then proactively refund customers.

One industry observer recently received an automated email from us that said: “We noticed that you experienced poor video playback while watching the following rental on Amazon Video On Demand: Casablanca. We’re sorry for the inconvenience and have issued you a refund for the following amount: $2.99. We hope to see you again soon.”

Surprised by the proactive refund, he ended up writing about the experience: “Amazon noticed that I experienced poor video playback, and they decided to give me a refund because of that? Wow… Talk about putting customers first.”

- Jeff Bezos