Two months ago Girish Baga, a resident of Kuvempunagar, wanted to buy a blanket. Instead of going to the local market he browsed online to see if there were any sales. He visited Amazon.com and found a blanket he liked and bought it.

A week later the blanket arrived. It was not to Girish’s liking and so he put in a call to return it. Promptly, an Amazon delivery person came and picked up the package. But a few weeks later the same blanket was delivered again.

Girish once again called the call centre and told them to take it back and refund his money.  They again, promptly came and picked up the blanket.

But when they did not credit his money even after weeks, he called the Amazon call centre numerous times to no avail. With no Amazon office to go to for a personal service, Girish gave up on his money untill…

A few days ago Girish read an article about Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon.com, being worth 100 billion dollars. Irritated that Jeff Bezos was worth 100 billion but his company could not even refund his money, Girish googled for Jeff Bezos’ contact and found his e-mail address.

He then promptly wrote to Amazon boss informing him that  his company had not returned his money in spite of repeated requests to the call centre. Girish also shared his details but didn’t expect an answer. After all, Jeff Bezos is CEO of one the biggest companies on the planet.

To Girish’s surprise, the next day he got a phone call from a number registered in Ireland. The caller on the other end after profusely apologising to Girish informed him that he had got an e-mail from Jeff Bezos with instruction to resolve his issue. He also informed Girish that the Indian resolution team had been instructed to immediately take action. Girish thanked him and kept the phone. And within hours the complete amount of the blanket was credited to Girish’s bank account.

When the top man of a company is this sensitive to customers’ grievances, that company is bound to be successful. No wonder, Jeff Bezos is worth 100 billion dollars.

We wonder if our CEOs would respond this efficiently to the grievances of their ordinary customers.

Dear Girish,

I’m Shakeeb of Amazon.in’s Executive Customer Relations team. Jeff Bezos received your email, and I’m responding on his behalf.

I’m sorry to learn about the experience you’ve had with your order

# 406-3952798-3205118. As discussed, I’ve initiated a full refund of Rs.1434.51 to your bank account.

Once again, I’m sorry that your order experience hasn’t been as positive as anticipated. I hope you’ll consider this as an isolated incident and give us another chance to serve you again in the future.