One of the things that I hate most in this world is going to a mall. It doesn’t matter if it is a big or small, good or bad, great deals or not; if it is a mall, I would rather have my teeth pulled out with a pliers than go to one. So because of my hatred for malls, online shopping has been my haven for holiday shopping for many years. I am usually already done my shopping by this time of this year, but I have run into a couple of problems finding the right gifts for a couple of people. I have spent the better part of today scouring the internet looking for good gifts to wrap up my holiday shopping for this year.

One of the sites I use most when it comes to both holiday shopping as well as shopping for myself is Amazon. I have been a regular shopper on Amazon for many years. I have found their web site to have excellent navigation, good look and feel, plenty to choose from and I love the customer reviews. I am such a fan of them that I joined their Amazon Prime service I think two years ago where I pay them $40 or $50 bucks a year and I get free second day shipping for anything that Amazon sells.

So today as I was browsing around Amazon, I ran into a little issue with the site that I thought would make my shopping experience even better. When I did a search, let’s say for a digital camera, I wanted to have the results come based on which products are part of Amazon Prime first, so I do not have to see a bunch of products that I will have to pay more for shipping. After trying many different things, I came to the realization that Amazon does not have this feature so I wanted to send them feedback to see if they could add it.

Here is where things got interesting. I surfed around their site for almost a half an hour looking for somewhere, anywhere that I could provide this feedback. I checked the help section. I went into my account. I looked everywhere and there was no-where that at least I could find that offered an online form or a mailto that I could send them this feedback.

This really caught me by surprise to be honest. Why would Amazon not want to hear from me? I understand they do not want some place where people can send in complaints, etc., but you see all over the web, web sites offering links for site feedback. Especially, if you are a paying customer, like myself and one who has been for many years. Why would Amazon make it so hard for me to provide what at least I consider to be valuable feedback?

I think this is one of the major issues that is going to determine the success or failure of many companies in the future. Companies need to start realizing that they cannot assume what their customers want anymore and they need to hear it right from the horses mouth, their customers or clients. More importantly, even if a company’s assumptions are correct, it still will not be enough. Customers want, no demand, to feel empowered when it comes to where they spend their hard earned money and time. There is so much competition and variety to choose from, we as consumers have enormous choices of who to buy from and when. Companies like Amazon and many others need to realize that they need to take the relationships they have with their customers to the next level. I know I want to feel that a business is going the extra mile for me. If not, I will choose to take my business elsewhere. Bottom line is customers need to be shown that they are valued and the simpliest and easiest way to do that is by listening to what we have to say. During my career, I have gotten better ideas and feedback from my clients’ customers far more often than I do from my clients’ themselves. I am going to go into more detail on how to listen to your customers in a future post.

If you happen to know anyone who works for Amazon, please send them a link to this story, I would love to hear feedback from Amazon to see what their thoughts are on this.

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