Regular readers will know I'm not keen on Amazon, for all the usual reasons. A minor reason to dislike them is - from a publisher's point of view - the firm's unwillingness to allow you to communicate directly with a human being. There is no phone number. There is no account executive. No staff list. All you can do is send an email on a form, choosing between a range of subject headings which often do not describe your problem. If you are lucky, someone will deal with the matter promptly. If you are unlucky, you end up in robot hell where - it appears - your email is scanned for a key word or two and you receive a standard email which does not answer your question. Email again, you get the same response.
For half a year Amazon kept asking us for permission to return some damaged books, saying that if we did not reply they would simply send the books. We did not reply, so next month they sent an email asking for permission to return some damaged books, saying that if we did not reply they would simply send the books. We did not reply, so... you get the message. For another half year we got emails threatening to suspend our account if we did not fill in a CARP form, though we could never find out what this CARP form was. Eventually a human did reply to tell us to just ignore those emails because CARP (easy to rearrange those letters, don't you think?) refers to firms delivering container loads at their depots.
Recently, in response to a query on our behalf about the Amazon Daily Deal a robotic reply came, telling us nothing we wanted to know but answering a different question robotically. A follow-up email got the reply "We'll be sure to consider your interest for this feature as we plan further improvements. I"m sorry we haven't been able to address your concerns to your satisfaction. We will not be able to offer any additional insight or action on these matters."
For half a year Amazon kept asking us for permission to return some damaged books, saying that if we did not reply they would simply send the books. We did not reply, so next month they sent an email asking for permission to return some damaged books, saying that if we did not reply they would simply send the books. We did not reply, so... you get the message. For another half year we got emails threatening to suspend our account if we did not fill in a CARP form, though we could never find out what this CARP form was. Eventually a human did reply to tell us to just ignore those emails because CARP (easy to rearrange those letters, don't you think?) refers to firms delivering container loads at their depots.
Recently, in response to a query on our behalf about the Amazon Daily Deal a robotic reply came, telling us nothing we wanted to know but answering a different question robotically. A follow-up email got the reply "We'll be sure to consider your interest for this feature as we plan further improvements. I"m sorry we haven't been able to address your concerns to your satisfaction. We will not be able to offer any additional insight or action on these matters."
