Jeff Bezos, the former CEO of Amazon, once demonstrated his commitment to delivering exceptional customer service by making an unexpected call to the company's customer service during a meeting with his team.
This incident, which Bezos himself described as "uncomfortable," left him an awkward moment.
According to the report, Bezos had noticed a discrepancy between the data the company was collecting on customer service wait times and the anecdotal feedback he was receiving from customers.
During a meeting, when one of his staff members tried to convince him that everything was running smoothly, Bezos decided to take action.
At the moment, Bezos called the Amazon customer service line in front of the entire team.
The room fell silent as they waited anxiously to see how long it would take for the call to be answered.
To the surprise and discomfort of his colleagues, the wait stretched on for a full 10 minutes before the customer service representative finally picked up.
He explained that this "stunt" was necessary to uncover the truth, even when it was uncomfortable to do so.
Bezos firmly believed that relying solely on data without considering anecdotal evidence could lead to a false sense of security and prevent the company from addressing genuine issues.
After this happened, Bezos said it led to changes in how the company collects and measures data.
Commenters imagined the discomfort of the Amazon employees who had to sit in silence as their boss proved his point and even joked about the customer service representative's reaction to receiving a call directly from the company's founder.
Maybe he couldn't understand them like the rest of us, one user said.
I work for Amazon flex and I hate having to reach out to their driver support. They have very heavy accents you can’t understand them and they’ll send you to another caller for it to be even worse. Idk I feel like they need to see who they’re hiring for customer/driver support. They can’t just let an AI decide if it’s a good fit or not, a former Amazon worker said.
It’s amazing that he was able to find a number for customer service- good for him, the third user said.
which direction do you suppose hes looking, another user joked.
All CEOs, COOs, presidents should have to spend one day a month on the "ground floor" at a different one of their facilities. Let's start with Walmart, someone suggested.
Good for him, liked to been in that room watching the customer service manager, another wrote.
