Customer service is the key to many business’ success and this has proved true for Amazon.com. One of Amazon’s Leadership Principles is Customer Obsession; according to their website, “Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers” (Leadership Principles, 2014). As a matter of fact, according to Forbes magazine (2014), Amazon was the top rated company for Customer Service by Wall Street’s Tempken Consulting Group. For example, the Huffington Post did an article on a recent correspondence between a customer and Amazon’s customer service that went viral (Thomas, 2014).
During a recent interview with a former customer service representative, it was discovered that much of the success of Amazon’s customer service is due to its emphasis on team leadership and cohesive team members (Wolfrom, 2014). Customer service call centers are distinct from Amazon’s fulfillment centers as far as organizational structure. Each call center has a Site Leader, which oversees the center and maintains service levels. Subordinate to the Site Leader are Operation Managers who lead and develop a team of associates and managers, creating a high-performing team through a people-centric leadership culture (Amazon.com, 2014). According to the interviewed customer service associate (Wolfrom, 2014), Operations Managers also work together to ensure that their teams are working towards the same goal. Managers subordinate to Operations Managers lead a team of associates, ensuring high performance and delivery of excellent customer service; they are supported by Team Leaders who take direct responsibility for the day to day running of Customer Service teams. The Team Lead provides guidance and leadership to operations team through coaching and support (Amazon.com, 2014).Finally there are the Customer Service Associates who according to Amazon, are the heart of the organization, and directly handle interactions between customers and the company.
When real-life successful teams were studied, they were found to have eight characteristics that were associated with team excellence (Northouse, 2013). Amazon’s customer service department meets all of these characteristics
As can be seen, the studies have proven correct for Amazon as well.
References
Amazon.com. (2014). The face of Amazon’s Customer Service. Retrieved from Amazon.com Jobs: http://www.amazon.jobs/team/operations-customer-service
Leadership Principles. (2014). Retrieved from Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Values-Careers-Homepage/b/ref=smi_www_rcolv2_go_smi?_encoding=UTF8&node=239365011
Northouse, P. G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Soper, T. (2012, December 13). Here’s what employees love and hate about working at Amazon, Microsoft. Retrieved from GeekWire: http://www.geekwire.com/2012/employees-love-hate-working-amazon-microsoft/
Thomas, E. (2014, August 28). The Best Customer Service Reps Are The Ones Who Pretend To Be Thor. Retrieved from Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/28/amazon-thor-customer-conversation_n_5725706.html
Wolfrom, C. M. (2014, October 23). Customer Service, Amazon.com. (A. M. Bruce, Interviewer)
Jay says
I have always had excellent experiences with their customer service as well. These anecdotes were amazing by the way, I never expected the “Thor” conversation to get quite so involved, or for the customer service rep to stay in character for so long! This really shows them going the extra mile to satisfy the customer’s needs. I once read a book about leadership from the office library (I wish I could remember the title!) that talked all about approaching customer service from the perspective of large companies like Amazon and Apple, and how their strategy and approach differ from other companies. From what I remember, the focus was always on valuing the employees highly and providing them with a large degree of freedom in the workplace, so that they would feel most invested in the work they were doing, and in turn offer customers better outcomes based on their positive attitudes towards their work. Based on your post, it sounds like their organizational structure is more rigid than I expected from these readings, but it seems to be working excellently for them, and they are always recognized as one of the top companies for customer service in the world. Thanks for writing about this, I hope to work for them myself someday!