Recently, I wrote on VoIP Tech Chat about a SIP Attack one of my servers received from Amazon’s Cloud service. First, Don’t Panic. This is not about anything Tech/Geek/Nerd related. It’s all good…
Let me quickly sum up the incident for the non-geeks (like my wife) who may be reading. Amazon sells everything. In your shopping cart you can buy a robot, a book, a DVD, and almost anything else you can think of. You can also buy Internet service for your business. This “cloud” service is called EC2, and it’s a little technical; so I’ll just say… you can place some of your business computing needs with Amazon.
Last week, some servers in the Amazon cloud decided they would attack servers throughout the world. Many people noticed the attack and complained, including yours truly. I notified Amazon that they had a server attacking me and their response, in a word, sucked. I detailed the response on VoIP Tech Chat, but to keep it simple, let me say that Amazon first suggested that I should talk to the person attacking me and make sure it’s not legitimate. This is the equivalent to being robbed, calling 911, and having the police tell you to first talk with the person currently robbing you to make sure it’s not a legitimate exchange of money.
Anyway, long story short… Their response was bad.
Last week I found myself needing something that I would normally buy on Amazon.com, and I just couldn’t bring myself to patronizing Amazon — and I soon discovered that not using Amazon will save me money.
I wanted to buy Yeni another cookbook (man her cakes are just amazing) as well as another SQL book for myself (either for programming or protection from Spiders). I did a quick Google product search and discovered that places I normally shop (such as overstock.com) had the same books for less money than Amazon. And then I discovered Alibris.
Alibris, an online bookstore, sells books, textbooks, movies, and music. I went through the last 10 books I bought from Amazon, and Alibris (and Overstock) had all of them in stock for a better price.
I’ve talked customer service before, and as a small business owner, I know the importance of customer service towards building customer loyalty. The lesson imprinted on me from this incident shows that Amazon has simply lost touch with the importance of Customer Service. Once, they were amazing. Maybe they’ve gotten too big. Maybe they’re not hungry anymore. But, for whatever the reason, Amazon’s attention towards Customer Service has lost it’s focus.
But that’s ok.
Turns out, I can get better service and save money by shopping elsewhere.