Regarding the recent AmazonFail fiasco (see here and here if you’ve been under a rock for the past week, or haven’t succumbed to Twitter) I emailed Amzon via my Amazon account to complain. Today, 6 days later, I received this reply:
Hello,
This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloguing error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.
It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles – in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon’s main product search.
Many books have now been fixed and we’re in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.
Thanks for contacting us. We hope to see you again soon.
Warmest regards
Prabhu Ponmudi
Amazon.co.uk
We’re Building Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company
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I’d say that’s a pretty honest apology. Hopefully the lesson Amazon (and other companies) have learnt is that Twitter, Facebook and blogging are a really good reason to have your PR department working at weekends and Bank Holidays…
