During the meeting, Jeff Bezos made a somewhat unorthodox move to call Amazon’s customer service department, causing some discomfort in the room. Waiting time? Much longer than the sub-60 second target suggested by the metrics, leaving Bezos at more than 10 uncomfortable minutes.
Appearing on the Lex Fridman Podcast (full video), former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos recounted an incident when he contacted Amazon’s customer service department.
The discrepancy prompted Bezos to share his famous quote: “When data and anecdotes don’t match, the anecdotes are usually right.” Bezos elaborated that customer complaints, despite positive metrics, probably meant they weren’t capturing the right data point.
Jeff Bezos and calling customer service
Despite metrics showing wait times under 60 seconds, customer complaints painted a different picture. In response, Bezos took a direct approach. He went to the customer service manager and suggested, “Let’s call.”
Bezos picked up the phone and determinedly dialed the customer service number. “And we just waited in silence,” he laughed, recalling the incident from the podcast. When Lex asked about the actual wait time, Bezos admitted it was “much longer” than expected. “I think more than ten minutes.
This anecdote on the Lex Fridman Podcast resonated with YouTube viewers who praise Bezos’ approach. “Imagine sitting in a conference room waiting in silence for 10 minutes for customer service to pick up after you just told Jeff that the data shows it’s only 60 seconds and everything is fine lol,” reads the one comment.
One commenter noted the perceived decline in the availability of live customer service representatives on Amazon, stating, “It’s kind of ironic that it’s very difficult to communicate with a real person these days.”
Another commenter expressed dissatisfaction with Amazon’s current customer service, attributing it to a change in management. Their comment reads: “Amazon’s services have declined WAYYYYYYY since Bezos stepped aside. I used to buy almost 95% from Amazon and that’s probably dropped to less than 50%. They’re not what they used to be.”
Adding a humorous touch, one user wrote: “Imagine you work in a call center and Jeff calls you himself hahaha.” Bezos’ focus on data and truth-telling is in line with his advice years ago, which remains very relevant in today’s age of artificial intelligence.
Bezos’ timeless advice
Before stepping down as CEO of Amazon, Bezos often faced questions about his predictions for the future. However, in a characteristic move, he often preferred to approach the question from a different angle.
As he said in an interview years ago: “I get asked very often, ‘What will change in the next ten years?’ And that’s an interesting question, it’s very common.”
“I almost never get asked: What won’t change in the next 10 years? And I submit to you that this second question is actually the more important of the two because you can build a trading strategy on things that are stable over time.”
Bezos, who recently admitted to sharing ambitions with Elon Musk, described how that approach played out at Amazon. “We know in our retail business that customers want low prices, and I know that will be true in ten years,” he added.
“They want fast delivery, they want huge selection. It’s impossible to imagine a future ten years from now where a customer will come up to me and say, ‘Jeff, I love Amazon, I just wish the prices were a little higher,’ or ‘I love Amazon, I just wish you would deliver a little slower.” Impossible.”
This is not a new concept for Bezos. Variations on this sentiment have appeared throughout his career, beginning at least with a Harvard Business Review interview in 2007. Bezos’ advice takes on new meaning in today’s booming artificial intelligence industry, where venture capital is fueling rapid growth.