Customer Service FTW
My father bought me one of the generation 1 Kindle Fires for Christmas the year they came out. I (and my Son) have been very happy with it as an entertainment device. But in the last few months, I’ve noticed that it wasn’t charging very well. I’d have to reset the (original) cable multiple times, jiggle it around, and generally futz with it.
Last Friday night, the week before a 2-hour car trip that makes it necessary as Child Distraction, it flat out refused to charge, no matter how much I played with the cable. So I made a request for a support call. I choose the “call me now” option, and my wait time was less than a minute. I told the service rep what was happening and she said it was a “known issue with the Generation 1 Fires” that the cable didn’t *quite* fit the connection.
Since I was signed into the Amazon account (to get the service call), she dropped the new cable and A/C adaptor into my cart, along with a promotion (nice idea from a business standpoint for them to do it on their end, instead of giving the customer the code, which could be used again, or spread around) to negate the cost, and she also negated the shipping (but I’ve got Prime, so that wasn’t an issue).
So the first lesson here, folks, is if you have a Gen-1 Kindle Fire and it’s not charging off the original cable, you can get a replacement from Amazon gratis.
The second lesson is that Amazon did Very Well by me, and made me a Very Happy customer. And that is certainly worth, in the long run, the $30 they just swallowed in the short term.
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About The Author
martim
GIS C++!>$ And if you can translate that, you've been around as long as CompuServe. IT is now just a hobby, and shares my time with cross-stitch and knitting. High-tech, low-tech, and everything in between. I keep these guys in line and roll my eyes at Simmons. Come on, ladies, celebrate your love of technology! "Tech should be black. Colors are for cases."
We also have a 1st Gen Kindle Fire with charging issues. My solution is to restart the device as the cable I choose does not make a difference, other than charging time, depending on the wart output.(I have several USB cables and multiple hard wired bricks.
If I plug in the device and it fails to indicate “charging”.I unplug it.Shut it off. And then plug it back in.This restarts the device and charging, generally overnight, is flawless.
I will keep in mind the CS option if I run low on chargers.
Just ordered a QI pad on Amazon for $25+ for my Wife’s Nokia 820.
Peace
Yeah, I was doing that, but even that wasn’t doing the trick. In fact, I had it plugged in and it was turning on, turning off, turning on, turning off. This was the ‘nothing seems to work’ last option.
I’ve got multiple cables, but my Fire didn’t want to work with them. Funny, but I don’t have any micro-USB bricks.
Amazon is already reaping the benefits of their actions as demonstrated by your article. It’s good when you can resolve a problem without resorting to screaming and expletives at a CS agent, which seems to be (unfortunately) the norm these days.
I don’t have a kindle but I have had extremely good customer service from Amazon on two separate occasions. One product I ordered kept getting sent to Georgia. Amazon refunded me the shipping costs even though I only requested a refund of 1/2. The other product I never received and the vendor had left the Amazon Marketplace. They refunded the charges with no hassle or mess. Things like that and this article will keep me shopping with them.
@Amy: Nice, and exactly!
Ah, I told my father about this yesterday, and he pointed out that at the very least, it will get you a free extra charging cable and adapter. So if you’ve got a Gen-1 Fire and aren’t having the trouble I am, it’s still worth it. Because we can never have enough cables, right? (Thinks of the nearly-dozen computer power cables in a box…)
Actually yes. You can never have too many. Every time I loan a micro USB cable to one of my nephews friends to charge their phone, I never see it again. Bought a 6 pack from eBay for $7.95. Problem solved.