Big Tech replaced “the customer is always right” with enslavement to the machine… literally

There’s no way that this headline doesn’t speak to every individual who has had a run-in with internet-based big biz… Amazon being the mother of them all.

There was a time when Ma Bell was the butt of every joke regarding lack of customer service. Some older folks even remember the bumper stickers “We Don’t Care. We Don’t Have To...” The unspoken credo of the all-powerful telephone company.

The main heir to that motto, and taking it one step further, is Amazon. And it all comes back to the huge fib that doing business online makes life easier. Anyone who has had to return an item that didn’t fit, work as advertised, or live up to its website hype knows that the convenience of ordering online and home delivery suddenly becomes inconvenient. Internet purchasing that promised to be better than in-person shopping at brick and mortar stores turned into a betrayal when the return policy meant repackaging the item, getting in the car and standing in line to ship it back from a limited choice of locations.

But that’s just part of the problem customers face when attempting to handle a quality issue, and Amazon takes the cake as the queen of mandating customer “rights.” In business according to Big Tech, only the purveyor of goods gets to set the standard of service, or rather, the lack thereof.

For those who worked in sales, face-to-face encounters with people interested in purchasing the goods or services being offered, if they wanted to close the deal they made an effort to fill a need. Amazon and other online sellers set the guidelines regarding what the customer is allowed to expect, and generally, being of actual help is rarely included.

What this pet peeve is coming down to is the quality control in one particular arena to which this author is subject for lack of alternatives. The reason that other options are practically nonexistent is that Amazon has gobbled up the competition to create a vacuum outside of its own monopoly. Self-publishing is the industry that’s being addressed here.

For any who may think this is just the spouting off of a malcontent, my bio will let the reader know that I was raised in the publishing industry--printing advertisers, newspapers, and magazines. Our business owned and operated a major print shop with a multi-unit inline press. Personally, I’d worked every part of a publication from sales, composition, camera work to flying the press. My brothers did even more having added the role of ‘pressman’ to their résumés.

The upshot is how tech monsters like Amazon set the (poor) standard for print that has delivered defective product to us at least four times over recent years. Sure, customer support is friendly and more than willing to make good on the mistakes, but the waste could easily have been avoided if only Amazon-Kindle bothered with quality control at the jobber level.

If other authors have had similar experiences--it’s hard to believe we’re the only ones--the cost of waste must be huge. However, the way customers, that’s you and me, are given no voice or choice in directing product quality is the complete opposite of what we, as printers, used to provide our customers.

This is the future of purchasing. The customer is always subject to the programs designed by engineers with no formal knowledge of services being provided. There’s the assumption that the computerized print, or other product will always turn out just right when no person appears to be overseeing the quality of what rolls off the press.

The result are book covers with misaligned color registration, or cockeyed trim jobs, ink smears, crinkled pages, and then carelessly packaged product that arrives damaged by water or weight shifting.

COVID instituted a new world of the customer being held at the mercy of digital oligarchs who set the parameters for what customers are allowed to expect, which is being helpless at the hand of their algorithmic tyranny.

A little overstated? Perhaps. The fact remains that if a customer wants a product they are stuck with Big Tech setting the rules while the walk-in stores continue to go belly-up under the strain of online sales.

The isolation of boxing oneself into their homes to work, and stream their recreation has become detrimental to society as a whole. Our health is failing due to limited human connection, face-to-face communication, and outside activity. Hard copy books are being replaced with screens that damage eyesight, or audio books that promulgate the need to multi-task, undermining the pleasure of just sitting down to enjoy a good read.

Being at the mercy of whatever Amazon decides to deliver to our doors is not what customer service is about. It’s yet to be seen what Kindle’s randomly chosen print jobber deposits on the doorstep of our new book “Wordmongers.” When the second proof had major color registration issues (the first one from the same jobber was fine) and “customer care” didn’t care, it’s impossible to know if the distribution timeline will be disrupted by having to toss unsaleable product and wait for the “machine” to make things right.

There are thousands of talented, cash-strapped writers out there who haven’t had the good fortune to be picked up by a quality-minded publishing house, and must rely on whatever Amazon decides is in its best interest. It may be time for independent authors (no AI allowed) to band together to form co-ops.

Anyone up for the challenge?

Former newspaper publisher, A. Dru Kristenev, grew up in the publishing industry working every angle of a paper, from ad composition and sales, to personnel management, copy writing, and overseeing all editorial content. During her tenure as a news professional, Kristenev traveled internationally as a representative of the paper and, on separate occasions, non-profit organizations. Since 2007, Kristenev has authored five fact-filled political suspense novels, the Baron Series, and two non-fiction books, all available on Amazon. Carrying an M.S. degree and having taught at premier northwest universities, she is the trustee of Scribes’ College of Journalism, which mission is to train a new generation of journalists in biblical standards of reporting. More information about the college and how to support it can be obtained by contacting Kristenev at cw.o@earthlink.net.

ChangingWind (changingwind.org) is a solutions-centered Christian ministry.

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