2013 – Spend to delight, even when customers love you

I have always been intrigued by the letters sent to shareholders by both Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos.

They are inspiring and, for wannabes like yours truly, a source of motivation and hope. So I am creating a series of articles on what learnings I took away from the letters of Jeff Bezos. This is the seventeenth letter in the series.

You can check out the complete series here:

https://alphonserajdavid.com/category/book-reviews/non-fiction/jeff-bezos-stakeholder-letters/

This letter is a tour of all initiatives being run currently within Amazon.

But the theme that stood out for me is counterintuitive behavior, i.e, spending money to delight customers who are already happy with you.

I liked this sentence from the letter “Polishing products and services to a degree that is beyond what’s expected or required” and doing it so customers say “Wow.”

Lesson #1: Raise the bar when things are going well

Most companies relax when customers are happy. They shift to optimizing for profitability. Bezos says it’s a bad idea.

“Nothing gives us more pleasure at Amazon than ‘reinventing normal’.” I like this quote from the letter because it frames innovating as something we do all the time, rather than a one-time approach.

Lesson #2: Prime is proof that you keep paying for delight

Bezos talks about how Prime started as “a new, unproven (some even said foolhardy) concept.” But now, although it is loved, they still are investing heavily to improve it and make it better

That is the counterintuitive part. Amazon didnt stop. They expanded Prime from one million eligible products to “20 million eligible products” now. They added benefits like video and lending.

This is interesting esp. since I focus on building subscription-based saless models in a world where CapEx is the norm. So, If I build a membership promise, I must keep earning it by adding new features. What’s different today will become table stakes tmrw and some competitor can beat me.

Lesson #3: Mayday shows how you buy trust with real cost

Mayday is not cheap. It is live support, on the device, all the time. Bezos makes the promise concrete: “Mayday is available 24×7, 365 days a year, and our response time goal is 15 seconds or less.”

Then he says they beat it. Customer Delight sits in support, returns, packaging, and delivery. People call these “cost centers.”

But in my experience, this is the only reason most customer,s esp. in the B2B world,d shift and stay with their vendors. Offering 24/7 Support is a huge differentiation esp. in Enterprise deals, andit seems like it’s true in B2C world as well

Lesson #4: Sweat small pain points that others accept as normal

I loved the packaging section because it is so unglamorous. Bezos calls it a “battle against annoying wire ties and plastic clamshells.” That is real. Anyone who has opened a box knows it. And considering I spent the better part of the last 5 years in the e-commerce fulfillment space, I know how much it matters.

Fix tiny irritations, and this removes the cuts and bruises from the buyer’s journey. Then customers feel cared for. That’s my takeaway.

Lesson #5: Manage inputs, not vibes

In video, Bezos calls out something that most leaders forget. Output metrics can look great and still hide rot. He says the growth metrics “are output metrics” and that they “suggest we are on a good path, focusing on the right inputs.”

Then he names two inputs: “the growth of selection” and “the desirability of that selection.”

That is clean thinking esp. in the clutter of growing business. It tells my teams what to do on Monday morning.

Maybe adding this in my business reviews will make sense. Less “we need growth.” More “these are the input levers we will push.”

Lesson #6: High-throughput innovation needs distributed invention

Bezos states the Amazon operating model as follows: “This decentralized distribution of invention throughout the company… is the only way to get robust, high-throughput innovation.”

This is seen in Weblab experimentation, in Kaizen inside fulfillment, and in AWS teams that “iterate continuously.

I like this, but I also think it is hard. Distributed invention creates a mess. It creates uneven quality. It forces strong mechanisms. Still, the alternative is worse. Centralised invention means slow death. But maybe, I don’t fully understand this concept, as VisAI Labs has not yet grown big enough for this to be a problem. Swap, Invention with Ownership, and I can completely understand this

Lesson #7: Failure is not optional, and you must get good at the mess

“Failure comes part and parcel with invention. It’s not optional.”

Bezos continues saying, “Inventing is messy,” and sometimes “we’ll fail at some big bets too.”

I will steal the practical part of the approach. Fail early when you can. Start small. Iterate. When it works, “we double-down.” That is the right mix of caution and courage.

Lastly, I like where he lands: “we get to work in the future.” That is what Day 1 should feel like. Not comfort. Motion. Curiosity. And yes, spending on delight even when customers already love you.