Amazon Customer Service Reps Taking Heat Due to Order Delays, Packing Problems

Amazon thanked Prime members on its Facebook page Thursday, while touting the free one-day delivery service it recently added to Prime membership in what it called a "big year for Prime." The gloating invited gripes from customers unhappy with their recent Amazon experiences during peak holiday shopping season. Recode reported Thursday customer frustration across various social media sites over delays Amazon attributed to high demand and weather.

Amazon had 600 comments Friday on its thank you post, including complaints over protracted shipping, deliveries to the wrong address and shoddy packaging. Customers showed photos of packages that were poorly sealed and others that mixed content in a way that could damage items in shipments, including loading a case of heavy cat food with a Kindle Fire tablet. Another showed a box with misplaced tape that could allow someone to remove the contents. Amazon rep Trent told a customer she would forward information to the packaging team for review.

Responding to a customer irked that a package wasn’t received within the promised two-day window, Amazon rep Conor clarified the policy: “Two-Day Shipping refers to transit time, in business days, once your order has been shipped. Product availability, additional preparation time (this will be noted on the product detail page), severe weather, and carrier capacity can all affect your delivery date.”

A woman who wanted a monthly Prime membership was having trouble securing one; she was charged for the full $119 yearly membership plus a monthly fee, she said. In a lengthy back-and-forth exchange, Amazon reps referred her to help pages on Amazon.com, including a membership management page to find contact options. Feeling she was getting the “runaround,” the customer asked for a phone number to resolve the issue and was told Amazon is “unable to provide business numbers out on Facebook.”

On Twitter, @bharatg09 appealed to Amazon Help Wednesday saying everything he searched since Cyber Monday gave a Dec. 9 delivery time frame. The customer understood some items could have delays but wondered why all items had a six-seven-day delivery window: “Why am I paying for Prime then?? Fix it please!”

Responding to our questions on the cause of the delays and what Amazon is doing to address Prime members’ concerns, a spokesperson emailed: “We are off to a record-breaking start to the holiday season and on peak shopping days, delivery promises vary and may be longer than normal based on order volume and the fulfillment and delivery capacity available in a given area.” She cited winter storms across much of the country that extended delivery times in some areas and said the company “will work directly with customers who are experiencing an issue with their delivery.”

We saw delays of as much as a week in Cyber Monday orders, prompting us to consider one-day shipping a moot feature of Prime membership if even two-day shipping wasn’t available. For most holiday season orders, Amazon has offered us a $1 digital credit for orders delivered together on the same day even though it’s the same day we would receive them if orders weren’t combined. In one order notification post-Cyber Monday, the e-tailer said our purchase made us eligible for a free 90-day Amazon Music Unlimited trial.

Updating its comments Friday, Amazon emailed: "We’re serving customers with our fastest holiday delivery speeds ever including Same-Day and One-Day deliveries. Some deliveries were briefly impacted by weather earlier in the week but we worked quickly to re-balance capacity across our network, setting customers up for a great rest of the season.”