A bucket of water and a sponge

Richard Howorth, Square Books, Oxford, Mississippi

Richard Howorth, the owner of Square Books in Oxford Mississippi, was one of the guest speakers at a booksellers workshop in Portland attended by a young Jeff Bezos in September 1984, ten months before he launched Amazon.com.

Richard was asked to speak about the importance of customer service and recounts the story of a time in his bookstore when one of his employees said they had a very angry customer on the ground floor. The woman had parked her car in front of his bookstore and dirt from a window box, perched on the shop’s balcony, had fallen onto its bonnet.  He placated her by suggesting they get in her car and drive round to the local carwash, where he would pay to have her car valeted.  They arrive to discover the car wash is closed for servicing.  He suggests she drives round the block to his home and he will wash the car himself.  She does this and Richard goes in and fetches a big bucket of water and a sponge and restores her car up to a pristine shine.

Returning to the store she is a transformed customer and goes on to make a substantial purchase of books.

Listening to his story Jeff realises his new internet business will have no physical presence, so his new company’s customer service will have to be exceptional to retain their loyalty. This means easy returns, quick shipping, good discounts, competitive pricing, helpful reviews and a huge choice.

After successful beta testing in early 1995 the Amazon site is launched that summer as ‘earth’s biggest bookstore’.

Amazon’s first web page. In 1995 it simply sold books.

Jeff Bezos’s business goal at the end of 1995 was to create enough profit in Amazon to buy a forklift truck to move books around his warehouse.

So how did he get from dreaming about forklift trucks, to funding his own billion pound rocket programme that is exploring the viability of building space communities for half a million people?

Well, I believe it comes down to seven simple words. Behind the millions of lines of code, the sheer volume of products they sell, the Amazon drones, Prime Delivery and the scale of a global company that employs 613,300 people, are seven simple words that glue the whole enterprise together:

Amazon is obsessed with great customer service

Jeff learned that one business lesson from Richard Howorth all those years earlier in Portland and from that moment his goal was to develop the world’s most customer-centric business. Interviewed many years later, Richard Howorth wryly commented ‘ I don’t think Jeff ever washed a customer’s car’ Maybe not, but the lesson from Richard Howorth about delivering great customer service was well and truly learnt. In a parallel universe I like to think Richard was offered a few shares in Amazon as a small thank you…………

Rocket Man