1.             Background of Use of Advanced Customer Services by ‘Amazon’ to Ensure its Quality and Customer Satisfaction

           Amazon as the world largest retailer is successfully working all over the globe. Amazon is using modern technology as e-commerce website that is fully interactive and customer-oriented website to sell out various kinds of products including grocery items, electronics, books, clothing, and other household accessories. The major targeted market of the company in Germany, Turkey, Japan, Spain, Pakistan, United Kingdom, Singapore, United States, India, Netherlands, France, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, and Italy. In the present age, Amazon.com is an online platform that provides all type of goods and services that are required by the customer. In the beginning, Amazon and very few other retailers were leading the market of e-retailing but now technology advancement and changes in the behavior of customers is causing to promote competition in the market, therefore, Amazon is also adopting changes in their service. In the highly competitive market building, customer's equity is necessary therefore Amazon is enriching its product line, improving quality of services and introducing more advanced customer services to get their desired goals of the business and remain sustainable in the market by increasing customer satisfaction.    

2.             Statement of the Problem of Use of Advanced Customer Services by ‘Amazon’ to Ensure its Quality and Customer Satisfaction

Amazon was founded in 1994 with the vision to become the market leader in retailing business by providing high quality products. Management of the Amazon tried their best to make the Amazon a successful and maker leading company in the few years and they achieved the title of world largest e-retailers in a few years with continued improvement in the service quality and product line improvement. Even Amazon is leading e-retiling market and owns the largest portion of the market shares but still, they need to make improvement as with the time competition is increasing and more substitutes are available to the customers in the market.

The consumer wants to have products that can satisfy their needs and requirements. They are not vocal when things go against their expectations and desires. Quality is the vital key that can make customers satisfied and dissatisfied towards the products and services. Therefore, they always search for products with high quality and affordable rates. The target of the quality and customer satisfaction can be achieved through improvement in services and through providing something better and advance in comparison to the other available substitutes and competitors' products in the market.

3.             Purpose of the Project of Use of Advanced Customer Services by ‘Amazon’ to Ensure its Quality and Customer Satisfaction

                Purpose of the project is to study and elaborate the current efforts of the Amazon for its advance customer services to ensure quality and customer satisfaction. The research project will identify the results of the efforts taken by the Amazon on customer satisfaction level. While research project is taken with the aim to identify and elaborate on how the quality of the Amazon is influenced by and influencing their advance customer services offered to the customers in the various targeted segments and market. Basically, the purpose of the research project is to conclude that whether efforts to advance customer services and improvement in the quality can improve customer satisfaction or not? And what are the ways through which companies working in similar fields can ensure maximum customer satisfaction and best quality services? 

4.             Theoretical Bases and Organization and Use of Advanced Customer Services by ‘Amazon’ to Ensure its Quality and Customer Satisfaction

                This paper will be focusing on analyzing the advance customer services of the Amazon and the quality and customer satisfaction of the Amazon advance customer services in the targeted market.  

5.             Limitation of the Project and Use of Advanced Customer Services by ‘Amazon’ to Ensure its Quality and Customer Satisfaction

             The study is mainly based on the analysis of secondary material published and provided in open databases for the Amazon, therefore, there may raise issues related to the reliability and validity when the data and findings are being implemented in other companies. However, another major limitation associated with the project is related to the area and targeted market covered in the research. As Amazon is working in 13 to 16 different countries in the region of Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, therefore covering information about the customer satisfaction level in all these areas was not possible. Particularly information used in the survey should include all areas and all type of customers of the company, therefore, covering only a limited market and customer is a limitation for the research project. There can other factors also other than the quality and advance customer services that may indirectly increase the customer satisfaction level that is not studied in this research project that can be also taken as a limitation for the research project.

6.             Definitions of Terms and Use of Advanced Customer Services by ‘Amazon’ to Ensure its Quality and Customer Satisfaction

·         Advance customer services

Advance customer services include all services that are being improved and offered at the advanced level in comparison to the competitors' products, for instance, making the payment system easy for the customers through fulltime technical support.

·         Quality  

A standard or measure for a thing that is also known as the degree of excellence of something.

·         Customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction elaborate that products or services experienced by the customer meets with the expectations of the customers and thus customers are satisfied with the products and services and want to purchase again. Customer dissatisfaction: In case products and services offered to the customers fail to meet the expectation level and requirements of the customer.

Review of the Literature and Use of Advanced Customer Services by ‘Amazon’ to Ensure its Quality and Customer Satisfaction

The customer interaction with the services provided by Amazon.com is rapidly changing due to self-service technologies. The exclusive academic literature emphasizes the dynamics of customer services and technology-based delivery process for the customers. Amazon.com changed characteristics of advance customer services extensively to improve the quality of services and customer satisfaction [1].

In a previous research work carried out by Bitner, Brown, and Meuter in 2000, the customer services and some technological interfaces were identified. The research identified improvement in the customer services to ensure the quality provided to the customers. The main objective of the research was to identify the sources of customer satisfaction and the causes of customer dissatisfaction along with the impact of SSTs [2]. The interpersonal interactions were considered to analyze similarity and differences in the causes of customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction [1]. The critical incident technique was used to measure attributions, repurchase intention, complaining behavior, and word of mouth. The research evaluated causes for customer satisfaction including solved intensified needs, Amazon provides better alternatives, and services save money. Amazon provides services that are intensified for the external environment. The services are widely available even in the flexible hours of operation. The additional benefits provide more customer satisfaction [1]. The interpersonal method is used by Amazon to deliver the services. The straight forward process for services such as ATM transaction and drive up windows makes Amazon more preferable for the customers [1]. The factors resulting in the dissatisfaction of customers include technology failure, process failure, poor design of services and customer drove failures. The research contributed to the extrapolation of a range of customer satisfaction and quality [1].              

   Amazon is listed in the top companies due to improved customer services, personalized experiences, amazing perks, and higher quality products. The company is customer obsessed company of 2018 that is setting gold standards and improving due to leading focus towards the customer experiences. The main focus of Amazon is to build emotional connections between the customers, staff, products, and services [3]. According to Forrester, 72% of the business holders expressed their vision about customer satisfaction. In a previous research, NewVoiceMedia indicated that Amazon affords service laggard. The customer services are improving and getting better as $62 billion statistics mentioned that customer services are becoming worse. The tracking of big data trends and use of technology in the services shows the personalized experience of the customer that caters the needs of individuals. Amazon introduced the concept of customer success to get more popularity [3].

In the process, the products having higher levels of frustration and needs of the customer supports were considered. The quality of the services is improved over the past five years because proactive customer’s services are getting more popularity. The use of software to get the alert of issues helped Amazon in resolving the problems and mitigating the claims of customers [3]. In Amazon Customer services, the human to human interaction was connected by the quick first line of support and the alternative channels were becoming more norm to the services. Numerous surveys were conducted in the previous researches to reveal the abysmal results for the response time, questions, complaints, and support channels [3]. The previous researchers analyzed the response time of customers to the comments, questions postponed on the channels, complaints, comments on the social media or through email. Amazon changed ultimate customer services on the basis of customer requirement to improve the quality of services and to increase customer satisfaction [3]. On December 17, 2013, Amazon asked the customers to rate the satisfaction level with the customer services for the evaluation of customer experience. In the survey, the customer satisfaction level of Amazon scored 90 that was the highest score ever recorded by a firm [4].  

              The research carried out by Philipp Klaus identified the psychological factors and functionality for the main dimensions. The technical attributes were considered for sub-dimension usability, social presence, communication, and product presence. The conceptual model was developed to expand the existing literature and online customer services [5]. The research identified dimensions of online customer services and transaction process for the customers. The previously unexplored vision was considered for customer services. The impact of technical problems encountered in the customer services was considered. The shift in the quality of the product can alter the number of customers and induces risk on the customer satisfaction of the Amazon. The social presence of dynamic conceptual framework incorporated with the online experiences and data extraction process [5].

Discussion and Use of Advanced Customer Services by ‘Amazon’ to Ensure its Quality and Customer Satisfaction

             To ensure the aim of advance customer services, Amazon is facilitating the customers in many ways. The corporate level management of the Amazon is developing customer-driven strategies and introducing policies that can add value to the customer's experiences. Advanced FAQ system and all time support for the customers enable the visitors to become loyal customers of the company. Amazon prime is also a great example of advanced customer service offered by the Amazon that is enhancing customer's level of satisfaction for their services. Amazon prime directly deals with the membership- only delivery services. Amazon Prime members can enjoy instant streaming of television shows and movies, free 2-day shipping on all types of products, and instant access to thousands of Kindle books and magazines.     

              A survey conducted to determine the customer satisfaction level for the Amazon explains that customer satisfaction level is fluctuating with the time. The graph mentioned below is basically a graphical representation of the customer’s response to the services of the Amazon. In the survey total score was set 100 and accumulated scores of all samples/ respondents presented the obtained scores in the graph. in accordance with this graph from 2000 to 2017 the least score presenting customer satisfaction level is 83 in 2015 and the highest score 88 was earned in 2001, 2003, 2007, and 2013.