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Amazon's Mayday response time at 9.75 seconds: What it means for customer service

Amazon ups the ante on its Mayday button, which is going to be used in the enterprise too with the help of Salesforce. Your benchmark: A response in under 10 seconds.
Written by Larry Dignan, Contributor

Amazon's average response time for Mayday button customer inquiries on its Fire HDX tablet is 9.75 seconds. Although that time is great for Amazon, tech execs pondering their own Mayday button approaches may cringe a bit.

mayday button

Why? Amazon's Mayday button is likely to be replicated in the enterprise. After all, Salesforce is already working on its SOS button, which mimics Amazon's Mayday approach.

The challenge is that the customers working with Salesforce are going to realize that more than a few ducks have to be lined up to even approach Amazon's response time. Amazon set a goal of responding to queries in under 15 seconds. Salesforce's limited beta of the SOS button will launch this month.

Expanding Amazon's Mayday button: Five new uses to ponder

Salesforce launches Service SOS, an enterprise version of Amazon's Mayday button

In a nutshell, enterprises will have to match Amazon's benchmarks to play ball, new agents will be required and then mine the customer base so only the best customers get the Mayday button treatment. Will customers compare enterprises to Amazon's response time?

The other catch here is that enterprises are going to have to account for a good bit of goofing off with a customer service button.

Amazon's statement noted that a tech advisor gave Angry Birds advice, talked peanut butter and jelly, sang happy birthday and fielded marriage proposals. Rest assured there was probably some psychotherapy tossed in too.

Of course, Amazon is building customer relationships and engagement with the Mayday button. How many enterprises are going to measure call center productivity with a happy birthday sing-along?

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