Amazon recently emailed me with the subject line “Amazon.com: Automated Refund of Your Prime Video Rental(s)”.

I was shocked and delighted that Amazon had detected poor video playback during my rental. It kept pausing, and I had to log out and log back in twice, but I couldn’t tell if it was a function of my computer or internet, or Amazon. It was annoying but I wasn’t going to complain.

The fact that Amazon went out of their way to apologize and refund me is unbelievable, and a reason to continue to be a paying customer.

I think this taps into a social norm we have, where if something goes wrong we may not complain, but likely we will (consciously or subconsciously) let our small amount of resentment simmer. If someone takes responsibility before we say something, it builds in us a tremendous amount of respect for that person.

Amazon tapped into that for me, and I think more companies should proactively take responsibility for downtimes, instead of reactively.