Amazon, I'm impressed

Amazon just did a great thing - they surpassed my expectations of their customer service. Unless you live under the proverbial rock (or just aren't much of a geek), you'll be aware that there's a computer game by the name of Halo 3 coming out rather soon. Being a bit of a Halo fan-boy (I used to help run one of the big Halo fan sites, Haloplayers, now dormant) I had pre-ordered myself a copy of the Halo 3 Legendary Edition all the way back in March when it was first made available for pre-order. As the game is due for release in 11 days, I logged in to check that my pre-order was indeed still there and would arrive on time.

"Delivery estimate: 29 Nov 2007"

Uh oh. This is a popular purchase (the game reportedly has over 1.5 million pre-orders and the Legendary Edition sold out the day it was made available for pre-order in most places), so I was quite worried by this estimate of a 2-month wait. More out of hope than expectation, I filled in the customer contact form on Amazon's site to ask if the estimate was correct. I've never actually needed to contact Amazon's CS department, but being the big company it is, I wasn't expecting great things. A few hours later, I've had a reply apologising for the error and assuring me that the estimate will be fixed soon, but that the real estimate is much earlier than the 29th of November. I'm now a happier bunny. They didn't quite go as far as telling me what the 'real' estimate is, but the email did its job of reassuring me that it'll be soon and I'm willing to wait a week and see what it is. So, Amazon impressed me - they replied quickly (on a Saturday, too), were polite and answered my question first time. The rest of the email did get into a bit of a boilerplate grovelling letter asking me to understand that they do their best to ensure accuracy, blah, blah and they hope I'll give them another chance. To be honest, I don't think that bit was necessary in this instance, but it didn't hurt.