As regular readers of this letter will know, our energy at Amazon comes from the desire to impress customers rather than the zeal to best competitors. We don’t take a view on which of these approaches is more likely to maximize business success. There are pros and cons to both and many examples of highly successful competitor-focused companies. We do work to pay attention to competitors and be inspired by them, but it is a fact that the customer-centric way is at this point a defining element of our culture.
正如本信的常读者所知，Amazon 的动力源自打动客户的愿望，而非击败竞争对手的热情。我们并不评判这两种路径哪一种更有可能带来商业成功。两种方式各有利弊，市场上也有很多专注竞争对手却依然非常成功的公司。我们确实会关注竞争对手并从他们身上汲取灵感，但事实是，以客户为中心的方式如今已成为我们文化的核心特征。
One advantage – perhaps a somewhat subtle one – of a customer-driven focus is that it aids a certain type of proactivity. When we’re at our best, we don’t wait for external pressures. We are internally driven to improve our services, adding benefits and features, before we have to. We lower prices and increase value for customers before we have to. We invent before we have to. These investments are motivated by customer focus rather than by reaction to competition. We think this approach earns more trust with customers and drives rapid improvements in customer experience – importantly – even in those areas where we are already the leader.
以客户为导向的一个优势——也许是一种比较微妙的优势——是它有助于激发某种形式的主动性。当我们状态最佳时，我们不会等到外部压力出现才行动。我们会出于内部动力去改进服务，主动添加福利和功能，而不是等到“不得不做”的时候才去做。我们会在“不得不降价”之前就降低价格、提升客户价值；也会在“不得不创新”之前就开始发明。这些投资的动因是客户导向，而非对竞争的被动反应。我们认为这种方式能赢得客户更多的信任，并推动客户体验的快速提升——尤其是在我们已处于领先地位的领域内。
“Thank you. Every time I see that white paper on the front page of Amazon, I know that I’m about to get more for my money than I thought I would. I signed up for Prime for the shipping, yet now I get movies, and TV and books. You keep adding more, but not charging more. So thanks again for the additions.” We now have more than 15 million items in Prime, up 15x since we launched in 2005. Prime Instant Video selection tripled in just over a year to more than 38,000 movies and TV episodes. The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library has also more than tripled to over 300,000 books, including an investment of millions of dollars to make the entire Harry Potter series available as part of that selection. We didn’t “have to” make these improvements in Prime. We did so proactively. A related investment – a major, multi-year one – is Fulfillment by Amazon. FBA gives third-party sellers the option of warehousing their inventory alongside ours in our fulfillment center network. It has been a game changer for our seller customers because their items become eligible for Prime benefits, which drives their sales, while at the same time benefitting consumers with additional Prime selection.
“谢谢你们。每次我在 Amazon 首页看到那张白底横幅，我都知道我将获得比预期更多的价值。我本来是为了配送服务才注册 Prime 的，但现在我还能看电影、电视剧和读书。你们不断添加内容，却没有加价。所以再次感谢你们不断的新增服务。”如今，Prime 服务包含的商品数量已超过 1,500 万件，自 2005 年推出以来增长了 15 倍。Prime Instant Video 的内容在短短一年多的时间里翻了三倍，已超过 38,000 部影视作品。Kindle 用户借阅库的藏书也翻了三倍，超过 300,000 本，包括我们投入数百万美元将整个《哈利·波特》系列纳入其中。我们“并不必须”对 Prime 进行这些改进，而是主动去做的。一个相关的长期重大投资是亚马逊物流（FBA）。FBA 允许第三方卖家将他们的库存存放在我们网络中的配送中心。它彻底改变了我们卖家客户的游戏规则，因为他们的商品因此获得 Prime 福利资格，从而带动了销售，同时也为消费者提供了更多 Prime 商品选择。
We build automated systems that look for occasions when we’ve provided a customer experience that isn’t up to our standards, and those systems then proactively refund customers. One industry observer recently received an automated email from us that said, “We noticed that you experienced poor video playback while watching the following rental on Amazon Video On Demand: Casablanca. We’re sorry for the inconvenience and have issued you a refund for the following amount: $2.99. We hope to see you again soon.” Surprised by the proactive refund, he ended up writing about the experience: “Amazon ‘noticed that I experienced poor video playback…’ And they decided to give me a refund because of that? Wow…Talk about putting customers first.”
我们构建了自动化系统来主动寻找未达到我们标准的客户体验，并自动向客户退款。一位行业观察者最近收到我们的自动邮件，内容如下：“我们注意到您在 Amazon 视频点播服务观看《卡萨布兰卡》期间遇到了播放不佳的问题。对此带来的不便，我们深感抱歉，并已向您退还金额：$2.99。希望很快再次为您服务。”这位观察者对主动退款感到惊讶，最后写下了这段经历：“Amazon ‘注意到我遇到了视频播放问题’……并因此决定给我退款？哇……这才是真正以客户为先。”
When you pre-order something from Amazon, we guarantee you the lowest price offered by us between your order time and the end of the day of the release date. “I just received notice of a $5 refund to my credit card for pre-order price protection. . . What a great way to do business! Thank you very much for your fair and honest dealings.” Most customers are too busy themselves to monitor the price of an item after they pre-order it, and our policy could be to require the customer to contact us and ask for the refund. Doing it proactively is more expensive for us, but it also surprises, delights, and earns trust.
当您在 Amazon 预订某件商品时，我们会承诺在下单时间至发行日当天结束前的所有时间段中，您将获得我们提供的最低价格。“我刚收到信用卡上退回的 $5 预订价格保护退款通知……这样的商业方式太棒了！非常感谢你们公平诚实的做法。”大多数客户自己太忙，无法在预订后持续关注商品价格的变动，我们本可以规定让客户自己联系要求退款。但我们选择主动处理，这对我们而言成本更高，但却能带来惊喜、带来愉悦、带来信任。
We also have authors as customers. Amazon Publishing has just announced it will start paying authors their royalties monthly, sixty days in arrears. The industry standard is twice a year, and that has been the standard for a long time. Yet when we interview authors as customers, infrequent payment is a major dissatisfier. Imagine how you’d like it if you were paid twice a year. There isn’t competitive pressure to pay authors more than once every six months, but we’re proactively doing so.
我们也将作者视为客户。Amazon Publishing 刚刚宣布将开始按月向作者支付版税，结算周期为 60 天。行业的惯常做法是每年结算两次，这种标准已存在多年。然而，当我们以客户的身份采访作者时，他们普遍反映付款频率过低是一个主要的不满点。想象一下，如果你一年只发两次工资，会是什么感觉。尽管在市场上并没有谁迫使我们提高支付频率，但我们选择主动去做这件事。
By the way – though the research was taxing, I struggled through and am happy to report that I recently saw many Kindles in use at a Florida beach. There are five generations of Kindle, and I believe I saw every generation in use except for the first. Our business approach is to sell premium hardware at roughly breakeven prices. We want to make money when people use our devices – not when people buy our devices. We think this aligns us better with customers. For example, we don’t need our customers to be on the upgrade treadmill. We can be very happy to see people still using four-year-old Kindles!
顺便说一句——尽管这项“调研”颇为艰辛，我还是坚持完成了，而且很高兴地向大家汇报，我最近在佛罗里达的海滩上看到许多人在使用 Kindle。目前市面上已有五代 Kindle，我相信我看到了除第一代外的所有版本都在被使用。我们的业务策略是以接近成本价销售优质硬件。我们希望在客户使用设备时赚钱，而不是靠他们购买设备赚钱。我们认为这能让我们与客户的利益更趋一致。例如，我们并不需要客户频繁升级设备。看到有人还在使用四年前的 Kindle，我们也会感到非常高兴！
I can keep going – Kindle Fire’s FreeTime, our customer service Andon Cord, Amazon MP3’s AutoRip – but will finish up with a very clear example of internally driven motivation: Amazon Web Services. In 2012, AWS announced 159 new features and services. We’ve reduced AWS prices 27 times since launching 7 years ago, added enterprise service support enhancements, and created innovative tools to help customers be more efficient.
我还可以继续说下去——比如 Kindle Fire 的 FreeTime、我们的客服应急线（Andon Cord）、Amazon MP3 的 AutoRip 功能——但我会以一个非常典型的内部驱动型动机来收尾：Amazon Web Services（AWS）。2012 年，AWS 宣布推出 159 项新功能与服务。自 7 年前上线以来，我们已经将 AWS 的价格下调了 27 次，增加了企业级支持功能，并推出了许多创新工具，帮助客户提升效率。
AWS Trusted Advisor monitors customer configurations, compares them to known best practices, and then notifies customers where opportunities exist to improve performance, enhance security, or save money. Yes, we are actively telling customers they’re paying us more than they need to. In the last 90 days, customers have saved millions of dollars through Trusted Advisor, and the service is only getting started.
AWS Trusted Advisor 会监控客户的配置情况，与业内最佳实践进行比对，然后告知客户哪些方面可以提升性能、增强安全性或节省开支。是的，我们在主动告诉客户他们付得比应付的多。在过去 90 天里，客户通过 Trusted Advisor 节省了数百万美元，而这项服务才刚刚开始。
All of this progress comes in the context of AWS being the widely recognized leader in its area – a situation where you might worry that external motivation could fail. On the other hand, internal motivation – the drive to get the customer to say “Wow” – keeps the pace of innovation fast.
所有这些进展都发生在 AWS 已被广泛公认为该领域领导者的背景下——在这种情况下，你或许会担心外部压力不足可能导致动力减弱。但相反，内部动机——也就是让客户发出“哇”的驱动力——反而能持续保持快速的创新步伐。
Our heavy investments in Prime, AWS, Kindle, digital media, and customer experience in general strike some as too generous, shareholder indifferent, or even at odds with being a for-profit company. “Amazon, as far as I can tell, is a charitable organization being run by elements of the investment community for the benefit of consumers,” writes one outside observer.
我们在 Prime、AWS、Kindle、数字媒体以及整体客户体验方面的大量投入，在一些人看来可能过于慷慨、对股东冷淡，甚至有悖于盈利性公司的本质。有位外部观察者写道：“在我看来，Amazon 更像是一个慈善组织，由投资界的部分人士主导，专门为消费者谋福利。”
But I don’t think so. To me, trying to dole out improvements in a just-in-time fashion would be too clever by half. It would be risky in a world as fast-moving as the one we all live in. More fundamentally, I think long-term thinking squares the circle. Proactively delighting customers earns trust, which earns more business from those customers, even in new business arenas. Take a long-term view, and the interests of customers and shareholders align.
但我并不这样认为。在我看来，那种“只在必要时才推出改进”的做法反而是聪明反被聪明误。在当今这个快速变化的世界中，这种策略是有风险的。从根本上讲，我认为，长远思维能解这个悖论。主动取悦客户可以赢得信任，而信任会带来更多的业务，甚至在新的业务领域也如此。只要目光放长，客户和股东的利益终将趋于一致。
As I write this, our recent stock performance has been positive, but we constantly remind ourselves of an important point – as I frequently quote famed investor Benjamin Graham in our employee all-hands meetings – “In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine.” We don’t celebrate a 10% increase in the stock price like we celebrate excellent customer experience. We aren’t 10% smarter when that happens and conversely aren’t 10% dumber when the stock goes the other way. We want to be weighed, and we’re always working to build a heavier company.
写这封信的时候，我们的股价走势是正面的，但我们始终提醒自己一个重要的道理——我经常在员工大会上引用著名投资者 Benjamin Graham 的话：“在短期内，市场是投票机；但在长期，市场是称重机。”我们不会像庆祝客户体验提升那样去庆祝股价上涨 10%。当股价上涨时，我们并没有变聪明 10%；相反，当股价下跌时，我们也没变笨 10%。我们希望被“称重”，我们一直在努力让这家公司“变重”。
As proud as I am of our progress and our inventions, I know that we will make mistakes along the way – some will be self-inflicted, some will be served up by smart and hard-working competitors. Our passion for pioneering will drive us to explore narrow passages, and, unavoidably, many will turn out to be blind alleys. But – with a bit of good fortune – there will also be a few that open up into broad avenues.
尽管我对我们所取得的进展和创新感到无比自豪，但我也深知，我们在前行过程中一定会犯错——有些是我们自己造成的，有些则来自聪明且勤奋的竞争对手。我们对于开拓的热情将驱使我们去探索一条条狭窄小径，而其中许多路径最终会证明是死胡同。但只要有一点点好运，其中也会有几条路通向宽阔的大道。
I am incredibly lucky to be a part of this large team of outstanding missionaries who value our customers as much as I do and who demonstrate that every day with their hard work. As always, I attach a copy of our original 1997 letter. Our approach remains the same, and it’s still Day 1.
我感到非常幸运，能够与这支庞大的杰出“传教士”团队共事。他们像我一样重视客户，并通过每天的辛勤工作将这种信念付诸实践。照例，我随信附上我们 1997 年的原始股东信。我们的理念始终如一，现在依然是“第一天”。
Jeffrey P. Bezos
Amazon.com, Inc.