Last week, it was pouring rain for a few days straight. My son is really good at entertaining himself. He was off playing by himself, but my daughter is not nearly as gifted. She wants someone to entertain her. There’s only so much I can bribe my son with. He likes being alone. My husband had a few things to do, so that left me and I was under heavy deadline. Apparently spending all day at school wasn’t entertaining enough for her because she came home whining that she was bored and I was out of ideas…

What’s a work-at-home-mom to do? Well, fire up her pretty purple netbook and set Amazon Video up for the little whiny child. She had never seen Mulan (it’s a Disney movie for those of you that live under a rock), so I rented it for her and it started streaming.

Sounds great, right? I was thinking I was the smartest mom in the world. Um. Except for when it rains, our internet can get a little weird here. I have no idea if it’s in my head or what, but when it rains, we have problems. So, of course, the movie was buffering a lot. It’d stop for a full minute at times and she’d pause it and get a glass of water or something to let it catch up.

It honestly wasn’t too bad. A little annoying, but it kept her busy and I really didn’t think anything about it. A few days go by and I get this email from Amazon:

Hello,
We noticed that you experienced poor video playback while watching the following rental(s) on Amazon Video On Demand:
Mulan

We’re sorry for the inconvenience and have issued you a refund for the following amount(s):
$1.99

While Amazon Video On Demand transactions are typically not refundable, we are happy to make an exception in this case. This refund should be processed within the next 2 to 3 business days and will appear on your next billing statement for the same credit card used to purchase this item.

Let me reiterate here. I didn’t say anything to Amazon. Nothing. They noticed it in their logs or whatever (and no, I’m not afraid of big brother, seriously, I think it’s kind of neat they have some sort of monitoring system!) and refunded me. I didn’t ask for it. Nothing.

I have always said that Amazon and Zappos have the most amazing customer service and with all of my dealings with them. I mean who would refund a customer that didn’t complain? It’s only $2. I wasn’t worried about it. Heck, it was probably even my computer’s fault. Talk about “Wow!”

It makes me wonder… what am I do or what could I do that get that “wow” factor with my clients. Hmmm….