We’ve come to expect Amazon to offer a superb customer experience, but their latest offering in Japan goes further than the norm. Amazon have launched an online wine advice service.
Amazon Sommelier, as the service is called, is led by a Japanese wine expert Miyuki Hara and a team of certified sommeliers. Currently the service, which is only available in Japan between midday and 5pm, allows you to leave your phone number on the site and a sommelier will call you back to discuss your wine requirements including which wines match which foods and what additional purchases you might like to make.
The Verge’s Sam Byford has tried the service and his report is pretty positive on the response to his fictitious request for some Japanese wine for his mother in England that would go well with Western food.
Personally I’m not a wine buff but Sam say that he’s not either which makes the service doubly impressive as it’s obviously not too pretentious. Sam reports the “advice to be helpful and easy to understand”.
There’s no news on whether we’ll ever see Amazon Sommelier in the EU or America. It’s still an interesting service however more so because Amazon traditionally reply on consumer reviews than expert advice for their automated product recommendation engine. Putting humans in the mix is considerably more expensive and time consuming although Amazon do of course already provide a human MayDay service for their Fire Tablets.
