Amazon’s Andon System: Turning Customer Focus into a Mechanism

Verification notes (2026-10-30): 1. Source: The post is a Dedao Headlines compilation of an account by Zhang Sihong, former vice president of Amazon China. A transcript reposted by TMTPost includes his discussion of Andon and customer service. Specific figures and episodes—such as two complaints, the 2% ceiling, and the 看見 example—are the speaker’s account and have not been independently verified item by item by this site. Source: https://www.tmtpost.com/4511960.html 2. The Andon system originates in the Toyota Production System: a worker who detects an abnormality can stop the production line. ---- How Amazon’s frontline customer service handles complaints shows how it puts a customer-first mindset into practice. Value frontline employees’ feedback, and give them tools to act. Amazon takes a counterintuitive approach to complaints. No matter how well a product sells or how successful a promotion is, once it receives two or more complaints about the same issue, frontline customer service staff can press the “red light” button and take the product or promotion offline immediately. It can return only after the reported problem is fully resolved. This is Amazon customer service’s Andon system. Andon comes from Toyota’s lean production system. On a Toyota production line, frontline operators who spot any abnormality can press a button to stop the entire line, expose the problem, and have it resolved immediately. Amazon has no production line; it applied the system to customer service instead. The system is said to have originated as follows: Amazon requires all employees, including executives and founder Jeff Bezos, to spend a few days in customer service every two years. Once, while Bezos was learning to handle complaint calls alongside an agent, a customer called about lawn furniture that had arrived damaged. The agent asked for the product number, then pointed to a website image and told Bezos, “I bet it is this lawn chair.” Sure enough, the number matched. Bezos was surprised: how did the agent know? The agent explained that the chair’s shipping box was particularly flimsy, and the carrier in the customer’s area handled packages roughly. Together, those factors made complaint rates for that chair especially high in the area. While Bezos was still thinking, the agent continued: “As required, I have apologized, arranged a replacement, and provided compensation. But it will not really help. I am sure the replacement chair will also arrive damaged next week. We have reported similar problems many times, but the process is slow. Category managers review products with high return and complaint rates monthly. Meanwhile, we frontline agents can only watch one customer after another suffer the same problem, powerless to help.” This reportedly infuriated Bezos. Despite strong resistance from sales and pressure over financial costs, he pushed through the Andon system, empowering frontline agents to take a product offline immediately whenever it met the criteria, however popular it was. This forced the people responsible to resolve the problem promptly. In his book Shiyongzhe Jingying Feilun (使用者經營飛輪), former Amazon China vice president Zhang Sihong says he witnessed Andon’s power firsthand. Shortly after joining Amazon, he was listening to calls at the Chengdu customer service center. Chai Jing’s Kanjian (看見) was then a bestseller. A customer called to complain that pages 100 and 101 in the copy received were joined and had not been cut apart. After following standard procedures—promising a replacement and a 10-yuan gift card—the young agent ended the call, opened a dialog box on the product page, and entered “Pages 100 and 101 not cut apart.” The system showed that another customer had already reported the issue. A few more keystrokes, and a bestselling book generating more than a million yuan in monthly sales was instantly taken offline, without any request for permission or approval! Zhang was stunned. What if frontline agents frequently triggered Andon, taking many products offline and causing huge losses? Who would be responsible if an action was mistaken? He subsequently learned that Amazon limited the rate of incorrect Andon actions to 2%. In other words, for every 100 actions, a thorough investigation of the service tickets must find no more than two mistaken actions. What should happen if the rate exceeds the limit? There are three options: A. Introduce an accountability system so agents bear responsibility for incorrect actions. B. Change the process: taking two or more products offline requires a team leader’s approval; five or more requires a manager’s approval. C. Train customer service staff to reduce incorrect actions. If you were responsible for operations, which would you choose? Zhang changed the process: two or more products required team leader approval, five or more required manager approval, and 20 or more required general manager approval. Anyone failing to comply would receive no leniency. In other words, he chose A and B. What happened? His boss, Amazon’s global senior vice president of operations, gave him a severe dressing-down. The account quotes the exchange vividly: “Peter, this is bureaucracy through and through! Do you really believe managers sitting in air-conditioned offices drinking coffee know more about what is happening than an employee talking directly with a customer? Why make the Andon process so complicated that frontline staff cannot help our customers as quickly and effectively as possible? If training is the problem, fix the training. If people are the problem, address the people. If the system is the problem, fix the system!” If the rate of incorrect Andon actions exceeds the limit, management must not change the process, because doing so defeats the purpose of responding quickly. Even when an agent triggers an action incorrectly, responsibility lies not with the agent but with management, which must find solutions through hiring, training, and systems. At Amazon, one often hears: “Good intentions alone are no use; building mechanisms is what works.” Andon’s essence is twofold: give employees the right tools to solve problems, and rely on frontline employees’ sound judgment. Together, these turn the good intention of “customer centricity” into concrete action. #得到頭條20221104