Amazon Introduces Mayday, A Unique And Amazingly Useful Live Tech Support System For Kindle

Live support has always been a dream for major retailers. While chat solutions already exist, today Amazon announced a new support service available on Kindle HD products called Mayday. It is a single-click, hardware-support solution that lets users work with a remote tech support representative to solve problems with their tablets.

The service allows you to see the remote tech support person in a small window on your screen and also displays your screen on the support person’s computer where they can watch what you’re doing online, annotate the screen, and even tap through the interface. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said it’s like “actually very similar to having someone standing next to you” and offering tech support.

The service is unique to Amazon, and the company built a full infrastructure to support it at their HQ in Seattle and on board the hardware. By compressing the video signals, they are able to send more data to the devices from tech support and allow tech support to see the data remotely. Amazon’s goal is a 15-second response time, and they will ramp up staffing around major holidays when Kindles are flying fast and furious under the Easter tree.

While some may be concerned about privacy, rest assured the support person will not be able to see out of your camera, and you can mute your audio at any time. Bezos equated the experience to going into a store for tech support. “If you went to some physical store location to ask for help for your device, they’re going to see everything,” said Bezos. More important, however, is how many people the service will help.

“Are we in charge of our devices or our devices in charge of us? Getting good tech support isn’t easy, but it’s important,” he said.

The service will be available on the new Kindle Fire HDX tablets. You can read more about the service at Amazon’s Mayday page.