Michel Cuhaci ordered a book from Amazon, only to discover it was an unreadable misprint copy. He made sure that the one-star review of the book made this known. Little did he know, the Author of that book was reading the reviews. And little did he know, that author is a Certified Bad Ass.
Dan Fleisch went out of his way, spending nearly $500 to to fly to Canada, to make sure that Michel got a good copy of his book, “A Student’s Guide to Maxwell’s Equation”. Oh yeah, and this was all on Christmas Eve. After exhausting nearly every other option, he finally decided to test fate and huff it out himself.
He took another look at the weather. It appeared there’d be a break in the snow by morning.
At 6 a.m. Christmas Day Fleisch was sitting in a plane at the Dayton airport waiting to head north.
“I’m sitting there. The plane is fairly empty, and I think, ‘Am I nuts?’
Michel seemed bewildered, but more confusing than this was Michel’s reaction to the whole event.
Last week Cuhaci went back to Amazon and added a new comment about the book and its author.
“But I did not change the rating,” he said. “I want people to look at my comment and see what a dedicated author he is.”
Umm.. Michel, I know you want some light on this story, but do the man a favor and give him the 5-star rating he deserves. We’ve spoken about the rating system’s power in the past, and that amazing 5-star story s going to do a lot more for the book than an amazing one-star review. Sometimes the best customer service comes from the people behind the products, and not the businesses behind them, and Dan Fleisch is a shining example of that. Kudos.
[Dayton Daily News]
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And also, a book like that can’t possibly have a ton of ratings. I mean, it’s a guide to equations! Give the man the 5-star rating he deserves.
Dan Fleisch sounds like the coolest guy ever. Or the scariest. I can’t decide which. And what a great way to drum up publicity for his book.
I *hate* it when people give bad reviews because of things like a misprint in the book or a problem with shipping.
@MissPeacock: You and me both. I wonder if the Michel even tried to contact Amazon?
@MissPeacock: yes! I also hate when people give a PC game 1 star because they “had trouble installing it” but then say it is an awesome game with no other flaws. So one flaw = one star??
@MissPeacock: Many of the responses to the OP’s review state the same. And it seems that he got the book and gave the rating without contacting Amazon. He says that he will contact for a refund but not that he did before the review.
Excellent response by the author. Well above and beyond. And yes, the review should be changed to 5 stars.
@MissPeacock: I heard this story on NPR, and I still cannot decide if this is super-cool of the author or if it’s stalker-scary!
@MissPeacock: Dr. Fleisch is pretty much one of the coolest guy’s you can ever meet. I had him for an Intro to Astronomy course at Wittenberg University a few years back. He was easily one of the best professors at Witt.
@sdennett: The more I think about it, the cooler I think he is for doing this.
@MissPeacock: He’s definitely the coolest.
Now if he hung around like the house guest that wouldn’t leave and offered to read his entire book to Michel, then that would have been creepy…
Wow..I think the next book the guy should write should be titled “A Guide To Customer Service.”
@FoxBearDog: +1
Post a link to the review, and I think we should all head over there and rate the review “very Helpful”, so it gets featured near the top.
@FordingTheRiver_GitEmSteveDave:
Seriously
Maybe Sprint could pick him up
He’s passionate about his equations.
I’m surprised nobody has posted a link to the actual Amazon.com review yet, so here it is:
[www.amazon.com]
@IphtashuFitz: Thanks.
I can’t believe he hasn’t fixed the rating yet though…
@Rectilinear Propagation: Oh, they don’t let you correct ratings after the fact. Pooh.
i always read the 1 and 2 star ratings though.
@Elcheecho: I always read the worst / lowest reviews first, then the best ones.
This seems to have done wonders to his book sales… the good pr and buzz on amazon probably paid back his plane ticket many times over
Well, the book now has its 15 minutes of fame!
@Trick: A book like that is seriously going to need it. Maxwell’s equations are heavy duty stuff: they condense all the physics of electricity and magnetism into four brain-bending equations. There’s an apt nerd T-shirt that goes something like: In the beginning, God said ((insert Maxwell’s equations here)) … and there was light.
I have no real need for the book but I am sorely tempted to buy one.
@Yossarian: I second that – this author deserves a consumerist award. WAY above and beyond.
I never read 1 star reviews on Amazon. I find that most of the time they’re usually due to some ridiculous bias or some rare slip-up (such as this misprint, or poor service on Amazon’s part) that’s unlikely to happen.
@Eric1285: @Eric1285: I agree to a point. I look at the 1s to notice what the problems are, and if they ever get resolved. Sometimes you see a product that has a lot of 5′s and a bunch of 1′s. It usually means it is a good product, but can have issues. If the person is just ranting, I move on.
@Eric1285: I read them all. I have a kid and find the reviews very telling about how well things are made. Obviously not about a book of course…
Could have used this book in college for sure. Maxwell, then Lorentz, then Einstein all kicked my butt.
If someone could inject even 1/100th of the customer service which this author showed into the dank, dark, depths of most corporate “customer service” departments, how cool would that be…
Actually if anyone is in need of assistance with equations, I think it would be Verizon Wireless.
It wasn’t the author’s fault, but Amazon’s for shipping defective product. Why didn’t he work with Amazon to get that resolved before leaving a poor review?
Oh wait, that would’ve required effort.
I am tempted to buy the book just to support the author, what a guy. I bet he was something else in the classroom.
@CmdX: Yup, I just purchased the book now.
(Not to mention I’m an engineering student and the sample pages look AMAZING.)
Hmmm… I work at the Dayton Airport, even worked on Christmas and I don’t remember seeing him….
@dave511: I know it’s not the biggest airport ever, but it’s not that hard to believe you didn’t see him, unless you see every person who goes through on a given day.
I’m not a student, but I agree the author deserves at least 1 more book sale. EPIC WIN.
I only read the 1-star ratings on Amazon. There’s only so much “omg gret product would buy again a+++” that I can stand.
The lower ratings are more likely to be the helpful reviews.
@ChasityKliker: I look for the longer reviews because those usually explain the rating. Sometimes the longer positive reviews will explain why they disagree with the negative ones. I do agree that the lower ratings are more likely to give reasons for the rating though.
Karma would be this publicity resulting in his book becoming a required textbook in eltromagentism courses.
I didn’t know authors of math texts had so much money…
@jpdanzig: Text books are a big scam you know.
@Plates: OK, but they are a scam for the publishers, not the authors. Do you really think that math profs are making the big bucks writing textbooks?
@jpdanzig:
[consumerist.com]
are you so sure?
I am buying this book just to support the author. After the lack of customer service I just received from CapitalOne, I wish this story would be crammed down their throat. They could learn, who am I kidding? They couldn’t learn anything. It would be like trying to teach a flea about nuclear reactions. Mr Fleish, you get the bad ass of the century award! I grant you an Honorary Doctorate in customer service. Likely the only one to ever be so well deserved.
He surely could have rectified this in a less creepy way…right? I don’t like the idea of a strange person flying out to track my down over a bad review, regardless of the circumstances.
the review:
[www.amazon.com]
“I didn’t know authors of math texts had so much money…”
Yeah, seriously, i guess the recession is hitting them hard and they are pushing the loss leader methodology.
The rating says
“I would now change my rating to 5 star however the system does not allow a rating change.”
So if thats true, whats the problem, the guy cant change it? =p
@EmperorOfCanada: I’m confused by what you mean. That person is saying: I would change it to a 5 star rating, but it doesn’t allow the rating to be changed.
I think he should add another five-star review and link to it from a comment within the original, at the very least…though he does need to learn not to give it a one-star rating because of something the author had no control over. I get irked by people who use ratings to vent their issues with shipping and whatnot, instead of focusing on the actual product.
It might be good to keep it at a 1 star. When I check reviews I always read the negative first because they tend to be more honest. So if I went after that review and then read the whole story I would probably buy it without reading any other reviews.
That’s pretty damn awesome!