Amazon Touts Quick Kindle Fire HDX Mayday Response

When the Kindle Fire HDX debuted in September, Amazon launched its new 'Mayday' tech support system with the promise of a human employee at your service within 15 seconds.

Well, Amazon celebrated a Christmas miracle on Wednesday as it clocked an average response time of 9 seconds.

'We set a goal for ourselves to have a response time of 15 seconds or less when a customer tapped the Mayday button—we're proud to say that on Christmas Day we met this goal, with an average response time of just 9 seconds,' Dave Limp, vice president of Amazon Kindle, said in a statement.

The new Kindle Fire HDX 7-inch and 8.9-inch tablets come equipped with the new Mayday feature, which starts a video chat with an Amazon support rep, who can control your device, draw on your screen, and press virtual buttons.

Any questions about how the Fire HDX works, its hidden talents, or just suggestions for a new game to play can be directed to your Mayday consultant, who comes free with all Kindle Fire HDX purchases.

'We're excited that millions of customers opened a Kindle Fire tablet this holiday season, and we're glad so many customers tried out the Mayday button.'

Amazon has not revealed sales numbers for the holiday season, but did report that Cyber Monday was the 'best ever' for Kindle Fire tablets and Kindle e-readers, as 'millions of customers' unwrapped a new branded device this year.

The company unveiled its two HDX models this fall, including the $229 7-inch tablet with a 2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 1,920-by-1,200 IPS LCD display. The larger, more expensive 8.9-inch device comes with a $379 price tag, as well as the same processor and RAM, but a 2,560-by-1,600 screen.

Both sport a 1-megapixel front camera, while the 8.9-inch device also has an 8-megapixel rear shooter.

It was a banner Christmas for Amazon, which counted more than 1 million new Prime members in the third week of December, and a total of 36.8 million items ordered on Cyber Monday.

'We are extremely grateful to our customers around the world and wish everyone the very best for the coming year,' CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement.

For more, see PCMag's review of the Kindle Fire HDX 8.9-inch and the slideshow above. Also check out our Hands On: Amazon Mayday video below for a look at how the program works.