Remember to provide details that offer a sense of the scale and impact of the issue you describe within your response. Similar details would be offered in the executive escalation communication plans you would be responsible for at Amazon. This question offers an opportunity to demonstrate your critical support process knowledge as well as your ability to communicate effectively to an executive audience.

"I am currently a program manager for a social media company. We deliver targeted marketing to our customers through partnerships with various retailers. We had over 300 retailers submit advertising content during the holiday season last year. At one point, our CMS system that manages the content went down, and the ads within the app were static until we could resolve the issue.

Given the reach of our social platform, the executives at the retailers were very concerned with our ability to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Some of them were promoting deals that were very time sensitive and they were experiencing loss of revenue as a result.

I began working on an executive communication plan as soon as we knew about the issue. In addition to ensuring our executives that we mobilized experts to troubleshoot the issue technically, I wanted them to be aware of our plan for working directly with the retailers and the CMS system vendor. It was important they knew we were tackling the issue holistically. I also outlined what we needed from them in terms of executive support.

We resolved the issue within a five hour window, and I then worked to document summary impact information and perform root cause analysis. Finally, I partnered with several groups to develop the communication plan for taking accountability for the issue with our retail partners and outlining our plans to avoid similar issues in the future."