The next time you or someone in your household orders a pair of shoes from popular online retailer Zappos, take a close look at the package. You’re likely to find one of their core values printed right there on the box. Uncommon, yes. But Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh takes a pretty uncommon approach to everything, including customer service.
His approach has landed Zappos.com on BusinessWeek’s Top 25 Customer Service Champs, among other “best” lists for innovation and company culture. Even a segment on their extraordinary approach to customer service on TV’s Nightline, as well as the cover of Inc. Magazine’s May 2009 issue. In 2008, the company’s gross merchandise sales exceeded $1 billion. Zappos stocks millions of products from over 1,000 clothing and shoe brands, and that appears to be just the beginning. Tony shared the story behind this successful online service leader and how they grew their gross merchandise sales from $1.6M in 2000 to over $1 billion in 2008 by focusing relentlessly on customer service.
Their tagline is “Powered by Service” and they’re committed to providing the best online shopping experience possible, period. “Expedited delivery. Fast, friendly, expert customer service.” The way they see it, Zappos is a service company that just happens to sell shoes, clothing, “and other stuff”.
At last month’s ParaFest, Tony shared some of his customer service principles with Parature customers.
Back to those Zappos Core Values. Core Value #1: Deliver WOW Through Service
“We are not an average company, our service is not average, and we don’t want our people to be average. We expect every employee to deliver WOW … Our philosophy at Zappos is to WOW with service and experience, not with anything that relates directly to monetary compensation. For example, we don’t offer blanket discounts or promotions to our customers.”
Zappos has free shipping, free return shipping and a 365-day return policy. Every customer experiences “fast, accurate fulfillment”, with most customers “surprise”-upgraded to overnight shipping. (There’s a WOW.) Customers are promised friendly, helpful “above and beyond” customer service. For example, if by chance Zappos doesn’t have a customer’s size in stock, a Zappos rep will search three competitor sites for the item and direct the customer there.
What they do internally to make it happen is pretty unique. A couple examples …
Customers see a big 800 phone number open 24/7 on every page of the site. No call deflection here. According to Tony, Zappos wants to talk to customers. “The telephone is actually one of the best branding tools, if you do it right.”
In fact, every Zappos employee goes through five weeks of training, including training on culture, core values, customer service and warehouse. Everyone gets first-hand customer experience on the phone.
In addition, interviews and performance reviews for all employees are 50% based on core values and culture fit. Zappos makes sure the folks on the phone want to be there, and that passion and energy comes through on every call.
It’s working. Zappos has more than 10 million total purchasing customers, and on any given day, about 75% of the purchases are from returning customers.
Would this kind of “revolutionary” approach to customer service fly in your organization? What do you think?
If you want to read more about the company’s customer service philosophy and unique company culture, visit http://about.zappos.com.
13 Responses to “Expediting delivery of WOW customer service Zappos-style”
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
-
[...] [...]
-
[...] Look at Zappos, they are selling shoes, and there are millions of people selling shoes, but Zappos is doing things just a little different with their customer service, and they are doing fantastic! The other side of that is that many people copy and don’t ever do [...]
-
[...] more with word of mouth marketers is the strategy of using customer service as the new marketing. Zappos has built its business around a customer service culture. Comcast has focused on customer service to help repair its brand image. And, Best Buy uses [...]
It’s a pleasure to read about a company like Zappos that truly is focused on the customer experience. Now the question is how many other companies will follow suit? It could be a great opportunity for other companies to rise to the Zappos level, or only serve to widen the gap and make it all the more obvious how lacking their service is. Seems like a no-brainer to me. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go and place my order with Zappos now. A girl can never have too many pair of shoes!
Tony, you gotta write a book, do some webinars / training videos…keep up the good work
Great talk Tony. Entertaining and thought provoking.
This was a great speech at ParaFest! You really understand why Zappos is such a successful company when you see Tony. He has built a culture of customer success and every employee at Zappos understands it. Thank you for getting Tony to speak and thank you for posting this information.
Thought I’d test out some of this Zappos customer support myself. Called their customer service this morning (6am their time), got a very friendly voice on the phone. I asked if they had a brand/style of shoe I hadn’t seen on Zappos.com and sure enough, after checking that out the rep referred me to three other competitor sites that had the shoe. Way to follow through, Tony and Zappos!
Tony is an engaging speaker and totally believes that taking care of the customer now will pay dividends now and in the future for his company. There is a reason why Zappos customers LOVE Zappos, and it has everything to do with great customer service and treating people right. A simple formula yields spectacular results for Tony and his company.
There are so few companies I have never had a negative experience with, and I can definitely say Zappos is one of them. They consistently go above and beyond and therefore are a go-to online retailer in my book!
I really enjoyed hearing/seeing Tony speak. It is amazing to take some simple yet uncommon ideas and get a whole organization behind those ideals. Amazing. There is a lot more to learn!
One of favorite part of Tony’s presentation was an anecdote about their customer service being so helpful he was able to prove it through a pizza dare. The stories really define Zappos’ culture.
Personal story – I enjoyed a “surprise” upgrade to overnight shipping from Zappos on a pair of sneakers. Needless to say- I was happy.
This was a truly incredible presentation. Tony, you “get” that great service is all about culture like few people do – and there are few more powerful arguments for Zappos’ culture than reaching $1 billion in sales. Thanks for a great talk, I really enjoyed it!