Sep 29
How Zappos Built a Billion Dollar Company through a Customer Focused Culture
Customer Service Experience, Webinars 15 Comments
The fun and unique Zappos office environment
Discover how customer phenom Zappos.com grew their gross merchandise sales from $1.6M in 2000 to over $1 billion in 2008 by focusing relentlessly on customer service.
Rob Siefker of the Zappos Customer Loyalty Team discusses the Zappos commitment to WOWing their customers through service, how they retain repeat customers, and what they do internally to inspire the Zappos culture & core values.
During this webinar you will learn:
- How Zappos WOWs customers every day
- The power of repeat customers and word of mouth
- Why the Zappos culture = delivering happiness
- Seven steps for building a brand that matters
Watch the recorded version here
If you missed the webinar, the recorded version is available here. Share your thoughts and continue the discussion here.
A copy of this presentation is available in our SlideShare profile.
Rob,
Thanks so much for doing the webinar. I have heard from different people in my organization that we want to be more like Zappos and listening to you I believe we can be provided enough uppoer management joins in the effort. I do have two questions for you.
THe first question is about staffing and phone queues. How many calls does your team take a day and what kind of ASA metric are you running at and driving for? Since people on hold are not usually happy people I would think you had very low ASA targets. I can spend an hour on a call, make that one person extremely satisfied but what have I just done to all the people that were on hold.
Are there times in the call center when there are no calls waiting in queue with agents available? Most of the time this is called utilization and I wanted to know if you have any targets for this percentage to help prevent burnout and keep ASA down to a targeted level.
Thanks again
Jeff
Recently I wasn’t able to find my shoe in the right size at Zappos. The CSR informed me that I could find the same shoe, in my size at a competitor’s website for 25% less! I thought this was brilliant, and really put the customer’s needs first. It built incredible loyalty on my part, in the end I bought a different pair of shoes from Zappos, but I didn’t forget this kindness from your rep. Bravo! As a professional marketer, I will take a page from your book.
Not a question, just a true story: I ordered once at 1am and had it at my front door the SAME evening. From Kentucky to Virginia in 16 hours….Zappos is amazing!
For those interested in the Zappos Culture Book, please email Rob at rsiefker@zappos.com and provide a physical mailing address.
To schedule a Zappos tour, please email Rob at rsiefker@zappos.com.
How do I convince my CEO and CFO that I need some software tools so we can deliver better service? We have an edict from our CEO to cut our service costs in Q4. Where do I start?
I notice that you communicated your core values about 7 years after your founding. Our company is about 7 years old right now and I can imagine that there would be some change management challenges associated with focusing on a set of core values. Any pointers from what you learned to avoid some missteps?
Jennifer, thanks for your question.
All of us want new and exciting tools, and they can be extremely helpful. At Zappos, one of our values is to “Do More with Less,” so we find ways to get things done with the resources available. The business environment is tough these days and spending money may not be possible, or it may be too large of a risk for your organization. I don’t know your circumstances, but it’s important to have some documentation as to why you think the tools will help you reduce costs on the long run. Right now, you may have to bite the bullet because the money isn’t there to spend, and/or the horizon to see the return on the investment is too far out right now to justify the decision. While right now may not work, tomorrow may. Once you’ve established a case that makes a lot of sense then you can start asking when the environment may be right for moving forward with certain tools or technology. Also, don’t get too frustrated. You’ve got an edict now, but put yourself in the position to make progress in the future.
Lee,
Honestly, we didn’t really have trouble with change management or really worry about it too much. In some ways the Core Values didn’t change anything. They just took what was around us and put it into words. Our culture was already alive and energetic. We weren’t trying to change our culture; we were defining our culture. The Core Values have helped us stay aligned with what we want the company to be. As we’ve grown, the values have been a great starting place to describe the culture to new employees and anyone who’s crazy enough to be interested in us.
There are some things I would recommend though. First, don’t make the process of defining your culture and values a top to down process. All of your employees need a voice. If they don’t get that voice then you will have change to manage. You also won’t get the same level of buy in. #2, celebrate your values in real and tangible ways. #3, use your values in conversations when making decisions. These values should be your compass, especially if you’ve decided they were important enough to publish. #4, be serious about evaluating employees as it relates to the values of your company.
The most important thing I can recommend is to make sure that your values do not become irrelevant. They need to be important now, and they need to remain important in the future. Best of luck!
Rob
Jeff,
Thanks for your question! We have an 80/20 goal for phone calls. So, we want to answer 80% of our calls in 20 seconds or less. Our call volume range during this time of year is 5-7k calls per day. During December that will increase quite a bit and we’ll take upwards of 9-10k on peak days.
We allow for our employees to take however much time they need on the phone with customers, but that doesn’t mean a lot of calls will end up taking an hour. Our average call time still stays within a consistent range without having to focus on managing call times. Who are we to say a customer only needs or deserves a certain amount of time? They’re our customer! There are other things we can better manage to make sure that we are there for our customers when they need us, and for whatever amount of time that may be.
There are small periods of time when calls may not be in queue, but we don’t want that to happen a lot. We have lots of built in activities in the call center that also help us out with so called “burnout”. We don’t just forecast and manage to the volume we expect, but we also build in a buffer to make sure we allow for other activities. Happy employees are essential to great customer service!
Thanks for your questions!
Service is a great competitive advantage- but all companies say they give great service. How do you hook customers initially?
Does Zappos outsource any part of Customer Service? If so, what part, how much, how is it doing? If not, was this discussed and why not?
Hi Jennifer,
We hook our customers in a variety of different ways. First, we use our powers of mind control to sway customers to shop with us. Just kidding, but if customers call, they will receive world class Zappos service, and we don’t just say it, we actually mean it. We have a very thorough recruiting and training program to insure that we have folks who really want to help our customers. Our quality assurance program for the CLT(Customer Loyalty Team) is centered around what we call PEC(Personal Emotional Connection). So, we ask that our CLT folks create a comfortable and fun conversation with customers. Also, if they catch something interesting during a chat, like the customer is having a wedding, just had a baby, graduated from college, etc., we encourage them to hone in on that and then show the customer some extra love; this might involve sending a thank you card, a congratulations card, flowers, or a “Wow” package(Zappos culture book, t-shirt, stickers, etc).
If the customer doesn’t contact CLT, our warehouse hooks customers by shipping orders incredibly fast, usually within one business day. Even though customers receive an email notification advising them that their order will be received in 4-5 business days, they typically receive it quicker and then they are Wow’ed. Customers can also return merchandise for free within 365 days, so they love our flexibility.
Lastly, Zappos.com com has a huge selection of merchandise and customers are thrilled to have such a large mix of products to buy, which they may not find elsewhere.
Please let me know if you have any further questions. Have a great evening!
Thanks.
Hi Robin,
Outside of using some of our private label resources at another location for reporting purposes, all of our Customer Service is done in-house at our Henderson, Nevada location. We want to insure that the best possible service is provided to our internal and external customers and the only way to guarantee it is to own our service. Zappos customer service standards are incredibly high and from what we’ve observed in the business world, there’s always something lost when a third party company is trying to help accomplish someone else’s goals.
Our culture is a top priority and trying to instill our “Wow” service and core values with another company would be no easy task to undertake. Being a “Zappos’er” definitely requires a certain type of personality and I’m not certain that we could find the qualities needed using the outsourcing avenue to keep our culture strong. Check out our Zappos Core Values link online; this may put things in better perspective for you:
http://about.zappos.com/our-unique-culture/zappos-core-values
Please let me know if you have any further questions.
Thanks.
What are some of the questions that HR uses to evaluate culture fit?
Hi Matt,
For the culture interview, we basically frame our interview around our 10 core values and spend about an hour asking specific questions about each value to assess a candidate’s fit. For example, we are all about service at Zappos so, in looking at core value #1, Deliver WOW through service, we ask questions about the best and worst service a person has received and why? We ask for examples to illustrate their view of customer service and how they’ve exhibited great customer service in the past.
Or, for Adventurous Creative and Open-Minded, we ask candidates to rate themselves on a scale of 1-10, how lucky they feel they are. We pulled this question from a study that was done showing a correlation between people who feel they are lucky and people who are creative and can think outside the box.
Or, for Create Fun and a little Weirdness, we ask on a scale of 1-10, 10 being highest, how weird are you? Now, there is no right or magic number we are looking for. But, if someone says 0, they probably would hate working at Zappos. If they say 10, they are probably too weird for us. It’s more the way the person responds to the question. Someone who gets upset and flustered at having to give a number is probably not right for us. Someone who laughs and then responds, probably is.
Or lastly, for our core value of Build a positive team and family spirit. We ask candidates if they ever socialize with people they work with outside the office. A standard or canned interview response is either “no” or if “yes” it’s only within reason and keeping in mind there is a professional line that can’t be crossed. For us, this is a potential red flag as we expect employees to socialize to build that team spirit.
Thanks.