How Zappos Differentiated Using Customer Experience

January 20, 2009

This is the story of Zappos, online shoe retailer. This isn’t a story of a rebrand, nor a marketing campaign. Just a story of how a corporation lives by what they preach – something that every business should use as a model to live up to.

A few things to note that have made Zappos one of the most customer-centric companies around.

•   They have extraordinary customer service and they garner commitment and engagement from their employees. Their belief is that you cannot have deeply engaged customers without having deeply engaged employees. They have ten values that the company lives by day in, day out.
o    Deliver WOW Through Service
o    Embrace and Drive Change
o    Create Fun and a little Weirdness
o    Be Adventurous, Creative and Open-Minded
o    Build Open and Honest Relationships with Communication
o    Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
o    Do More with Less
o    Be Passionate and Determined
o    Be Humble

•   They bribe their new employees to quit. What? Sounds insane, but it works. Their new recruits go through 4 weeks of deep immersive training. However, after Week #1 they put a halt on training, offering them $1,000 on the spot – guilt free. About 10% of new recruits take them up on this deal. Off concept, however this demonstrates the value that Zappos puts on their front line staff, and in garnering the cream of the crop. To keep this quality means raising the bonus – which once began at $100, then $500, now $1,000 and finally Zappos is considering raising it to $1,500.

•   Tony Hseih, CEO of Zappos.com admits that he cannot force culture to happen. It is part of each and every employee's job description to display and inspire the culture – including doing things because they genuinely care about customers. This last point is the most important to note because it is this sort of thinking that has given Zappos the fantastic reputation they have. Sales people don’t have scripts, time limits for taking calls in the call center, and they do whatever is necessary to make the customer happy. I think an example would paint a much clearer picture as to the Zappos culture, which will demonstrate why they are such a worldwide success.  

A woman, who just happened to be a very established blogger, bought several pairs of shoes for her mother who was terminally ill. Zappos' return policy: 15 days, they pay the shipping, but you have to get the shoes to UPS yourself. When the women received the shoes, she let Zappos know that she would have to return a bulk of them since they didn’t fit. Within days, her mom passed away pushing the return of Zappos shoes at the bottom of the priority list. When Zappos didn’t receive the shoes, they contacted her. She responded saying her mom had died and she would send the shoes as soon as she could. The next day, a UPS van to pick up the shoes. The day after, she was greeted at her door by a floral delivery man. When she opened the card, it was from Zappos offering their condolences. Of course, full of emotion she went to her blog and created a well known post called “I heart zappos”, found here .

Against their corporate return policy, their employees went above and beyond – not for PR value, not for business gain… but simply put – it’s humans acting humanly. Customer experience rating? An absolute 10!

Trina Boos
Director of Business Development / Torque Customer Strategy

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