Saturday, March 14th at 02:00 PM
Presenter: Tony Hsieh – Zappos.com
At Zappos.com, Tony Hsieh has fostered a culture where extraordinary customer service is the norm. Hear him talk about how good deeds can help you leverage the power of your audience to massively extend your brand.
What lead Tony to Zappos.com –
- Pizza. Ran a pizza business. Had a friend (monster) who would buy pizza and then take them upstairs to sell by the slice (current company CFO)
- LinkExchange sold to MS in 1998. Customer culture was not good.
- Investment fund that included zappos.com – eventually moved to the company full time.
Customer service is the most important thing for zappos.com. 70% of orders are from repeat customers. Put marketing into customer service to have people come back instead of traditional marketing.
What customer service?
- 24/7 1-800 number listed on every page (the telephone is a branding device – doing what is right for the customer)
- Free shipping both ways
- Free 365 day return policy
- Sometimes customers are directed to competitors web sites, if something is not in stock.
- Will only show items on the site that are present in the warehouse – no back ordered items.
- Loyal customers get surprise upgrades to overnight shipping.
- Telephone Call Centers – No scripts, No call time (spend as much time w/the customer as needed to build the brand)
- Warehouse run 24/7
Customers service is NOT #1 priority – #1 priority is company culture.
- Two sets of interviews – 1 is experience – 2 is culture fit. They will not be hired if someone doesn’t do both. Performance reviews are on culture and company values.
- Everyone goes through the same training top to bottom. You work your way through phone and warehouse regardless of your job.
- After training, you get an offer – paid for training time plus $2000 if you leave right now. This filters out people who are just there for a paycheck, and don’t’t really want to be part of the company.
- The biggest benefit is from people who don’t take the offer. They need to think about whether they really want to be there. It gives them an opportunity to pause and actually think about whether or not they WANT to be there.
- Culture Book: All employees write a few comments about what Zappos means to them. It is given to perspective employees.
- Twitter is used across the company (twitter class). It’s up to them if they want to use it. It’s a good way to keep up the company culture and communicate with each other. They see each other as people and not just coworkers. They actually get to know each other better.
- twitter.zappos.com (you can follow employees)
The culture is extremely important, and will eventually converge with the brand. Thinking about airline industry, generally thought to have bad customer service. That is their brand because of the culture.
A woman bought a wallet, and returned it – leaving $150 in it. A warehouse worker sent a note back to her letting her know the money was found. The customer service culture came through. It could have been handled differently (cameras searches etc). But the investment was put into the training/hiring process and ensuring the culture which is better.
Three C’s Clothing, Customer Service, Culture they want to be known for.
- They sell clothing/shoes (Clothing)
- Experience the customer service (Customer Service)
- The culture drives all this (Culture)
Zappos is about delivering happiness (to customers and/or employees)
What is culture?
Committable Core Values
- deliver Wow through service
- embrace and drive change
- create fun and a little weirdness
- be adventurous, creative and open-minded
- pursue growth and learning
- build open and honest relationships with communications
- build a positive team and family spirit
- do more with less
- be passionate and determined
- be humble
“That’s great for Zappos but it would never work at my company.”
It doesn’t matter what your core values are… as long as you commit to them
-get everyone moving in the same direction
7 steps for building a brand that matters
- Decide!
If you are building a brand, and that is your commitment, you need to decide early and have patience - Figure out values & culture
Figure it out early, and do it sooner rather than later.
What are your personal core values?
What are the company’s core values?
The most important thing is alignment. - Commit to transparency
Be real and you have nothing to fear (use your best judgment).
twitter.zappos.com
Zappos provides an “Ask Anything” email newsletter – they can ask anything (literally) and answers are published in a monthly newsletter.
Tours are totally open to anyone to observe, or zapposinsights.com to answer questions. - Vision
Whatever you’re thinking, think bigger.
Zappos went beyond shoes (or profits) and started being about customer service
“Chase the vision and not the money” (the money will follow)
What is the larger vision of greater purpose beyond money or profits?
Motivation vs. Inspiration - Build Relationships (not networking!)
Be interested rather than trying to be interesting. - Build your team
“If you want to go quickly, go alone, if you want to go far, go together.” - Think long term
There is no “get rich quick” formula. It isn’t an overnight success.
What is your goal in life?
Find out, and keep asking “why.” It all boils down to a single answer… happiness. People are very bad about predicting what will bring them sustained happiness. There is true science behind this (just like behind many aspects of business).
What if you spent time researching the science of happiness? Is there a shortcut?
Frameworks:
- Perceived control,
- Perceived progress
- Connectedness
- Vision/Meaning
Maslow’s Hierarchy (book: Peak) – getting an employee to think of their work from job to career to calling (happy).
3 types of Happiness:
- Rock Star Happiness (hard to maintain)
- Flow (engagement time flies)
- Meaning/Higher Purpose (being part of something bigger than yourself)
Books Recommendations:
What percent of your time do you want to spend learning about the science of happiness? What is your company’s higher purpose? What is your higher purpose? It’s not about selling shoes, it’s about customer service – making customers (or yourself) happy.
Presentation Slides:
Full Audio of Presentation:
Opening Remarks mp3
More Notes:
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