The sad story turned out to be that she had bought them for her father, who had since died. So how do you maintain the culture that you want as you grow? Tony reached out to all Zappos employees, asking for their input on core values. Do reach out to Arjun for discussing conversion of ideas to business, cross-mentoring, IoT topics, or random chats about anything and everything. For the next decade, they lived and breathed customer experience. I dont know if they got bathroom breaks, says TonyJamie Naughton, Zappos Chief of Staff, breaks in and confirms that they did. Always providing 110% service; even when it wasn't expected of them. Zappos invested their money in customer service rather than in expensive marketing campaigns. They dont follow conventional thinking when it comes to building a business. The customer service strategies behind Zappos' success that you can implement today. Zappos developed a set of key values that lives at the heart of their company culture. This encourages people to leverage the advantages of online shopping and simultaneously removes the drawbacks. Then in the contact center, you have to coach your agents towards those values. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Learn to build a culture rooted in purpose and rally your agents around that shared purpose, Use Sharpen Insights to improve your interactions (not just your metrics), 4 Ways Banks Can Hyperpersonalize Customer Experiences at Scale, How to Use Data (And Your Instincts) to Evaluate Your Next AI Project, 5 Ways to Prepare Your Contact Center for a Recession. To maintain focus on the customer, they laid a few initiatives to ensure customer service was central to what they did as they scaled. As discussed in the previous section, the call center or the Customer Loyalty Team at Zappos is at the core of their business. Surprisingly, it had nothing to do with shoes. Zappos stresses fun and emphasizes customer service. Its in how we build a personal connection, primarily on the phone. When your absolute bottom line is, as it is at Zappos, to make an emotional connection with each caller, it creates great variability in call length. Try a limited version of our AI powered insight tagger for yourself below! Share that feedback with all of your employees and celebrate the happiness that they were a part of delivering. No matter how great the product was!! It sells an idea!! It was acquired by Amazon in 2009 for $1.2 billion on the condition of not diluting the company culture. In a world where most consumer products spend most of their marketing on paid advertising, Zappos does the complete opposite. This vision led Zappos to deliver happiness through the four C's: Commerce, Customer Service, Company Culture, Community. With a loyal and dedicated team, Zappos can deliver on its promise of 'Wow' customer service. Navigating legal and regulatory changes can be challenging, but it's fundamental for entrepreneurs to ensure that their businesses are compliant. The Customer Service Strategies Behind Zappos' Success After this, Kelli recruited help from her fellow Zappos agents, and they sent dozens of packages, supplies, and thank you cards to all the soldiers at Tommys base for the holidays. The Zappos leadership team has been contrarian since the beginning and have pioneered the use of social media to gather customer feedback, at a time when most other companies weren't doing that. They also believed that outsourcing customer service would be outsourcing their core strength. This pandemic made people discover their latent Mozart, Monet, MasterChef, or marathoner. >> Read Next: Learn to build a culture rooted in purpose and rally your agents around that shared purpose. Turns out, thenumber one factorimpacting an agents experience at work is the empowerment they feel to offer customers unique resolutions. Once the core values were set, we began incorporating them into every aspect of Zappos; from hiring and onboarding to tough business decisions and customer interactions, our clearly defined core values have become the core of what makes Zappos Zappos. In a time with an ever-changing landscape of regulations, staying ahead of legal and regulatory changes is critical to safeguarding your business's success. >> Learn More: Use Sharpen Insights to improve your interactions (not just your metrics). Next article, Ill revisit Zappos to consider how its proudly-weird culture does, or doesnt, fit into the customer service picture. Two battle-tested approaches to customer service are the Amazon and Zappos methods. Theyre even on the phone for two weeks in the call centre, taking calls from customers. And did they get bathroom breaks?. Id argue, in fact, that the best way to understand Zappos and its approach to customer service is by studying the chalkboard on the wall of Zappos onsite contact center. On the surface, Zappos appears to be an average ecommerce company with a presence thats comparable to competitors. . In fact, Zappos has a dedicated space on their website where agents can share their customer stories. make employees happy, so they can make customers happy. This board, the Daily Breakdown Report, is a lot simpler than the kind of call analytics youll find at traditional contact centers. Hsieh doesnt analyze every expense of customer service or thecontact center. But Why? Here are the top 5 examples of great customer experiences by brands in March. Combined with the free 2-way shipping, this takes away the customers' risk and makes it convenient for them to order as many shoes as they want, keep the ones that fit, and return the others at no additional cost. Touted as the most valuable car company in the world, Tesla firmly sticks to its zero dollar marketing. For over 5 years, and their strategies have played a significant role in their growth. Not an offer to skip the course, or take some additional holiday. How We Work | Zappos.com Create a culture of people who believe in your company's values. Dominos is not a pizza delivery company. Remember, they are not competing on having the lowest price, but 75% of customers are repeat customers - there is strong loyalty, based on customer . At Zappos, they don't measure call time, theyre longest call was almost six hours long! Contact Information | Zappos.com But our lending agreements required us to hit projected revenue and profitability targets each month. At Zappos, we developed our core values using feedback from all of our teammates. We are not an average company, our service is not average, and we don't want our people to be average. So, if telephone inquiries ever drop off from Zappos customerswhich seems likely as customer support trends continue to move toward messaging, chat, and social mediaI expect Zappos will find ways to have engaging conversations on those channels as well. The 4 Top Customer Service Screw-Ups You Must Avoid, One Company Will Pay You to Enjoy It Rain or Shine, Scheme That Caused Her to Lose Her Home of 3 Decades, 15 Best Entrepreneurial Conferences You Need to Attend, 6 Time Management Hacks to Regain Your Energy, Man Sues South Florida Beach Resort After Claiming His Foot Was Left 'Seriously Impaired' Due to 'Searing' Pool Deck, Jeff Bezos Was Caught on Video Dancing at Coachella, But It's His '$12 Amazon Shirt' That Has the Internet in Stitches, 6 Principles From the Navy SEAL Code That Will Make Your Team Stronger. Running a warehouse 24/7 isnt a cost effective strategy when it comes to running a delivery business. Christa Foley is a culture champion and adviser at Zappos. 1. They try to maximise for customer experience, which means getting orders out to their customers as quickly as possible. And that kind of restrictive environment leads to a negative customer experience. Ryo told me the story behind one of the 2016 flower stats on this board: Last year, when I was working the phones, a woman called, trying to return some boots. Your customer service and sales strategies aren't two separate ideas. When your customers experience your customer obsession, they'll talk about it, tweet about it and blog about it. Press Esc to cancel. In fact, some of our own customers expressed that concern. Refund a customer for a defective product, and then send a replacement for free. BlackRock has $7.9 trillion worth of Asset Under Management which is equal to 91 sovereign wealth funds managed. We think of Amazon as a giant consulting company that we can hire if we wantfor instance, if we need help redesigning our warehouse systems. - Tony Hsieh. 2. Build customer experience strategies backed by the data in your contact center, offering them $2,000 to quit after 2 weeks of training. Having the candidate's favorite drink ready for them when the interview starts? At Zappos, we encourage every employee to bring their whole self to work. We'll be in your inbox every morning Monday-Saturday with all the days top business news, inspiring stories, best advice and exclusive reporting from Entrepreneur. Today more than ever, customer service really matters. I think its most meaningful and useful if you take this comment both narrowly and broadly. If the employee doesnt take the payout after two weeks, Zappos leaders introduce them to an entirely human way of work. Back when Zappos was still in its infancy, a lot of people said, "No way will people buy shoes online without even trying them on." 5 keys to extraordinary success at Zappos - The Business Journals Thats because other companies hide their phone number. Moving to Vegas was also dictated by the fact that it is a 247 city, and the city never sleeps. Especially a company that has proved the quality of its customer service has to be accessible. Combined with the free 2-way shipping, this takes away the customers risk and makes it convenient for them to order as many shoes as they want, keep the ones that fit, and return the others at no additional cost. Develop a leadership purpose that combines your company goals with your agent well-being and performance to drive empowerment like Zappos. Tony Hsieh decided they needed a bigger purpose than just making money. So, we listened to our customers and came up with a solution: We would allow customers to order the same shoe in multiple sizes to try them on in the comfort of their homes, with free shipping and free returns. They encourage a fun environment filled with co-creation. In fact, Zappos commits itself to delivering wowor at least a wow attempton every phone call that employees field in its contact center, employees who are called, in Zapposspeak, the Customer Loyalty Team. At Zappos, they believe if you get culture right, most of the things - like great customer service, or building a great brand will happen naturally on its own. Zappos runs at just 60 to 70 percent agent occupancy rather than following the industry norm, which is somewhere in the 80s. Like all exceptional companies know that you cant build great products without genuinely understanding the voice of the customer. BlackRock, the story of the worlds largest shadow bank. Getting upper management invested in providing service directly to customers - by spending 6 weeks at Zappos's call center! At Zappos Insights, Foley inspires other companies to make their work environments better and more fulfilling. Merchant-focused Business & Growth Strategy of Shopify, Business, Growth & Acquisition Strategy of Salesforce, Strategy Ingredients that make Natural Ice Cream a King, Investing in Consumer Staples: Profiting from Caution, Storytelling: The best strategy for brands, How Acquisitions Drive the Business Strategy of New York Times. Succcessful eCommerce case: the history of Zappos - Oleoshop Zappos focused on providing an exceptional customer experience through fast and free shipping, a 365-day return policy, and 24/7 customer service. Improve Customer Support. We tell our new recruits that they are the empowered ones and can do what's necessary to make their customers happy. Theres the story of an agents 10-hour phone call whereservice was put before metrics. Training for wow requires ample time as well before you can put employees on the floor (six weeks in the case of Zappossix weeks that culminate in an offer of a months salary to quit if the nearly-graduated trainee feels, in their heart of hearts, that theyre not going to be comfortable going the extra mile, on each and every call. By launching a gated offer program, Zappos joins a host of other leading brands committed to deeper relationships with their customers. Introduction to digital marketing 2. P.S - We'll be publishing a bi-weekly column here on Chattermill.com presenting a brief CX analysis of thought-provoking companies and events in tech. There are concerns about fit, feel, colors, textures, and many such things. Further, we don't promote work-life balance in the traditional sense. I think the main thing is just trust [the customer service reps] and let them make their own decisions. Hear a kid in the background, ditto. Or (and this is perhaps most common), connect over the details of the customers order or the particular question or difficulty that has them calling inbut in a way that goes beyond a just the facts approach. Definitely, check. Bean, Lowe's, and Alex and Ani. However, once it starts to give fruits, you want it to reap the benefits year after year (and do not forget that the seeds from fruits can lead to further new trees word-of-mouth marketing). But thats exactly what Zappos has done. Breathing space is necessary as well when youre hiring for wow; you need the time to find the people with an aptitude for make emotional connections with customers. And, her simple act of kindness boosted the morale of his entire unit.