The  Zappos  Experience  FAQ’s      "How  empowered  are  Zappos  employees  to  make  customers  happy  -­  in  other  words,  does  the  customer  loyalty  team  get  to  'make  the  call'  with  difficult  customers?"    Yes,  the  team  has  full  authority  to  do  what  is  necessary  to  wow  a  customer  (one  of  the  core  values)  but  they  must  all  do  so  by  doing  more  with  less  (another  core  value).    CLT  members  escalate  calls  as  they  need  and  review  great  calls  and  challenging  calls  with  their  supervisors  to  continue  to  develop  their  skills  at  handling  all  types  of  callers.    "Any  tips  for  standing  out  in  offering  above  the  average  support  to  customers?"    Yes,  nail  it  operationally.    Get  it  right  and  make  it  right  quickly  and  graciously  when  you  get  it  wrong.    Consistency  of  service  execution  and  swift  service  recovery  is  the  low  hanging  fruit  for  most  businesses  today.    "How  much  money  does  Zappos  spend  on  things  like  sending  flowers,  inserting  a  Red  Bull,  etc.?  I  think  a  lot  of  companies  would  like  to  be  cool  and  random  like  that,  but  it  costs  a  lot.  I  wonder  what  the  intangible  value  is  of  doing  that?"    Zappos  arranges  most  of  these  opportunities  as  trade  outs  with  partners.    Here  is  a  link  to  an  example  of  how  Zappos  arranged  a  flip/flop  insert  partnership  through  the  learning  channel:    http://zappified.com/flip/index.html    Think  of  the  gain  if  you  can  leverage  partnerships  to  surprise  and  delight  customers  

         "In  your  opinion,  how  did  Zappos  handle  their  customer  experience  with  the  recent  hacking  incident?"    They  were  swift  to  disclose  to  customers  openly  what  they  knew  about  the  breach.    I  think  they  struggled  to  handle  the  volume  of  questions  which  in  turn  shut-­‐down  their  call  center  and  made  all  communication  go  through  email/twitter.    I  think  that  was  less  than  optimal  and  not  the  way  leadership  would  have  liked  it  to  occur.    “What  were  the  experience  outcomes?”    Ease,  Engagement  and  Advocacy  (for  all  stakeholders)      “How  do  you  build  a  sense  of  pride  and  happiness  in  your  customer  service  workers  when  your  job  is  dealing  with  unhappy  people  all  day  long?”    In  truth,  their  job  is  to  help  people  who  are  in  pain.    That  is  an  amazingly  noble  pursuit.    Mastering  the  ability  to  resolve  others  problems  is  the  foundation  for  lifelong  life  success.    I  also  think  it  is  important  to  not  let  those  people  be  abused  by  customers.    Diffusing  conflict  and  shifting  to  problem  solving  is  a  huge  interpersonal  competency  and  should  be  celebrated  as  such.    I  sense  you  have  a  compassionate  heart  that  gets  this.    It  is  a  constant  battle  to  make  your  people's  job  a  source  of  pride.    For  me,  I  frequently  distinguish  service  professionalism  from  servitude.    “Zappos  is  a  business-­to-­customer  brand,  which  feels  a  lot  different  from  business-­to-­business  brands  like  the  one  I'm  part  of  (we  sell  a  web  app).  How  does  this  translate  in  your  opinion  to  business-­to-­business  companies?”    You  know  these  distinctions  better  than  most.    Business-­‐to-­‐business  customers  are  multi-­‐level  customers  who  tend  to  have  slower  purchases  cycles  and  greater  loyalty.    They  are  less  affected  by  impulse  emotions  and  more  driven  my  thought  leadership  and  demonstrated  ROI.    All  that  said,  they  still  want  to  be  "heard  and  seen."    They  want  to  matter.    Caring  for  their  needs  is  important  but  so  is  caring  about  their  short  and  long-­‐term  success.    Emotional  value  has  a  strong  role  in  business-­‐to-­‐business  but  more  on  the  "trust"  dimension  than  on  the  WOW  dimension.              

"We  have  a  very  small  company,  but  we  already  have  a  great  customer  driven  culture,  and  everything  we  do  revolves  around  what  our  users  say.  What  is  the  best  way  to  market  that  against  our  competitors  who  have  no  culture  or  customer  service  whatsoever,  but  have  lower  cost?"    I  love  using  testimonials  from  your  customers.    Also  using  video  of  your  employees,  evidence  of  the  positive  social  contribution  you  make…all  the  intangibles  that  make  you  the  kind  of  business  that  I  would  want  to  be  associated  with.    People  want  companies  that  are  competent,  earn  trust,  make  them  proud,  and  even  better  are  passionate.    Congratulations  for  being  one  of  the  good  guys  and  my  continued  best  to  you.    “Concerning  the  pipeline  theory,  don't  you  experience  that  a  lot  of  people  want  to  do  other  things  than  customer  service?  So  that  if  you  want  to  give  everybody  a  change  to  reach  what  they  want,  you  end  up  lacking  people  in  customer  service?”    Zappos  has  made  levels  with  in  the  customer  side  of  the  business  so  people  can  progress  through  that  pipeline.    Additionally,  call  center  staff  (customer  loyalty  team  members)  are  rock  stars  at  Zappos.    The  fact  that  every  employee  has  experience  with  that  job  category  (during  onboarding)  also  validates  the  importance  of  that  function.    They  have  ample  numbers  of  career  customer  loyalty  professionals.    “How  has  the  culture  shifted  post-­Amazon  acquisition?”    Amazon  has  left  the  Zappos  culture  alone.    They  have  made  changes  in  efficiencies  at  the  Zappos  warehouse,  which  turned  out  to  be  more  disruptive  than  initially  anticipated  but  they  have  not  touched  the  Zappos  high  service  culture.    While  different  than  Amazon  culture,  Amazon  understands  Zappos  is  not  a  discounter  and  as  such  has  to  deliver  a  different  service  value  proposition.    “How  do  you  make  a  profit  on  products  with  the  service  velocity?  e.g.  365  returns  policy,  free  shipping  both  ways?”    Zappos  is  not  a  discounter.    You  can  get  product  cheaper  elsewhere  but  you  don't  get  the  perks  like  two  way  shipping.    By  charging  full  retail  they  have  margins  to  support  their  success.    Also  if  they  don't  have  to  pay  for  marketing  and  advertising  because  of  service  and  customer  advocacy  they  offset  the  benefits  they  provide.    “What  would  be  the  differentiator  between  what  has  made  Zappos  so  successful  compared  to  Starbucks?”    In  a  nutshell,  Starbucks  has  an  advantage.    People  can  have  daily  contact  with  human  beings  and  environment  that  is  tangible.    Zappos  has  to  create  much  of  the  experience  online.    At  the  same  time  people  are  more  likely  to  let  down  a  solid  product,  so  one  might  argue  Starbucks  has  a  larger  service  challenge.  

 “Does  the  employee  have  to  be  focused  on  a  sale,  or  on  a  relationship?”    Michael  the  call  center  is  viewed  as  an  opportunity  to  put  a  human  face  on  a  mostly  online  brand.    As  such,  sales  are  deemphasized  and  customer  loyalty  and  wow  is  prioritized.    “After  being  purchased  from  Amazon,  were  there  any  changes  or  improvements  made  to  the  operations?”    So  far,  Amazon  has  retrofitted  the  warehouse  to  match  Amazon's  inventory  management  system.    It  resulted  in  some  unexpected  problems  and  delays  during  the  cutover  period  but  seems  to  be  running  smoothly  now.    Future  changes  seem  to  be  directed  toward  allowing  Zappos  to  gaining  access  to  other  Amazon  products  on  the  Zappos  website.    Amazon  has  left  Zappos  service  culture  alone  since  high  value  service  is  needed  for  a  company  like  Zappos,  which  is  not  an  online  discounter  (full-­‐retail).    “As  Zappos  started  as  fully  online  shoe  store,  I'd  appreciate  if  you  at  one  point  could  comment  a  bit  on  the  "additional"  challenges  that  manufacturers  are  not  "born"  digital  face?  In  your  experience  what  are  the  additional  critical  barriers  they  need  to  overcome  to  create  a  truly  successful  retail  service  culture  online?”    Interesting  question,  I  have  worked  with  many  brands  that  have  moved  from  brick  and  mortar  to  online.    The  ones  that  had  a  great  service  culture  in  the  "face-­‐to-­‐face"  world  convert  better  than  their  counterparts  particularly  when  they  remember  the  importance  of  ease,  speed,  and  self-­‐service  to  the  online  community.    Also  they  benefit  from  dedicating  staff  to  answer  Twitter  and  Facebook  customer  inquiries  as  well  as  provide  options  for  live  chat  to  those  who  want  questions  answered  24/7.    “So  the  training  they  encourage  their  employees  to  engage  in  -­  what  the  speaker  called  "Zappos  University"  -­  how  does  Zappos  measure  the  ROI  on  that?”    Carol,  this  answer  will  not  satisfy  many  CFO's  but  it  is  the  Zappos  way.    Training  is  assumed  to  be  effective  and  need  not  be  protected  as  a  line  item  (since  failing  to  train  is  assumed  to  create  a  dinosaur  company).    Remember  a  core  value  is  to  pursue  growth  and  learning.    That  said,  they  have  metrics  around  the  degree  of  effectiveness.    Information  retained,  supervisor  perceptions  of  functional  skill  acquisition,  trainee  perception  of  effectiveness,  knowledge  gap  evaluations,  promotion  readiness  etc          

     “Zappos  clearly  have  clear  company  vision  and  it  is  clear  what  they  wait  from  each  department/employees.  Quite  often  companies  do  not  have  so  clear  targets/vision  so  what  is  the  order  company  should  start  improve  these  issues?”    There  is  a  great  Simin  Sinek  TED  talk  video  on  the  power  of  why  and  the  golden  circle.    I  strongly  recommend  it.    It  should  be  an  inspiration  for  leadership  to  set  a  compelling  why.    Once  this  has  been  viewed  it  is  a  matter  of  getting  a  team  together  to  begin  assessing  your  "why"  and  assuring  the  input  of  all  existing  employees  is  solicited.    Here  is  a  link  to  that  video….    http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html    “Coming  from  a  company  who  only  has  a  few  customer  service  agents,  how  do  we  get  them  to  relate  to  our  clients?  “    Lauren,  I  am  a  fan  of  regular  conversations  about  the  "back  story"  of  clients.    What  do  customers  value,  who  are  they  typically?  Often  call  center  staff  see  the  worst  of  demanding  clients  and  don't  get  a  well-­‐rounded  picture  that  humanizes  or  allows  them  to  empathize  with  the  need  states  of  customers.    That  is  not  to  say  customers  should  be  allowed  to  mistreat  staff,  simply  that  much  of  the  demanding  nature  of  customers  can  be  put  in  context  by  understanding  the  need  state  of  consumers.    So  client  persona  work,  sharing  all  compliments  and  forms  of  appreciation  from  customers  etc.    “Does  Zappos  use  traditional  support  metrics  like  ticket  value?”    While  Zappos  will  measure  ticket  value  it  is  not  a  performance  metric  for  call  center  staff  (customer  loyalty  team  members).    They  are  measured  on  speed  to  call,  rapport,  delivery  of  wow,  accuracy,  and  the  subjective  ratings  of  customers  who  complete  surveys.    “A  lot  of  tech  companies  nowadays  are  very  heavily  engineering-­focused,  rather  than  customer  focused.  How  do  you  infuse  those  companies  with  customer-­centricity  and  teach  them  to  glorify  the  customer,  rather  than  the  engineer?”    The  great  management  guru  Peter  Drucker  noted  we  are  in  business  to…..  Create  a  customer.    Tech  has  a  critical  role  to  play  to  serve  customers  but  not  to  serve  tech.    Great  businesses  leverage  technology  to  strengthen  the  bond  with  the  customer  not  to  complicate  it  or  building  technology  for  technology  sake.    I  talk  a  lot  bout  RTC  (return  to  customer)  on  tech  investments.  

“I  am  curious  as  to  how  Zappos  uses  Twitter  effectively.    I  would  love  more  information  on  that.”    Carolyn,  Zappos  dedicates  staff  24/7  to  answer  the  Zappos  handle  Zappos_service.    They  also  troll  other  Zappos  handles.    That  staff  is  responding  to  twitter  and  doing  live  chat.    They  identify  service  problems  get  back  to  the  person  immediately  and  use  DM  to  route  the  problem  to  better  resolution  channels  (email  or  phone).    Just  track  Zappos_service  for  a  while  and  you  will  see  it  in  action.      “With  out  limits  on  the  call  times,  would  you  say  that  their  service  might  suffer  because  of  hold  times?”    While  call  times  are  not  measured,  call  wait  time  is  (as  is  speed  to  next  call).    Realize  everyone  at  Zappos  has  been  trained  to  answer  phones  (as  part  of  onboarding)  and  as  such  they  can  tap  cross-­‐departmental  staff  to  address  calls  when  call  volumes  increase.    Through  this  lateral  service  approach  they  avert  problems  with  wait  times  and  as  such  demonstrate  service  velocity  to  answer  calls  and  a  patience/accuracy  focus  while  on  the  call.    “What  about  employees  that  are  already  hired?”      I  am  assuming  you  are  asking  about  the  refreshing  of  culture  values  for  those  already  in  the  employee  pool.    Staff  has  monthly  discussions  with  leaders  (Zappos  did  away  with  formal  annual  performance  reviews)  where  they  talk  about  how  they  are  living  their  values  and  what  they  are  doing  to  advance  the  Zappos  culture  through  those  values.    Departments  have  a  designated  Zappos  value  for  which  they  are  chief  defenders  and  the  Zappos  values  are  inescapably  present  constantly  through  the  company’s  buildings.