Zappos carries many products, but is known for retailing shoe brands such as Kenneth Cole
Eric Anderson of Scientifically Speaking, a presentation consulting firm based in Indianapolis, IN, sent me this Business On Main video link on Zappos, the shoes company based in Nevada which has received a plethora of media coverage, to say it softly! Zappos, started by Tony Hsieh in 1999, maintains a culture of passionate employees who show not so much passion for shoes, but mostly passion for customer service. From tempting non-motivated employees to quit early with a $2000 payment to the example in the video of verifying product availability regardless of the outcome, Zappos has created a loyal customer following through extreme surprise and delight.
The example of finding a customer request in spite of sale is also interesting because it is 180 degrees from the typical business mindset, as contemplated in this Business Week comparison of The Art of War vs The Bhagavad Gita (You can read the associated Business Week article Karma Capitalism on how business is changing its inspirational imagery and references. Both articles are in the October 30th 2006 issue). Business leaders had been popular to quote SunTzu to fight "only when a victory is possible"--thus only act when the benefit, a profit, is clear in the endgame. This counters the philosophy in The Bhagavad Gita comments on doing good regardless of self-reward. Helping customers regardless of the sale is doing good (helping the customer) regardless of self-reward (a sale for your firm).
How do you bring passion to your customer service without regard of reward?
I like the blog! The links help. The facts mentioned in the blog helps add to it's credibility.
Thanks Eric. I appreciate the comment. How do you see passion as a link to customer service for your business?
[...] A potential idea is to get businesses to state what the buying experience will generally be like. Apple has done a great job of this, setting the expectation through consistent behavior of product introduction and trained store experts, and further monitoring its results to create an experience rewarded by enthusiastic, loyal customers (Monitoring results is where analytics can support a business, small or large). For even more successful example, see Zappos and its customer service experience, mentioned in this.... [...]