Building A Customer-Focused Culture at Zappos.com

As promised, I wanted to give you some insight into the customer-centric culture at Zappos.com. Zappos is one of the fastest growing retailers in the US and on the Internet, with sales of their shoes and accessories set to hit $1 billion this year. It is run by Tony Hsieh, who gracefully accepted the invitation to write the foreword to the second edition of A Complaint Is a Gift, the book version co-authored with Janelle Barlow, of the customer service concept I pioneered back in the early 1990s.

Tony has instilled a culture at Zappos based around 10 core values, which not only guide their everyday dealings with internal customers as well as external ones, but they are also a part of the hiring process so you need to exhibit these traits if you dream of getting a job with Zappos. The 10 values are:

1. Deliver "WOW" through service
2. Embrace and drive change
3. Create fun and a little weirdness
4. Be adventurous, creative, and open-minded
5. Pursue growth and learning
6. Build open and honest relationships with communication
7. Build a positive team and family spirit
8. Do more with less
9. Be passionate and determined
10. Be humble

In addition to these 10 core values, Tony also has some incredibly good tips on how other companies can learn from Zappos and truly focus on their customers to achieve success. And what a success Zappos has become. 75% of all sales come from repeat customers and basket sizes increase from the first to the second transaction. This is all down to ensuring that the customers really do feel welcome and looked after by Zappos.

What impressed me most about Tony is his genuine interest in his customers. I read a story about how two sisters felt that they had been racially profiled by a Zappos outlet store in Las Vegas and how Tony personally dealt with the complaint along with other members of senior management. Read this inspirational tale of true customer service.

Try doing a Google search on Zappos and their customer service as well and you will find many fascinating insights into the company both from employees and from customers. The idea of doing an annual culture book is also something I like a lot, although I would like to see this being made available for free (perhaps as a PDF?)

Tony is very active on the speaking circuit and is not afraid to share the secrets of his success with people in all industries. The principles he has used to build the foundation for Zappos.com are evergreens in the field of customer service and customer relationship management and can be applied by ANY COMPANY in ANY FIELD. On Tony's blog he is more than happy to share his wisdom with you and you can watch several of his keynotes.

If you have time to watch only one, I would recommend that you watch Tony's keynote presentation below to be inspired to do something to improve your customer focus. I can guarantee you that just a tiny improvement in ONE of these areas can increase your customer loyalty and customer lifetime value (LTV) dramatically.

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More Information on "A Complaint is a Gift"

The book description page for the second edition of A Complaint is a Gift is now live at BKConnection.com and I thought I might as well just present it in the same way that Janelle Barlow and Claus Møller have over there:

• Demonstrates why complaints are the biggest bargain in market research, and how companies can use this information as a strategic tool to increase business

• Offers a complete Complaints Policy that readers can implement in their companies

• Presents dozens of real-life striking examples of poor-and excellent- complaint handling

Customer complaints can give businesses a wake-up call when they're not achieving their fundamental purpose-meeting customer needs. Complaints provide a feedback mechanism that can help organizations rapidly and inexpensively shift products, service style, and market focus. Unfortunately many businesses dodge responsibility for a customer's dissatisfaction, believing that complaining customers are trying to get something for free or that the problem is the customer's fault. Businesses who don't value their customers' complaints suffer from costly, negative word-of-mouth advertising.

A Complaint Is a Gift shifts the paradigm about how complaints are viewed by business. By presenting dozens of striking examples and research studies, Janelle Barlow and Claus Moller show that companies must view complaints as gifts if they are to have loyal customers. A Complaint Is a Gift is a "how to" book for those who want to turn complaints into a strategic tool to increase business and customer satisfaction, and to learn something new about products and services. It is filled with practical guidance:

• how to behave as if complaints are gifts
• how to use communication principles to handle upset customers
• how to respond to written complaints
• how to handle personal criticism, and more

A Complaint Is a Gift also tells how to create complaint-friendly organizations by encouraging customers to speak out. It outlines communication structures that can facilitate the movement of complaints from frontline staff to upper management, allowing customer-identified problems to be fixed within the company. Complaint-friendly cultures are described in detail, and specific structures are suggested that can be adopted by companies interested in becoming complaint-friendly.

A Complaint Is a Gift repositions the role of complaints in business-and argues that handling customer complaints is not just about making customers feel better. It is a book for individuals and companies to deal with complaints in a new and refreshing way. It also brings together three decades of customer dissatisfaction research and shows how companies can use this information to change internal policies and practices.
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The first edition has sold more than 130,000 copies so far and it's very exciting to see the buzz that is starting to build around the new edition. For more information and to order a copy see the previous post about its release.