Zappos Gets It or How To Create An Amazing Customer Experience

Marketing and business writers like Seth Godin, Tom Peters, Kevin Hogan and I regularly report on experiences with companies that just make you shake your head in amazement (and rarely the good kind. On Seth's blog today, he points to a site where someone memorialized their experiece with Zappos, the online shoe sales company. The blog post about the Zappos experience is very touching and a must read.

One of the most read posts on my blog is about how I was terribly mistreated at Best Buy. Best Buy still doesn't get it. Zappos on the other hand does and they did a lot of things right.

1. They recognized that a customer was important to them and they treated them like a valued friend, not a number.

2. The organization empowered their team to take actions that support customers and build brand. I'm confident not to build brand but to build relationships and because they understand that sometimes support comes from the most unexpected places in a time of need. Russell Friedman at The Grief Recovery institute will love this story.

3. They understand that marketing is about impressions . . . not multiple impressions in multiple media, but a single, highly charged emotional impression that stays with the customer forever. While I agree with Seth that Zappos didn't do this for the PR it will generate, look at the amount of PR it has already generated. Seth's blog, now mine and how many more before the end of the day . . . and the month.

I've never purchased shoes from Zappos but I'm going shopping right now because I can't wait to see what my experience is like with a company that is obviously obsessed with doing the right thing.

Congratulations Zappos! Keep setting the pace, one company at a time we can bring back service, relationships and marketing that makes good sense.

Comments

[Lisa]

Hi Dave! I found your blog through Seth's recent post. I loved your post about Zappos as it really resonated with our Company.

We had recently implemented paypal on our checkout and had an order go through but the shipping address was not captured. Unfortunately, the person who ordered was someone who had emailed prior to their order to confirm the shipment time frames. We immediately attemped to contact the person to no avail as all we had was an email address. Two weeks later we finally heard back from him. He had been unable to access regular email because he is a soldier deployed in Iraq. The purchase was a birthday gift for his wife. He was so disappointed as he had wanted it to be there for her birthday. We felt terrible considering it had been a bug in our shopping cart. We fedexed overnight the package to his wife and we gift wrapped it and included a card. It cost as much as the purchase did in the first place to do this. But we knew it was worth it, when we received the email back from him. And like Zappos, I'm sure they did it because it just was the right thing to do as we did. If good PR comes from it, then that's fabulous, but at the root, the heart needs to be there.

From the purchaser;
--
Wow! Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I'm very impressed with the customer service you have provided. I really hope my wife is as pleased with the gift as I am with the service you have provided. I promise to tell my friends of this. And yes ma'am, this eases my mind very much. Again, thank you very much.

V/R,
A