Surprising Customers with Amazing Service – The Tony Hsieh, Zappos Interview
on Aug 18, 2008 - 8:09 PM PSTI interviewed Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, to find out how he took a little online shoe company and made it into a billion dollar a year online retail success story.
Here are some of the things I learned from our conversation. Download the full interview to learn more directly from Tony.
Shocking customers – Doesn’t every company say that they have great customer service? When Tony told me about the level of service that Zappos gives its customers, I tested it by conferencing in the phone number on his web site. When I asked for a pair of shoes that they didn’t have in stock, the woman I spoke to offered to find it for me somewhere else. I was shocked, but if you listen to Tony’s voice at the end of that test, you’ll hear that he didn’t find it extraordinary at all. That’s just how his company operates.
Surprise – Tony told me that Zappos tries to surprise its customers by giving them more than they expect. For example, they’ll routinely ship an order using a faster delivery method that the customer paid for. Can you imagine how excited customers get when they receive a package sooner than they expected?
Social Media – Zappos encourages its people to use tools like Twitter (see them). I tried to understand how many extra sales they got from it, but Tony taught me that’s not the way to look at it. He’s doing a billion dollars in sales, the few orders he gets from Twitter won’t impact his bottom line. But the connection with his customers is priceless. Social media, for Zappos, is about letting the world know that there are real people behind the online brand.
Right click here to download the interview
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
(Thank you Tara Hunt for introducing me to Tony.)
View Comments to “Surprising Customers with Amazing Service – The Tony Hsieh, Zappos Interview”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Andrew, great interview! We had the pleasure of speaking with a few of their UI designers and engineers about their new site design (http://zeta.zappos.com), features, marketing strategy and what’s next for them. Look for them to improve their service and customer loyalty programs over the next year even more!
August 30th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
[...] Today I was listening to an interview (yes, another mixergy interview) with Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, someone I’ve come to really admire. In the interview he tells the whole story about the founding of Zappos, how he first got involved as an investor and then later on as CEO, and how the company’s legendary culture evolved. I realized in listening to Tony talk, the key to their success, one of the key factors in the evolution of their famed culture, was the ability to think and act in the long term. I think this is one of those things that you always hear (just like following your passion) but very few people have the courage to actually do it. It’s clear that Hsieh and his team have a long term vision for the company, and they’re willing to allow it to evolve. The thing about having a long term perspective is you can absorb short term costs such as their legendary $2,000 offer to pay new hires to quit, or their 365 day return policy because over the course of 5 or 10 years those policies will pay off big. In fact in the interview Hsieh even says he could instantly add to the bottom line by shutting down their 24/7 call center, and most likely it would have very little effect on sales over the course of 6-12 months. But the worsened customer experience would eventually eat into their most valuable asset (perceived high quality of service), and start to hurt sales. [...]
May 8th, 2010 at 5:51 pm
Alex, Thank you for this insightful interview, it was highly informative. As a serial entrepreneur myself, Tony Hsieh has long been one of my heroes. In fact, for my most recent endeavor, I was being interviewed for my local college’s 'Entrepreneurship program' whereby a group of our cities top Entrepreneurs will be walking us through the process of launching our business from start to finish in 16 weeks. All the while introducing us into their network of contacts and resources from legal to marketing so we can continue to be successful afterwords. In my initial interview for the program (since they were only picking 15 out of the almost 70 that applied) they asked me what my passion was for the product I was selling (I sell a niche category of high-end women’s apparel online). They kept searching for the reason I got into the product alone. I leveled with them that it was not at all the product but the process that I love. I was ELATED to hear Tony say the same thing, “I'm not a shoe person so for me it’s not about the shoes; it's more just about the people and the start up, y’know, environment and just, y’know, facing a different challenge every day and everything being really fast moving and y’know making decisions quickly and sometimes they’ll be the wrong decisions but then changing course if they are the wrong decision very quickly. So I think just all of that is just very exciting for me.” While it could have been a little more eloquent, I knew exactly what he was saying. He's a serial entrepreneur who loves starting businesses and making them work. I am driven by that same force. Great interview, Mr. Hsieh is a brilliant person whom I aspire to be only half as successful as. Thank you again Alex.
May 9th, 2010 at 12:51 am
Alex, Thank you for this insightful interview, it was highly informative. As a serial entrepreneur myself, Tony Hsieh has long been one of my heroes. In fact, for my most recent endeavor, I was being interviewed for my local college’s 'Entrepreneurship program' whereby a group of our cities top Entrepreneurs will be walking us through the process of launching our business from start to finish in 16 weeks. All the while introducing us into their network of contacts and resources from legal to marketing so we can continue to be successful afterwords. In my initial interview for the program (since they were only picking 15 out of the almost 70 that applied) they asked me what my passion was for the product I was selling (I sell a niche category of high-end women’s apparel online). They kept searching for the reason I got into the product alone. I leveled with them that it was not at all the product but the process that I love. I was ELATED to hear Tony say the same thing, “I'm not a shoe person so for me it’s not about the shoes; it's more just about the people and the start up, y’know, environment and just, y’know, facing a different challenge every day and everything being really fast moving and y’know making decisions quickly and sometimes they’ll be the wrong decisions but then changing course if they are the wrong decision very quickly. So I think just all of that is just very exciting for me.” While it could have been a little more eloquent, I knew exactly what he was saying. He's a serial entrepreneur who loves starting businesses and making them work. I am driven by that same force. Great interview, Mr. Hsieh is a brilliant person whom I aspire to be only half as successful as. Thank you again Alex.