http://mixergy.com/customers-service-zappos/ Events and Interviews for Web Visionaries. Wed, 17 Mar 2010 01:15:14 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 http://mixergy.com/customers-service-zappos/comment-page-1/#comment-6685 Building for the long term | Life Putting - Dan Putt Sun, 30 Aug 2009 23:59:02 +0000 http://mixergy.com/?p=307#comment-6685 [...] 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. [...] [...] 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. [...]

]]> http://mixergy.com/customers-service-zappos/comment-page-1/#comment-598 Alex Funk Thu, 21 Aug 2008 17:49:56 +0000 http://mixergy.com/?p=307#comment-598 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! 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!

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