Question

Shoes, not the most exciting product category, right? Try telling that to Tony Hsieh (pronounced Shay), CEO of Zappos.com. In less than a decade, Hsieh has built Zappos into a billion dollar business through delivering a vast selection of shoes, clothing, handbags and other products (over three million items available) and unsurpassed customer service. The company was acquired by Amazon in 2009 and operates as an independent entity. Mr. Hsieh is a self-professed scholar of “happiness” and, as part of his vision to create the world’s most customer-centric online company, aims to deliver “Happiness in a Box.” This three-part formula is to: 1) meet expectations by delivering the right items, 2) meet desires through free shipping, free return shipping when necessary and a 365 day return policy and 3) often delight customers via surprise upgrades to overnight shipping (four to five day shipping is standard).

The Zappos customer experience (obsession) is all about developing relationships, emotional connections and high-touch “WOW” customer service. The Zappos program for customer service is summarized below:
> Make customer service a priority for the whole company, not just a department
> Make WOW a verb part of your company’s everyday vocabulary
> Empower and trust your customer service reps
> Don’t measure call times, upsell or use scripts
> Don’t hide your 1-800 number
> View each call as an investment in building a brand
> Celebrate (company-wide) great service
> Find people passionate about customer service
> Give great service to everyone: customers, employees and vendors.

To Discuss: (Answer 2 of the 5 questions below and reply to 2 or more comments by classmates)

1. What prevents other companies from adopting customer service best practices (review the
nine guidelines)?
2. How can the Zappos philosophy of creating exceptional value be adopted by your company?

Answer 1

1. What prevents other companies from adopting customer service best practices (review the nine guidelines)?

In any organization, customer service is thought to be a departmental job rather than a responsibility of the complete company. It is thought to be a job to be done by customer service department and does not need the entire company participation, whereas, customer service should be responsibility of the entire company. Many a times, there are customer issues which requires more than 2-3 departments to be involved for solving the same. A timely resolution from all departments will give a better customer experience.

Companies love to hear the word WOW from their customers, but do not want to make it a part of their everyday vocabulary. This might be because of the fact that they do not deliver the ultimate customer experience through their customer service and do not expect customers to say WOW every time the service is delivered.

Many a times the companies do not trust their Customer Service Reps (CSR) to deliver what they expect from them. This might be due to lack of training part or lack of on-job training being imparted to employees and therefore, the company fears that the CSRs might fail to deliver the ultimate service experience to their customers thus distrusting their own staff.

CSRs are usually measured on their on-going call times and therefore, they are in a hurry to deliver the service they have been asked to within stipulated time period. In the stipulated time period, they might be able to satisfactorily answer the query or might not answer the query thus bringing down the customer satisfaction level of the service. Companies should ask their CSRs to be free of any talk time limits and seek to make long time relationships with their customer and up-sell their products to the customer and use the script sometimes.

Companies should not hide their toll-free numbers from the customer due to fear of inundation of customer calls. Instead, they should endeavour to deliver the best customer service, sales and after sales service that the customers do not have the need to call the customer service department. The CSRs should be trained to give one-call solution and thereby cut the repeated calls in CSR department.

The CSRs should be trained in such a manner that they build long-time relationships with the customers calling in rather than treating each customer as just an issue. They should help the customers with the problem, listen to them emphatically and then after resolving the query try and make small conversations and up-sell the company products to them as per the customer needs and give them options. This way, each CSR and worker of the company should be the brand ambassador of the company and manage to build the brand image.

The services provided by the company and any appreciation should be celebrated in all the branches of the company. Everyone should know about the particular CSR who has won accolades for the company and thus company should recognize and applaud the efforts put in by the CSR to win these accolades

Companies when hiring people for customer service department just hire people as CSR. They do not look for people who have passion for customer service and neither are they concerned that how will person fare as a CSR. Therefore, the company should hire and invest in training and other needs of people who are passionate for customer service.

Companies should treat all their stakeholders with great service, be it internal (employees, vendors, suppliers) or their external customers. Once their employees, vendors, suppliers will be satisfied and happy with the company, they will be delivering great service to the external customers and earn a WOW every time they have customer service issue.

2. How can the Zappos philosophy of creating exceptional value be adopted by your company?

Companies can adopt the core values of Zappos and invest in their employees and ensure that the employees and other internal stakeholders are happy and satisfied. They should also make customer service a responsibility of the entire company rather than of just one department. It should not be a liability where the company feels that the customer should not call in, they should flaunt their toll free number for their customers and endeavour to make long-lasting relationships with their customers which will be better for the business and other prospective opportunities. They should look for passionate people for delivering best customer service.