Learn from Others – Zappos.com
May 11, 2009 by: admin
Tony Hsieh (prounounced shay), CEO of Zappos
I always love reading about successful entrepreneurs and CEOs of multi-million and multi-billion dollar companies.
Since I was young, I’ve been trying to decode the mindset of these type of people and learn how I can apply the good and chuck the bad that I glean from studying them.
Today, Mother’s day (happy mothers day!), is a day that my family relaxes and spends time with each other. So my day consisted of hanging out with family and then lounging in the pool reading about the CEO of Zappos.com.
Personal Experience with Zappos:
Zappos.com is one of those websites that I love to use. I buy all my designer jeans from them both for myself and my fiance’. The reason I do is because of the amazing service. The first purchase I made, I got free overnight shipping and though it was a mistake that I got the package so quickly.
Another time, I had ordered my fiance’ some diesel designer jeans which looked smokin hot. Sadly, when we got them, they just didn’t fit right. I sent them back and got credit to zappos.com with no questions asked. AND I didn’t even have to pay for return shipping! Awesome… 
Aftermath:
After reading about Zappos.com, they say that they do not advertise free overnight shipping on their site on purpose. It invokes a response of surprise and almost a feeling like you got a little something extra for nothing.
As I was reading that, I smiled realizing that I responded exactly how they had intended me to respond. That is the goal in marketing. You want to get into your target audiences mind to the point where you know what to do to invoke the exact response that you desire!
Reading page after page of this CEO’s mindset really got me thinking. He is considered a marketing guru by many and as I began to read more, it be came increasingly evident.
Employee Training:
Another interesting thing that Zappos does is have each employee go through 4 weeks of training. After the training they are offered $2000 plus time spent training to quit. They only want people with buy-in of the company.
At first I thought of all the people who would apply and then quit in hopes of getting that “essentially” free $2000 bucks. The more I thought about it, the more I realized what a great idea it was. By offering the $2000 bonus, they offered the employees a way to create a feeling of ownership of the company; it’s almost like getting initiated into a clubhouse.
Management:
Tony encourages the Managers to fool around with the employees. No, I’m not talking about that type of fooling around. 
I’m talking about just messing, joking, hanging out, relaxing, etc. In the corporate world where stress levels are high, corporate thresholds are pressed onto the workers, and there is a strict, work only policy, this company is different and is thriving because of it.
There are no scripts that customer representatives need to follow… there are no forced way of doing things. People are encouraged to be themselves.
Customer Service:
One story I read about was where a Zappos customer had purchased a set of boots for her husband. Her husband dies shortly after the purchase and the lady wants to know if she can send the boots back. The customer support representative not only allowed her to send them back but the lady received a bouquet of flowers on the day of her husbands funeral from zappos. The customer support rep had ordered them (on Zappos’ account) without permission from her manager or anything.
By doing so, the lady told every single person at her funeral. Not only did they have a customer for life (however long that was! 
) but also had 30-40 new customers.
Now that is how a business grows from a small start up to over $1 billion dollars per year in sales and having sales days over $3 million dollars (and I thought a $24,000 dollar day was a good record…)
The list of things that you can learn from that company are quite large and as most of us on this website are those trying to make many millions (or more) online it’s a great example to look to for innovative ideas.
Enjoy your Mothers Day!
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