Set clear expectations for new hires surrounding it, trust your employees to deliver it, celebrate it and innovate on your customers' behalf to nail it. Apples social media strategy is extremely unusual. 10 Examples of How Zappos Marketing Strategy Makes a Difference We welcome your comments on the format at hello@chattermill.com or message us on LinkedIn. They put the contact information at the top of every single page of their website, because they actually want to talk to customers. Lets listen in on Madison, an experienced and proficientZappos employee whos working the phones when a customer calls in, distraught over the challenges of finding a comfortable shoe in narrow for an upcoming family wedding. The year was 2000, and it was pretty much impossible for Zappos to raise any money from VCs. Tony Hsieh Reveals The Secret To Zappos' Customer Service - Forbes I and the rest of the Zappos recruiting team are constantly thinking of ways to wow new candidates while they're still in the hiring process. Before Zappos, Tony Hsieh learnt a hard lesson. Through her conversation with her customer, Tommy, Kelli learned that Tommy is in the military. Especially a company that has proved the quality of its customer service has to be accessible. 4. We originally published this post on September 9, 2016, and we updated it on February 6, 2019. They have been successfully executing their marketing strategy with a social focus since the first days of social media. Company-wide, it is a daily quest for every employee to WOW customers in new and wonderful ways. So, we listened to our customers and came up with a solution: We would allow customers to order the same shoe in multiple sizes to try them on in the comfort of their homes, with free shipping and free returns. To live and deliver WOW. A lot of customers order as late as midnight EST, and are surprised when their orders show up on their doorstep eight hours later. One of the primary lessons in our new hire training is the importance of personal emotional connections (PEC) with customers. If we missed our numbers even by a small amount, the banks had the right to walk away from the loans, creating a possible cash-flow crisis that might theoretically bankrupt us. When agents always have to ask for approval or squirm around policies, they dont feel trusted. Live Content: Micah Solomon Speaks on Customer, Live VideoMicah Solomon Speaks on Customer Service, Your Customer Is The Star: An eBook From Forbes. The chalkboard has a second sector of hand-drawn stats that youll never see compiled at any other contact center, these telling how many flowers, cookies, postcards and unnamed wow gifts have been sent to customers in the previous month and previous year. Paying employees to quit; offering customers free shipping both ways and a year to make returns;. Join us on our mission to build the first Unified Customer Intelligence Platform, Read the latest coverage about Chattermill in the news. Its known for being a little bit weird and they are always looking for ways to improve company culture, no matter how unconventional or counterintuitive the approach may be. Putting customers at the heart of everything and Delivering Happiness is its main motto. Job candidates are thoroughly interviewed and screened to ensure their values match those of Zappos. 2. Those values are set up to reflect everything Zappos does, including how they interact with customers, how they interact with each other, how they interact with vendors and business partners. Combined with the free 2-way shipping, this takes away the customers' risk and makes it convenient for them to order as many shoes as they want, keep the ones that fit, and return the others at no additional cost. Zappos runs at 60-70% agent occupancy rather than industry norm which is somewhere in the 80s. Meet Zappos. Technology is starting to replace many conventional human interactions, but is that a good thing? To assure both current and potential customers you have their . Above all, because the company believes culture is an essential part of the business, it has become the brand book. You have the customers undivided attention for five to ten minutes, and if you get the interaction right, what weve found is that the customer remembers the experience for a very long time and tells his or her friends about it. The success of online shoe retailer Zappos has been well-documented: It went from a struggling start-up in 2000 to getting acquired by Amazon in a deal valued at $1.2 billion in 2009. Our busiest time at Zappos is the holiday season; during that period, all employees take at least 10 hours of customer service calls -- myself included. All Zapponians know that delivering amazing customer service is what's at the heart of our organization. By And, they rally every employee around those core values and shared purpose. We focus on making sure we have a great service-focused culture. Ten lessons Zappos can teach us about staff and customer - Econsultancy A company has to utilize its marketing budget judiciously to move a customer from awareness to the purchase phase. Today they are worth billions of dollars, and have become one of the most recognizable brands in the world. Running a warehouse 24/7 isnt a cost effective strategy when it comes to running a delivery business. Cannabis Testing Emerges As Crucial Service, Generative AI: Why An AI-Enabled Workforce Is A Productivity Game Changer, Surprising Economists, Small Business Surges Across America, Yes, The Midwest Is Different: Tech, Infrastructure And Values Mark The Rise Of A Corn Belt City, The Son Of A Single Mom, He Rose From Poverty To Lead One Of The Worlds Largest Foundations, Why Change Management Skills Are Essential To Data-Driven Success, A New $500K Accelerator For Black Founders Opens In Brooklyn. So whats the story behind their rise to become the most loved e-commerce brand on the planet and whats their secret to delivering a brand powered by customer experience? Depending on where you live, your monthly mortgage payment can be as low as $1,700 or as high as $3,600. . In fact, the right customer service strategy can - and should - support your sales. If Zappos had to provide 247 customer support, the employees should feel comfortable being in a city that operates 247. But what it does require is breathing space. A lot of customers will order five different pairs of shoes, try them on with five different outfits in the comfort of their living rooms, and then send back the ones that dont fit or they simply dont like - free of charge. Were talking about the challenge at Zappos of competing directly with its overlords at Amazon.com, often selling the exact same items, and sharing the same technological backend. Candidates have to pass both sets of meetings to be hired. Bad Weather Won't Ruin Your Vacation Anymore , Retirees Are Earning Up to $20,000 Per Month With. Four hours does seem long to me on the email front (I counsel customer service consulting clients that every hour seems like a day in internet time; after just a couple hours not hearing from you, customers start to assume that a companys never getting back to them), but more, I was impressed that the Zappos volume is weighted six- or sevenfold toward the telephone as opposed to email or chat. When evaluating Zappos' social media customer service strategy from this view, you may have noticed that it has a lot of visibility on social media. The customers now do not have to worry about the fit, design, or comfort of the shoes and try out all the options at home. Strategy & Insights Design products people love, increase market share, and build enduring brands that accelerate growth. In a world where most consumer products spend most of their marketing on paid advertising, Zappos does the complete opposite. Here are the four KPIs they use to monitor, track and improve performance: Measuring Call Quantities Zappos's longest call on record lasted more than eight hours, and guess what? It acts as a medium for the employees to freely express themselves, and a way everyone can get a pulse of where the companys culture and core values stand. When your absolute bottom line is, as it is at Zappos, to make an emotional connection with each caller, it creates great variability in call length. For example, Zappos offers free shipping both ways to make transaction as easy as possible and risk free for customers. Always providing 110% service; even when it wasn't expected of them. Zappos releases a culture book every year. And yet, Zappos is a household name one that reached $1 billion in sales in less than 10 years. Zappos considers this customer service strategy as a marketing expense towards customer acquisition and the results are visible in the overall increase in the customer lifetime value. Today Zappos is world renowned for its culture. Unfortunately, the internet connection, ironically, is terrible, and we never get to see the full segment. Starbucks has mastered the art of value-based pricing. They had the foresight to invest in what was at the forefront, for the long-term; something we can all learn from and apply in our own organizations! 1. Zappos crossed the $1 billion gross sales mark in 2008. 5 Businesses That Aligned Customer Service With Sales (& What - HubSpot They agreed that high-quality, empathetic customer care executives are essential to achieve this. 50% of the customers shopping from Zappos do return for further purchases. Theyve done a lot of revolutionary things that customers love and achieved the feat of outdoing Amazon in terms of being the most customer-centric online company. It lists three categories of customer interaction, each sporting a Zappos z for good measure: For each of these channels, someone has written in the number of customer inquiries received for the day (yesterday), and the average time it took for Zappos to respond. They found a true, congruent partner that would not only safeguard the business, but exponentially increase its value. Companies are often more focused on acquisition than retention, but Zappos has turned this on its head, looking to market itself through quality of service. 5 keys to extraordinary success at Zappos - The Business Journals Customer Service: It should always be capitalized. 5. A full tour of the campus? Indeed, Zappos can boast customer retention rates of 75%, while staff rates are 85%, figures not many other firms can match. And, that often means connecting with customers outside of their short customer service interactions. But because we felt they werent a culture fit, we were willing to sacrifice the short term benefits to protect our culture (and therefore our brand) for the long term. - Tony Hsieh, CEO @ Zappos. Navigating legal and regulatory changes can be challenging, but it's fundamental for entrepreneurs to ensure that their businesses are compliant. Because their phenomenal customer service speaks for itself. Is AI the death knell for traditional supply chain management? 2) Customer Service Strategy- Theoretical Foundations: 3) Zappos's Expansion: 4) Zappos' Marketing Strategy: Zappos.com Information: Download these Free EBooks: 1. No need to check with anyone else. Here's Where Average Monthly Mortgage Payments Are The Lowest in The U.S. Succcessful eCommerce case: the history of Zappos - Oleoshop Surprisingly, it had nothing to do with shoes. In fact, Zappos has a dedicated space on their website where agents can share their customer stories. This kind of personalized marketing is a smart move because it boosts customer acquisition . It starts with a great hiring process. Do reach out to Arjun for discussing conversion of ideas to business, cross-mentoring, IoT topics, or random chats about anything and everything. I'm Buying Your Customer Experience, Not Your Product. Zappos.com (Zappos), the top online shoe retailer,1 is ranked 31 on Fortune magazine's 2013 "Best compa-nies to work for" list,2 on which it has been for five years. In the context of Zappos, a company whose stated purpose is "To Live and Deliver WOW," "wow" is typically delivered over the phone, the humble vessel that Zappos considers to be its most. These insights can be used by the entire team to allocate resources more efficiently and hone in on the priorities behind logistical, product, and marketing strategies which drive the companys value generation. The phone is. Zappos was started in 1999 as an online retailer for shoes in San Francisco, USA. But thats followed by a second interview based purely on cultural fit. One of the highlights of Zappos Customer Service Strategy is their 365 days Return Policy. It was acquired by Amazon in 2009 for $1.2 billion on the condition of not diluting the company culture. Zappos customer service has one, simple goal: to deliver customer happiness. They also believed that outsourcing customer service would be outsourcing their core strength. Zappos developed a set of key values that lives at the heart of their company culture. Crew, Target, L.L. Yes, they are the eCommerce identified as the one with the best customer service in the world. And, her simple act of kindness boosted the morale of his entire unit. Zappos loosens the reins and putsemployees closest to the customerin control of the customers fate. And they offer employeesvaluable incentives, like: continued learning through Zappos University, the opportunity to find a new career path with internal Shadow Sessions, a network of life coaches, flexible work schedules, and volunteer opportunities. Agents are available to text daily from 5am - 8pm PST. They dont follow conventional thinking when it comes to building a business. After this, Kelli recruited help from her fellow Zappos agents, and they sent dozens of packages, supplies, and thank you cards to all the soldiers at Tommys base for the holidays. Were actually experimenting with ways to get more people to call because its such a valuable marketing and brand builder for us.. In a time with an ever-changing landscape of regulations, staying ahead of legal and regulatory changes is critical to safeguarding your business's success. With the shops not yet open, one could still buy the shoes online but it is a tougher challenge than waking up for a jogging session! The digital wave has brought the customers closer to brands making customer interactions more frequent and real-time. A strong customer service strategy is not just a feel-good factor notionally but also makes good business sense with enough supporting data to it. It takes tons of training and coaching (or untraining, according to Hsieh) to empower employees to make in-the-moment decisions that benefit customers AND the company. The company's entire strategy is to create loyalty through incentivizing 'wow' moments and emotional connections. The new approach was very successful, and Zappos scaled it by insourcing operations to increase efficiency and by expanding the product line to handbags, eyewear, and other clothing, to benefit. Set up programs where peers can recognize one another for providing great customer service. make employees happy, so they can make customers happy. Develop a spirit of camaraderie. Every Zappos employee we encountered seemed to be genuinely interested in helping us answer our questions . - Hubspot. If the employee doesnt take the payout after two weeks, Zappos leaders introduce them to an entirely human way of work. In fact, it's the Zappos company purpose: "To live and deliver 'WOW! The reason that wow fails to take root or be sustained at most companies is that success here requires the support of an entire organization, all the way up to the highest levels of leadership. Website Planning and Creation Customer Service Strategy- Theoretical Foundations: "Customer is King" is a timeless and worldwide business motto! It's not your customer's job to tell you what they need -- it's your job to predict those needs. With online shopping growing by the day, Zappos is well-positioned as it begins its third decade. In the business universe, at a micro-level customer is like the nucleus of an atom, and at a macro level, the customer is like the center of the solar system. Screening for culture and values alignment is as important as screening for technical skills. They offer everyone $2,000 to quit. Its almost like the whole industry has conspired against people with narrow feet. Who would want to buy shoes online people thought? The first is to assess the candidate's technical capabilities, making sure he or she can actually do the work the position calls for. 101 W Washington Street, Ste. At Zappos, we encourage every employee to bring their whole self to work. And they test new employees commitment byoffering them $2,000 to quit after 2 weeks of training. Were not talking about the happiness that comes with a casual 15-minute phone or email conversation. 3 Ways Companies Can Stand Out With Customer Service Tony Hsieh is sporting a Mohawk, the first Ive encountered atop a gainfully employed billionaire. The flowers arent what mattered here most. Ultimately, the customer regained hope that the upcoming wedding would be other than a torture-fest, at which point, browsing together while still on the call, Madison and the customer managed to find a new, likely candidate for pain-free but dressy footwear. The dot com bubble had just popped and even if someone wanted to raise money as an internet company. And those agents thrive in a culture built on empowerment where theyre encouraged to make incredible connections with the people who reach out to them each day. See the customer reality with Unified Customer Intelligence. While such wow actions do cost the company some money, as a general rule, wow customer service doesnt have to cost moneyat least not directly. Well, thats good newsbut, seriously, what did they talk about? I persist. But that employee empowerment doesnt come naturally. Zappos doesnt make it hard for customers to get in contact. What a lot of people dont know is that the real reason Tony and his founder ended up selling the company was because company culture had completely gone downhill. After 2.5 years he sold Link Exchange sold to Microsoft in 1998 for 268 million dollars. But thats exactly what Zappos has done. PDF Zappos - Deloitte Don't force your customer service representatives to jump through multiple hoops before they can get approval to give their customers what they need -- give your employees the power to make executive decisions and watch your customers smile. Zappos, the online shoe retailer, is legendary for its employee culture and customer service. We make sure that employees are here for more than just a paycheck. You should think long-term and continually innovate, recognizing that some of your new ideas may take five years or more to come to fruition.