Conceived and founded in 1999, Zappos is a footwear company that sells shoes (and other clothing) online. They didn’t invent a new kind of shoe. Their inventory isn’t limited to a
particularly hard-to-find style niche. They just sell stuff online. That’s it.
Yet, in less than ten years, they managed to take their company to the $1 billion in annual sales mark So, what gives? When hundreds (or even thousands?) of online shops are selling shoes, how did Zappos manage to become the big dog?
Being a customer first
The idea behind the Zappos model was conceived by Nick Swinmurn, who was frustrated when he couldn’t find the brown Airwalks he wanted at his local shopping mall. The online model addressed the primary customer instinct that he shared with so many other people: I want what I want when I want it.
Based on that simple premise (and, perhaps, the huge market for footwear in the U.S.), Swinmurn contacted some investors and got the project off the ground.
Satisfying the baser shopping instincts
The first thing that Zappos managed to do was establish a huge inventory of shoes. They did this both by managing warehouse space and drop shipping. This pretty standard approach to product sourcing was sufficient to satisfy most customers’ Swinmurnlike impulse to get what they wanted.
The Zappos team wanted to make shopping easy by offering exactly what the customers wanted. It wasn’t revolutionary. It wasn’t even a little bit unique. It just worked.
Innovating experience
Zappos was selling millions of dollars’ worth of shoes within the first few years of setting up shop, but they weren’t satisfied with just providing shoes. The company was founded on the notion that the customer experience should be number one. So they put their money where their mouth was.
First, they expanded their product line to include clothing, handbags, and other accessories. More options made more happy customers. It wasn’t the expanded line that really ramped up their success, however.
They began prioritizing the experience over everything else. All of the members of the customer service team were given Zappos Twitter accounts to humanize the company. Any existing time limits for customer calls were removed. They took away response scripts, allowing their staff to interact in a more natural way. Employees were taught to pride themselves on their service.
In making these changes, Zappos was able to develop a unique culture in which the customers are not subjected to standardized company interactions. As a result, the experience from the customer side became much more enjoyable. Zappos became easy to use on the front end and a pleasure to deal with on the back end as well.
Customer service in action
As customers, we all appreciate good customer service, but sometimes its value can be overlooked. Zappos’ customer service, however, is an in-your-face asset. Curious how effective good customer service can be at attracting new and repeat customers? Consider these examples:
One customer service rep once stayed on the line with a customer for ten and a half hours.
Another sent flowers (on the company dime) to a customer returning a pair of boots because the would-be recipient of the gift died in a car crash.
A third once (unknowingly) won a bet for the CEO when he called to ask where to find local pizza places.
Imagine if you were one of those callers. Service like that would keep you coming back for a lifetime – and that is why it works.
Plain, old innovation
Succeeding in business is sometimes possible because you are creative and develop a product or service that blows the wheels off of the old model. Other times it is possible because you use those old wheels to perfection. Occasionally the innovative thing is the old-fashioned one.