Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh at SXSW 2009
“We run our warehouse 24 hours a day, even though that isn’t the most efficient way to run a warehouse…when a customer orders some shoes, and they show up on their doorstep 8 hours later, that really *wows* them.”
“We only show items on our website that are physically present in our warehouse.”
“We don’t have scripts, we don’t upsell, and we don’t have call times.”
“Spend as much time on the phone as it takes to *wow* the customer. Our longest call time in our history is 4 hours.”
“Every rep is trained, if an item is out of stock, to direct the customer to a site that does have it.”
“We have passed on alot of really talented people…if they aren’t good for our culture.”
“Performance reviews are 30% based on contribution to culture.”
“If you’re an accountant or lawyer…you go through the same training as the people in our call center.”
“At the end of the 1st week of training, we will pay you for the time you’ve spent training, plus $2000 - if you want to leave Zappos.” (starting pay for call center rep is $11/hr). “We keep increasing the offer, because we don’t feel enough people are taking it” (3%)
“We now have a Twitter class as part of the new hire orientation…You can see all of our employees Tweets at http://twitter.zappos.com”
They had a customer that bought a wallet, returned it, and decided she didn’t like it. However, she left $150 in the wallet. One of the warehouse workers sent the cash back to her with a letter. The warehouse worker could have easily pocketed the money and nobody would have known ($150 is significant money to a warehouse worker), but this shows what our culture is right.
“We want to own the three C’s: clothing, customer service, and culture.”
“Zappos is happiness in a box” -Zappos customer
“Committable core values: willing to hire & fire based on these values.”
“We don’t have a brand or positioning document.”
When a reporter comes to the company, rather than only having a few “official” people to talk to, they are allowed to wander around and talk to anyone they wish. Zappos isn’t afraid of what a particular employee might say.
