I was devastated to hear the news over the weekend that the legendary entrepreneur Tony Hseih tragically passed away. Tony was best known as the former CEO of Zappos, which he sold to Amazon for $1.1B in July 2009. He made an enormous impact on e-commerce, customer service, and company culture. Marketers can benefit greatly from some lessons from Tony's legacy. Here are a few. To learn more, you can also check out Tony's book, Delivering Happiness.
#1: Happy employees are critical to gaining happy and satisfied customers
Tony was a big believer in the value of company culture to deliver long-term business results and the idea that "Your company culture is your brand, and your employees are your brand ambassadors." Based on this idea, Zappos created 10 core values that would guide the employee decision-making process, giving them clear values to work off of. Zappos also provides incredible benefits to all employees and focuses on training them. Employees are given "Zollars" to reward colleagues when they do something in line with the company values.
#2: Customer service is key for longterm growth
Zappo's philosophy is "Zappos.com is a service company that just happens to sell shoes." This reinforces their value of providing the best customer service possible. In fact, Zappos gives customer service reps the freedom to make decisions on how to keep customers happy. There's a powerful story of a Zappos customer who returned shoes who were supposed to be for her dad who suddenly based away, so she reached to Zappos to return them. The Zappos customer service rep, on top of creating a seamless return process, sent the customer flowers to express sympathy for her loss. It is believed that this customer became a lifelong customer after this interaction because of the kindness that Zappos treated her with.
#3: Invest in developing talent
Zappos historically doesn't hire as many experienced workers. Most are hired at an entry-level and then Zappos provides extensive training to help build their skill set with an eye toward Zappos unique culture. This is important because it reinforces the importance of investing in talent and giving talent opportunities, especially in underserved areas (Zappos famously moved their headquarters to Las Vegas).
Marketers can take a cue from Tony's book and understand the importance of culture for a company's business and brand. I hope that Tony's incredible career and lessons live on.
Sources:
- https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/28/obituaries/tony-hsieh-dead.html
- https://hbr.org/2010/07/how-i-did-it-zapposs-ceo-on-going-to-extremes-for-customers
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