Joseph Michelli, was granted full access to Zappos employees across the organization in preparation for writing his new book, The Zappos Experience: 5 Principles to Inspire, Engage and Wow. I have invited John to share some thoughts from his research with you this week.

For more information about Joseph and his book visit http://www.josephmichelli.com/

The Zappos Experience – Getting Caring Right!

It is a subtle but powerful distinction – do you care for or care about your customers?  I’m not suggesting that you can’t do both but I am asserting that most businesses struggle to do the former let alone the latter.  The “caring for” dimension emphasizes service competence while the “caring about” aspect focuses on the personalized or humanized dimensions of a compassionate experience.  In my recently released book, The Zappos Experience: 5 Principles to Inspire, Engage and Wow, I take a deep dive into how leadership at Zappos (an innovative online – clothing, shoe, and housewares provider) executes both the “caring for” and “caring about” experience dimensions of their business.

Here are just a few Zappos examples from each of these categories:

Caring for (Operational excellence committed to “getting it right” and “making it right.”)

• Obsessive attention to website loading speed
• Consistent qualitative and quantitative analysis of user website behaviour as a guide to improving user experience
• Return policies that maximize customer ease (365 days to return product with free shipping both ways)
• Tenacious focus on the pictorial, video, and content accuracy when presenting products online
• Consistent training for call-centre staff (referred to as Customer Loyalty Team members) to assure product knowledge
• Email follow-ups after customer calls and web chat contacts to evaluate customer satisfaction and engagement

Caring about (Authentic personal connections committed to delivering happiness)

• Encouraging call-centre staff to form PEC’s (personal emotional connections) with customers
• Allowing staff to find products for customers that are not in-stock at Zappos by searching for those products at competitors’ websites
• Supporting staff as they send personalized handwritten thank you notes to customers
• Facilitation of staff development of personal twitter accounts so staff can authentically connect with customers
• Dedication of staff resources to immediately engage in service recovery conversations through social media

While The Zappos Experience offers a detailed exploration of how Zappos creates a service culture that has catapulted the brand from veritable extinction to a game-changing thought leadership, Zappos really offers an opportunity to benchmark our own business practices to see how committed we really are to world class customer-centricity.  In essence, are we doing what the best of the best service companies do to engage their employees and their customers.

Much of Zappos commitment begins with how well Zappos leadership cares for and about their employees (at Zappos this has led to being chosen among Fortunes best places to work) and it travels out to decisions that affect the daily customer experience.  For example, are you willing to spend less on advertising and spend more on expediting service?  Are you allowing staff to take the time needed to address customer needs or are you rewarding rapid movement of customers through lines or phone cues (possibly at the expense of accurate service delivery)?

If you say you care both for and about those you serve, what do you point to to prove your claim?  How do you know how well you are caring?  Would your customers’ assessments align with your responses?  In the end, Zappos get it! “Caring for” builds satisfaction — “caring about” fuels loyalty!

What might you learn from Zappos?