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Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is stepping down after 21 years

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Re: Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is stepping down after 21 years

#121

Post by Gracana »

CarbyAu wrote: post #117
tjr225 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't talk to me like a robot. Just pretend you're messaging a co-worker in plain-friendly-English. And be genuinely interested in solving my issues knowing that you will have higher LTV in the long term if you invest the time and resources to make me happy now. This is an easy thing to say as a customer or a customer success oriented person. I am leaving a support role just now. I am actually taking a pay cut to d…

For me the biggest issue was authority/power on the Service Desk. The worse cases are when the Customer Rep gets a problem from a customer they have little power to resolve. When you are: - logging tickets to a black hole of "higher tier" support with no communication back to you. - "chasing them up for the customer" aka by putting notes in a ticket ...you feel powerless. Then when the next call comes in from the cus…

As a customer, it's a painful experience when you realize the support people are in this position. I can't be mad at them, they're friendly and personable and they at least pretend to want to help, but it's obvious that they're unable to do anything useful. At a certain point (around the third three hour phone call, in my experience) it feels like they're mocking you with their saccharine lies, and I begin to loathe the company they represent.

I suppose if I was an entrepreneurial type, I'd try to disrupt industries like that by creating a company that charges extra to provide service that doesn't make customers want to spit in your face. Surely there's a market for that...

Re: Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is stepping down after 21 years

#122

Post by vandahm »

foxdev wrote: post #95
jrowley wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some companies actively solicit feedback after interactions with customer support, about the interaction. Those surveys link back directly to the agent. More generally there's also NPS.

I always give those the maximum number of stars/smiles/whatever and put the interaction in the best possible light no matter what. I always assume problems at the front line start somewhere further back.

I do the same. The people I blame for bad service are always outside my reach.

Re: Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is stepping down after 21 years

#123

Post by noisy_boy »

nkohari wrote: post #99
tjr225 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't talk to me like a robot. Just pretend you're messaging a co-worker in plain-friendly-English. And be genuinely interested in solving my issues knowing that you will have higher LTV in the long term if you invest the time and resources to make me happy now. This is an easy thing to say as a customer or a customer success oriented person. I am leaving a support role just now. I am actually taking a pay cut to d…

> even if our problems are harder and more stressful. I suspect that you're going to catch some grief for this statement. :)

I have been in dev, qa and support roles. When I write code today, I always keep in mind what steps I can take to help folks in support troubleshoot any issues with it. Having clear and informative logs, comments including wiki links for more details etc. I have a lot of empathy for support now. Once you have to baby sit an error-prone daily batch or deal with issues from users who think you aren't much use - things that basically screw up your day - you never forget.

Re: Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is stepping down after 21 years

#124

Post by dvt »

idoh wrote: post #91
dvt wrote: post #82

I want to also counter-balance the negativity towards Hsieh with my own experience. From 2015-2017, I worked at Edmunds.com which was (to put it lightly) a bit obsessed with "Delivering Happiness" and Zappos' culture. So much so, that the leadership team visited Vegas to get a tour of the Zappos HQ (this was before I joined). But Edmunds based their entire cultural approach, including hiring, interviewing, and onboar…

This is a really great comment. In your opinion was Edmunds.com able to translate this culture into business success?

It's hard to tell because I didn't have much insight (I was "just" an engineer); but I people loved working there and the folks on my team in particular were smart, interesting, and engaged.

Re: Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is stepping down after 21 years

#125

Post by throwawaysea »

Zappos is an interesting experiment but I’m not sure what to make if it overall. It isn’t ubiquitous or commonly known to everyday consumers. The model of shopping online for something that requires personal fit just doesn’t make sense to most people.

Hsieh has also made some strange choices internally like to reorganize using “circles” (holocracy). I’ve heard secondhand that this experimental approach to management didn’t work out in practice, that a lot of talent left, and that the circles ended up having organically emergent managers anyways.

Re: Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is stepping down after 21 years

#126

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

dvt wrote: post #82

I want to also counter-balance the negativity towards Hsieh with my own experience. From 2015-2017, I worked at Edmunds.com which was (to put it lightly) a bit obsessed with "Delivering Happiness" and Zappos' culture. So much so, that the leadership team visited Vegas to get a tour of the Zappos HQ (this was before I joined). But Edmunds based their entire cultural approach, including hiring, interviewing, and onboar…

> We seem to forget that people are inherently social and need a sense of belonging.

As someone who used to work at a company that also was fairly well known for its 'cultish' culture, while I agree with your statement above, I also strongly believe that the modern corporate workplace is fundamentally incompatible with the sense of social belonging that humans need. Worse, many smart people take advantage of this need for a sense of belonging with the sole goal of making more money for rich people.

Early human social groups, namely the family, village, and tribe, were strongly cohesive. You were only "kicked out" if you had made some severe transgression against the group (or you had "come of age", and needed to start your own group, which is something else entirely). You were not kicked out the second the group's profits took a dip or it was determined you were dead weight and the group you could do better without you. But these days "fiduciary duty" actually demands the group leaders take a simple utilitarian viewpoint of whether they keep you in the group.

This isn't meant to be totally pessimistic. Some of my favorite times and best friends were at companies that had a great corporate culture with a corporate mission I believed in. But these actually tended to be more mature organizations that were honest about what they were doing: being a successful business that made money, was an enjoyable place to work, and created value for customers. It's actually the 'cultish' places I find that people get extremely bitter when they leave because they were sold a bill of goods that was never true to begin with.

Re: Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is stepping down after 21 years

#127

Post by pbourke »

deepGem wrote: post #119
tjr225 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't talk to me like a robot. Just pretend you're messaging a co-worker in plain-friendly-English. And be genuinely interested in solving my issues knowing that you will have higher LTV in the long term if you invest the time and resources to make me happy now. This is an easy thing to say as a customer or a customer success oriented person. I am leaving a support role just now. I am actually taking a pay cut to d…

I work closely with support teams and it's one of the toughest jobs in tech. I say toughest because it is stressful and the payoff for that stress isn't that high. I still don't understand why companies treat support as a second class function to engineering. Engineering should in fact clamor to support to better understand customer issues and get them fixed and out of the way. I also find that support teams operate…

> Incentivize customers not to pick up the phone and call

How companies should do this: provide self-serve options for most things. Make the status of a long-running transaction transparent. Fix issues that cause people to call in the first place.

How companies actually do this:

IVR>You can find self service options on our

Customer> 0

IVR> .. site to check your ...

Customer> 0

IVR> ... transfer funds and ...

Customer> 000000...

Re: Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is stepping down after 21 years

#128

Post by meddlepal »

dboat wrote: post #107
meddlepal wrote: post #39

Worked with someone that had bought into the cult of Zappos as an HR/Head of People/Whatever the fuck you want to call it these days. They were gross. The happiness culture is toxic and if you don't buy into it and aren't projecting rays of sunshine 24/7 from all your orifices you're expected to just fuck off.

Your stance that they are overly intolerant would have more credibility if you had stated it more tastefully. As it is, you have lead me to believe your attitude was more likely the actual problem.

shrug

Re: Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is stepping down after 21 years

#129

Post by CameronBanga »

I had the chance to meet Tony in 2009, ~early July. Looking at Wikipedia now, I guess it was a month before they sold to Amazon. I was part of the first "Zappos Insights" class. I was able to find my application, and posted it on Twitter, sorry anyone who sees it who was involved: https://twitter.com/CameronBanga/status/1298465073430700033

No idea what people think of Zappos, their culture, and Tony in 2020. I was able to interact with him I guess via email and in person from ~2008-2010?

Every interaction I had with Tony, and every story I heard, he was just Tony. Personally happy for him, as 21 years at the head of any clothing/fashion/design company has to be tough.

Re: Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is stepping down after 21 years

#130

Post by fblp »

meddlepal wrote: post #39

Worked with someone that had bought into the cult of Zappos as an HR/Head of People/Whatever the fuck you want to call it these days. They were gross. The happiness culture is toxic and if you don't buy into it and aren't projecting rays of sunshine 24/7 from all your orifices you're expected to just fuck off.

Wow. In many years of reading posts on hackernews I've never seen 3 immediate replies asking if the writer of the comment is the problem, given their tone.

Thank you for calling the abrasive tone out.

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