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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

#91

Post by idoh »

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?

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

#92

Post by steve_adams_86 »

betocmn wrote: post #44

I grew up in Brazil, where customer service was bad-to-terrible in 90% of the companies I had to deal with. When I moved to Australia, I thought it would be a lot better. It wasn't much different. When I joined a wine subscription startup in 2016 as the technical co-founder, I wasn't just building the recommendation engine. I was also helping to pack the boxes at the warehouse. We all got fascinated with Tony's book…

I really believe customer service this effective is worth its weight in gold.

I worked on a SaaS product that was essentially a booking engine. Vacations, rentals, tours, b&bs; etc. Their product was complete shit and it was so stressful to work on. Nearly a decade of terrible choices and the wrong technologies stacked up like a card house.

The only thing that kept the customers there was the insanely talented and competent customer service. They knew the app inside and out and were able to smooth out the insane number of rough edges for new and old customers alike. When gifts were sent to the company, they were typically sent to customer service.

Everyone in CS was paid terribly. It really bothered me. The software team was doing a Bad Job and getting paid well for it, and CS was really saving everyone’s asses. Since then I look at the customer support team a lot differently.

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

#94

Post by dexterdog »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #89
gowld wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zappos was free returns.

The irony? Ppl then order more and are likely to keep more. Free returns is a means, not an ends.

Most people I know order 3 or more to try and keep the one they like returning the others. Not sure how you can compete on price when people are doing that.

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

#95

Post by foxdev »

jrowley wrote: post #90
all_blue_chucks wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you measure your customer support staff performance? Many companies fire employees for having "low numbers" but since they can't measure tone, they end up driving their reps to optimize for other factors.

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.

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

#96

Post by mdorazio »

dexterdog wrote: post #94
chiefalchemist wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony? Ppl then order more and are likely to keep more. Free returns is a means, not an ends.

Most people I know order 3 or more to try and keep the one they like returning the others. Not sure how you can compete on price when people are doing that.

Easy. Don't compete on price. Compete on long-term customer value.

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

#97

Post by Dramatize »

betocmn wrote: post #44

I grew up in Brazil, where customer service was bad-to-terrible in 90% of the companies I had to deal with. When I moved to Australia, I thought it would be a lot better. It wasn't much different. When I joined a wine subscription startup in 2016 as the technical co-founder, I wasn't just building the recommendation engine. I was also helping to pack the boxes at the warehouse. We all got fascinated with Tony's book…

Also in Australia. That's exactly the same strategy I used growing the initial version of 99 Bikes ecommerce store. CDBaby was also a big influence.

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

#98

Post by tjr225 »

betocmn wrote: post #44

I grew up in Brazil, where customer service was bad-to-terrible in 90% of the companies I had to deal with. When I moved to Australia, I thought it would be a lot better. It wasn't much different. When I joined a wine subscription startup in 2016 as the technical co-founder, I wasn't just building the recommendation engine. I was also helping to pack the boxes at the warehouse. We all got fascinated with Tony's book…

> 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 do so. Almost all of my customers speak to me in a rude tone.

I have no incentive to pretend to have an interest in their issues. I don’t think the issue is with customer support, but general attitudes among IT professionals.

On top of this, customer success is treated as a second class to engineering even if our problems are harder and more stressful. Imagine finding a bug and being blamed for the bug not being fixed while at the same time engineering is mad at you for wanting it fixed. Gross.

Anyway- support; never again.

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

#99

Post by nkohari »

tjr225 wrote: post #98
betocmn wrote: post #44

I grew up in Brazil, where customer service was bad-to-terrible in 90% of the companies I had to deal with. When I moved to Australia, I thought it would be a lot better. It wasn't much different. When I joined a wine subscription startup in 2016 as the technical co-founder, I wasn't just building the recommendation engine. I was also helping to pack the boxes at the warehouse. We all got fascinated with Tony's book…

> 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. :)

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

#100

Post by tjr225 »

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. :)

Yes, probably. I empathize with our engineers. I just wish someone would empathize with me :)
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