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Jun 7 2010
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Are You Delivering Happiness?

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Marketing podcast with Tony Hsieh (Click to play or right click and “Save As” to download – Subscribe now via iTunes

Tony HsiehMy guest for today’s episode of the Duct Tape Marketing podcast is Tony Hsieh, CEO of the billion dollar company Zappos.

Tony describes Zappos as a service company that happens to sell shoes online.

Extreme customer service was not the big master plan. In Hseih’s new book,Delivering Happiness, he chronicles what he terms the mistakes he made along the way in an effort to help other entrepreneurs avoid them. (They failed their way to 1.2 billion in sales)

Hsieh cites his research into positive psychology or the science of happiness as one of the factors of success at Zappos. Changing the culture to being about making employees, vendors and customers happy became the Zappos brand. Building processes to deliver happiness at every touch point is hard to do. You have to build it at the core and let the people deliver who you are. Define the core values and make it something that get amplified everyday. Hire and fire based on the core values.

You can find more about the book and Tony’s Happiness Movement at Delivering Happiness

My question is when will there be a Zappos Airline?

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  • http://www.perryawilsonconsulting.com/ Perry

    Zappos airline – sign me up. I think for all businesses, if you can't find a way to deliver happiness, you will struggle. As a project management consultant, I deliver relief and then results. How can you not be happy :)

  • http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog ducttape

    How about a Zappos phone service while we're at it

  • http://www.ccbtools.com CCBTools

    Zappos cell phone service would by fantastic and Perry Ill book a flight too on Zappos Airlines

  • http://www.ryanhanley.com/about Ryan Hanley

    I saw a TV spot about Zappos.com the other day. The talking head explained that she was on the phone with a customer service rep for 20 minutes talking about topics completely unrelated to shoes at all. At the end of the conversation she did not buy any shoes. But the experience of having a customer service rep that would take the time to have an honest discussion was Revolutionary…

    I thought that spot was amazing. I completely fall in line in Zappos.com in that taking extra time to understand your client or prospective client pays dividends that cannot be otherwise derived. The loyalty gained in those situations in unbreakable…

    Today I spent 3 minutes transacting business with a client then spent the next 25 minutes discussing fishing in the Hudson River. For ROI purposes could that time have been Spent better doing something else? I Don't Think So! That client and I now have a bond and that makes up for the 5 phone calls I could have made in that same time period.

    Great job Zappos…

    Ryan H., http://www.RyanHanley.com

  • http://www.evergreen-solutions.co.uk/products.html Green products

    wow! excellent post. I got too much pleasure by read this blog. You have done nice work. Thanks for it.

  • http://www.officedeskreviews.com LloydBurrell

    Hi Ryan,

    I totally agree with you. Bonding like this is very effective. Unfortunately, it's rare: people don't get to communicate like this from the beginning. If they would, our businesses would develop faster.

    Lloyd Burrell
    Publisher
    officedeskreviews

  • http://www.trianglefoodtour.com Peter Eckle

    To answer your question…it used to be Southwest Airlines

  • Kyle Smith

    Another well written post by the team at Duttape Marketing. I agree the delivering happiness to any type of business client is one thing. Stimulating the client into becoming a voracious consumer of your products and services is another!

  • http://www.boostpromotionalproducts.com.au/ Kyle Smith

    Another well written post by the team at Duttape Marketing. I agree the delivering happiness to any type of business client is one thing. Stimulating the client into becoming a voracious consumer of your products and services is another!

  • anthonyitaliano

    hopefully there will never be a Zappo's airline.

  • Salon Marketing

    Zappos has hit it on the hit. I like what Tony said ” we are a service company that happens to sell shoes”. If small businesses took that vision they would be a success. Marketing should be about delivering “happiness”. This was a great post and reminder.

  • http://salonmarketingtoolbox.com Julie

    This is a great post and reminder to all of us who run business. Being in the business of service is what make a business successful. Zappos has hit it on the head. Meeting our customers needs to be our first goal. Thanks for the reminder

  • http://spiritsentient.com Arthur

    To offer people $2000, after a short period of time to quit (and even after)… what an interesting thing to weed out people if they are just in there for the money… for a call center!!

    Wow, that is amazing. That`s definitely a genius idea that I love, and makes so much sense. It promotes so much loyalty and passion in employees, just… genius. I will definitely make sure SpiritSentient.com, my company, will definitely consider this idea for ourselves.

    Arthur
    SpiritSentient.com

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