Vale Tony Hsieh
“Without conscious and deliberate effort, inertia always wins” Tony Hsieh
Over the weekend, I read the sad news that Tony Hsieh, the almost legendary former CEO of Zappos, had passed away at the far-too-young age of 46.
I have referred to Tony Hsieh on countess occasions over the years to clients and people attending our workshops. He was such a reference point to business owners for his attitude to people, his commitment to innovation and his relentless — even obsessive — belief in customer service.
To me, he has been a business guru of the highest order and one whose practices are an example to anyone in business, be it large or small.
When Zappos was in trouble early in its life, he changed the communication from being purely online to one where customers would phone to place orders. This allowed the company to establish a relationship with its customers by speaking with them, rather than the transaction being entirely remote.
(Being open to do things differently — to get out of the comfort zone of current thinking — is essential for the growth of any business.)
He famously allowed his customer service people to talk to a customer for as long as it took, for the customer to be happy with the outcome. The record, by the way, is six hours!
(You can maintain a relationship (of sorts) via online, but its is very difficult to establish and nurture it.)
To get over the problem of the reluctance of people to buy shoes without trying them on, he introduced free shipping. While this was costly, it allowed customers to buy several pairs and return those unsuitable at no cost. As a result, both sales and customer loyalty skyrocketed.
(A constant review of existing strategy is integral to success.)
The way Zappos has been able to obsess over customer service has been by obsessing over team culture. Training and creating a workplace where people love their work have been at the forefront of the success of the business.
In doing some further research before writing this brief article, I found one written by Hsieh himself. Of course, it goes further than I have and, apart from customer service, culture and staff engagement, talks further about management, values, leadership and business strategy.
https://hbr.org/2010/07/how-i-did-it-zapposs-ceo-on-going-to-extremes-for-customers
Of course, Tony Hsieh didn’t know me from a bar of soap, but I feel I knew him. Many of us are much the wiser and can make improvement to our own businesses from his wisdom.
John Matthew
johnm@switchdirections.com.au
