In 2004 the biggest problem the online shoe retailer Zappos faced was how to staff its customer call center with dedicated, high-caliber service reps. The company’s headquarters were in San Francisco, where the high cost of living—and the upwardly mobile Silicon Valley mentality—deterred people from making customer service a career. Although it is an internet company, Zappos finds that most customers telephone at least once at some point. Its philosophy is to view every one of the thousands of phone calls and e-mails it receives daily as an opportunity to build the very best customer service into the brand.
To do that, Zappos would need to find call center reps elsewhere. But the outsourcing possibilities were disappointing, and the company’s previous experience with using vendors for warehousing and shipping had been poor. Hsieh and his team realized that customer service should permeate the whole company, not just one department. So they decided to move their headquarters to Las Vegas, a 24/7 city where employees are used to working late hours and the economy is focused on hospitality. Surprisingly, more than 75% of the staff was willing to relocate, and the company culture became even stronger as a result of the move.
Although Amazon now owns Zappos—which has expanded into clothing, housewares, cosmetics, and other items—Hsieh’s customer service still strives to make a personal connection with shoppers. He calls the Zappos reps the best in the world.
In the 11 years since Zappos was founded, we’ve had to make some big decisions. One of the most significant came in early 2004, over lunch at Chevys, a chain Mexican restaurant in San Francisco. We hadn’t expected to make a life-changing choice over a plate of fajitas, but when you’re part of a fast-growing company, a lot of decisions arise at unlikely moments.
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