ZAPPOS WAC

Question 1. What makes Zappos customer service so special?

1. Zapposs customers are loyal, 75% of Zapposs purchases come from old
customers
2. Zappos focused on delivering outstanding customer service to make the online
shopping experience as easy as a visit to the retail store.
3. Call/contact center representatives (CLT) handled an average of 5,100 calls per
24-hour day. The CLT members were problem solvers since they could solve
questions from customers who could not answer for themselves using Zappos
website.
4. CLT members help customers find shoe brands Zappos didnt carry, they were
instructed to use the internet to search for the shoes at multiple competitors
website.
5. Their call center employees arent rushed to end calls and can stay on the line until
the customer's conflict is resolved. They are authorized to take as much time as
necessary to assist customers with their orders, answer their questions and
troubleshoot their problems.
6. Zappos CLT members were responsible for wowing customers with their
outstanding service. They are also supposed to establish a personal emotional
connection (PEC) with customers.
7. Going out of the way for exceptional service. Handwritten thank-you notes to
customers and bouquets of flowers or boxes of candy in sympathy or celebration.
8. Zappos also likes to upgrade as many orders to rushed shipping because they
believe every customer is a valued one.
Question 2. What organizational choices help Zappos deliver superior service?

1. Getting $1.1 million in venture capital funding from Venture frogs who
specialised in early stage internet, e-commerce, and information and
telecommunications technology companies.
2. The company employed 300 call centre staff for 24 hours a day.
3. Adopting the 10 core values and promoting company culture.
4. Hiring people who passed both the traditional skill-based interview and
the culture interview only and whose thinking aligned with the core
values of the business.
5. Giving 4 weeks of paid training and requiring all the employees to follow
the pipeline so they were ready to provide excellent customer service.
6. This made the employees cross-trained by developing training
programs.
7. Operational activities were streamlines by
a. having separate warehouses for receiving and returning goods
b. making their fulfilment centres as foreign trade zones
c. Using foot pedals to move boxes
d. processing incoming merchandise within 24 hours time it comes off
the truck
e. assigning a license plate number to each product
f. use of static racks, carousels

8. Purchasing the Kiva robot system to automate the storage and retrieval
system.
Question 3. What is the role of culture at Zappos?
Culture plays an integral role at Zappos and therefore is a part of their 3C strategy.
Mr. Lin believes that every employee should be fit for the culture. The company has
taken feedback from all the employees in a 1 year period and made 10 core values
which everyone at Zappos should adhere to.

1. Deliver WOW through service

2. Embrace and drive change
3. Create fun and a little weirdness
4. Be adventurous, creative, and open-minded.
5. Pursue growth and learning
6. Build open and honest relationships with communication
7. Build a positive team and family spirit
8. Do more with less
9. Be passionate and determined
10. Be humble

Zappos believed people should be friends at and outside of workplace and wanted
people to not separate their work life and their personal life. They believed Zappos is
a lifestyle.

Unique points of Zappos culture:

1. Three-ring circus ambience, costumed skeletons, shoeshine stand in the

lobby, popcorn machine, arcade game.
2. Monkey Row under dense plastic vines, greetings by workers and parades.
3. Taking constant feedback by asking them to describe their culture.
4. Confession bell by Dr. David Vic.
Hiring
5. Initial application crossword puzzle and offbeat questions, personal theme
song, weirdness scale.
6. 2 stage interview skill based interview and cultural interview ( only
employing happy people)
7. Behavioural questions to check if the applicant opposes any core value
8. 2000$ to quit job in first week.
9. Developing positive feelings by giving courses and meaning that anyone can
become a manager. ( Pipeline)
10. 225 hours of core level training.

Question 4 How did Zappos reconstruct the online shoe retailing?

Before the entry of Zappos (before 1991), shoe retailing was majorly offline and
even the online platforms were unorganized and did not have all the varieties,
shoe sizes etc. One of the major problems faced by the online shoe retailers was
that people mostly used their platform to search online and then go ahead and
buy in the brick and mortar stores.

Zappos revolutionized the online footwear retail market by:

1. Being the largest shoe store having more than 1,200 brands and 2.9 million
pairs in stock.
2. Providing the best customer service amongst the competitors
a. Free shipping
b. Shopping experience close to the real offline store experience,
c. Detailed product descriptions
d. shoe size templates
e. live chats with customer support
f. 24 hour call center.
3. Carrying no inventory when the organization wasnt powerful enough to
minimize risks.
4. Motivating and training their employees to give superior customer service.
This was done by creating an excellent work culture that other companies
tried to incorporate.
5. They achieved operational efficiency through a lot of data collection to ensure
no failures and taking correct decisions according to the current needs.
Question 5. How does Zappos make money?

1. Sale of
a) footwear
b) clothing (5 % of sales)
c) handbags
d) accessories
e) sunglasses
f) athletic wear
2. Maintaining excellent customer relations- repeat customers account for
75% of the sales.
3. Expanding from just a shoe store to other categories enabled them to
expand their customer base therefore making more streams of money.
4. Zappos made $66 million in 2009 in apparel sales