Zappos - Customer Service Done Right

My boyfriend Kevin has some mad home design and carpentry skills. As in talents and vision that you simply cannot imagine could be all wrapped up in one hot bod. In order to execute these skills he wears work boots with steel toes. He is also a super busy guy. As in the only time he sits down each day (other than the one meal he makes time for - dinner!) is from about 9-11 each night after which he falls exhausted into bed. He has a full time job in sales for mechanical type equipment and then every other nano-second he’s awake, he is working on the multiple home additions/renovations we have going on right now. So to say he does not have time to go to the store to shop for shoes is clearly an understatement. Problem is, he goes thru them pretty frequently.

That’s how he found Zappos.com I think he originally found out about Zappos from searching on the type of work book he wanted to buy. From there the rest is history, he’s now a loyal Zappos shopper, and with good reason. If you’ve read any of my other blog entries on customer service, you know how important customer service is to me. If you cannot figure out how to execute decent (if not excellent) customer service on very basic levels, you have nothing. Less than nothing actually, because news of your crappy service will get around and shoppers will go elsewhere - eventually.

Zappos seems to be the industry leader in role-model-worthy customer service and I hope other companies are paying attention. If I didn’t have Kevin’s experience as an example, I would not have believed a company (especially an online company) could really excel the way they do when it comes to service.

He needed to reorder his boots a week or so ago. He got online at Zappos.com, checked for the boots he needed and noticed that they were out of stock. He clicked on the button to be notified via email once they had been reordered. He was pleasantly surprised about a week later when he received the promised email letting him know that the boots were back in stock. He went thru a quick and easy checkout process, ordered the boots at 2:00 p.m. on a weekday afternoon and since he choose the free shipping option, figured he would be in his new boots in about a week. As he checked into his email the next morning, he noticed a shipping notice and a tracking number from UPS. More out of disbelief than anything, he logged into his Zappos account to check the status of his order and noticed that at around 2:00 a.m., his new boots were being picked off the shelf and shipped out of the Zappos factory. The UPS truck pulled up at around noon at our house and delivered the order -- the very next day. Less than 24 hours after he had clicked the submit button on the order, the product was delivered. I’d call that a customer service success story! In addition to shoes, Zappos also sells clothing, handbags and accessories.

Oh, and if you have worries about ordering shoes online? Have no fear when it comes to Zappos return policy. He did need to return a pair once and I’m happy to say that experience was just as painless as you’d expect with all things Zappos. He was able to log into his account, click on the return option and print out a pre-paid (paid for by Zappos) UPS mailing label from home. He just droped them off at a shipping location and viola, done! Their actual return policy is 365 days - who does that? Zappos does!