After reading about the company culture at Google over 10 years ago I have since been interested in the many varieties of business culture. I recently took a Business Organizational Effectiveness course and my interest has been reinvigorated. One of the companies I have admired for the last couple of years is Zappos.com. Zappos is a company that sells shoes online and was started in 1999. In just under 10 years Zappos has grown to become the largest online shoe store and this last year grossed over a billion dollars. They were just recently acquired by Amazon for 940 million dollars.
The reason I have been interested in Zappos all these years is because I have wondered how the heck a company that sells shoes and has a weird name has been able to achieve so much. The main reason I believe they are so successful is their focus on customer service. I have once read where they call themselves a Customer Service Company that sells shoes. This is the perfect explanation of who they are.
Zappos is special and I am going to try to share how. For the next 10 weeks I am going to share each one of the Zappos Core Values. If you want to jump ahead of the weekly posts go to http://about.zappos.com/our-unique-culture/zappos-core-values
Zappos Core Value #1 – Deliver WOW Through Service
At Zappos, Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing With WOW.
WOW is such a short, simple word, but it really encompasses a lot of things. To WOW, you must differentiate yourself, which means doing something a little unconventional and innovative. You must do something that’s above and beyond what’s expected. And whatever you do must have an emotional impact on the receiver. We are not an average company, our service is not average, and we don’t want our people to be average. We expect every employee to deliver WOW.
Whether internally with co-workers or externally with our customers and partners, delivering WOW results in word of mouth. Our philosophy at Zappos is to WOW with service and experience, not with anything that relates directly to monetary compensation (for example, we don’t offer blanket discounts or promotions to customers).
We seek to WOW our customers, our co-workers, our vendors, our partners, and in the long run, our investors.