I’ve been listening to the audio book “Delivering Happiness” by Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos. His life story, never ending creativity, and continual drive to pursue his goals have been eye-opening to say the least.
I’m sure many of you know about Zappos. You may have bought shoes from them in the past. I know I have and I was always impressed with their service. One time we bought a pair of shoes and expected them to be delivered in 4 or 5 days and they showed up on our doorstep the next day!
That made me a loyal customer.
If you don’t know the story of Zappos, here is the super short version. They are a $1 billion dollar online shoe company that was built from a couple passionate people who had a vision. They wanted to sell shoes by providing customer service that was outstanding. And they have. Their customer service, as an online business, is unheard of. It has made them what they are today.
I think there is a valuable lesson to be learned here.
Instead of simply trying to promote themselves and sell a product, they started from the inside out. They built a servant focused community within the company and then took that same motto out to their customers.
They go to extreme measures to do so. Their service reps are even trained to help customers find shoes on other competitors websites if they don’t have the shoe in stock or in the customers size! Who does that?!
Zappos took Zig Ziglar’s quote “You can have anything in life you want, if you just help enough other people get what they want,” to an extreme. They served and, through this avenue, found exactly what they were looking for.
Listening to Tony as he told the Zappos story, I was struck by the reality of the impact serving others has on our lives. Not only does serving others make a positive impact on every person I serve, but it impacts me as well.
Just as Zappos served and grew, so do I when I serve others. My heart is filled, my spirit lifted. It is a win, win scenario in my book.
Question: Have you been impacted by the joy of serving or the blessing of being served? Do tell! I would love to hear your story.
Zappos is truly a great example of customer service. So much so, that they’ve developed a product to train others how to do what they do. http://www.zapposinsights.com/training
Personally, being able to serve others in some way is what really excites me! I like it so much that I even do it for free a lot.
Ryan,
Yup. Gotta say, you pretty much rock in this area! We have been so blessed by your friendship. You have served and helped us in so many ways and we truly value and appreciate it.
Thanks, Claudia! I’m really glad that I’ve been able to help/serve/encourage along the way! As another great service-oriented company says, it’s my pleasure!
wait… wait… let me guess… CHICK-FIL-A?
How did you guess? 😉
I just happened to hear my sister talking about Chick-fil-a the other day… and she said that they always come around and check on you and say, “It’s my pleasure” I thought that was so cool!
That last paragraph is powerful – I LOVE serving others and it definitely blesses me as much as or more most times than the person I may be serving – whether my family, friends, clients or a stranger. I just had a 40 minute conversation with an elderly attorney representing an entity we need to include in one of our contracts. After we discussed the contract changes – he said – (and keep in mind I’d never met or spoken to him before) so how are you otherwise today? We ended up in a lovely conversation that I thoroughly enjoyed and I felt like he just wanted to talk – a win-win. We serve others in so many ways – and simply being sensitive to needs and open to them is such a blessing to all concerned.
Ann,
I love times like that! That is the real stuff of life!
It sounds like you are in law?? Just a wild guess 😉
I used to be a legal secretary many years ago – now I work for a fireworks company!
Ann,
Wow that is cool. I guess it really gives you an extra spark in life 😉
Claudia, I am continually impressed by the learning you and Michael soak in. I just went online and reserved that audiobook from the Library! Zappos is one of those companies I’ve heard and heard people bragging about, but I really know very little about them.
As far as serving, I’ve always been the dumb guy that says “YES” when someone needs help moving. Seems like I gravitate towards serving in that area because most folks despise it and won’t help out. The older my back and I get I wonder “why am I doing this!?!?” – yet, when someone needs the help I chip in.
The flip side of the service coin is allowing others to help YOU. I admit it is hard to accept “help” from others sometimes, but by not accepting it, I am not allowing them to serve…works both ways!
Michael,
Seems you have a heart to serve 😉 That is wonderful!!! Maybe your business could revolve around that somehow…
I read this book a while ago and this company is great. It’s all about serving your people and the customer. If you do I believe profit and better results come from it.
Have you ordered your free copy of the Zappos culture book yet? Here is the link in case you have not, http://www.zapposinsights.com/culture-book
Dan, I have ordered it! Thanks for the link… I’ll get right on that… 😉
No problem Claudia.
oops I meant to say… “I have not ordered it…” 😉
What about now? I JUST ordered it. It’s crazy that they’re so passionate about their company culture that they’ll give other people a book about it…for free!
Zappos is an amazing story from what I’ve read and learned from others, but never from the book. I do need to read that… Service is everything to me… I’ve been impacted by many great and many terrible services before, and it’s left lasting impressions on me. When some painters came to paint my house, Paco (the owner) went out of his way to do extra work, more than was necessary… Like fix things along the way that were not in his job description. His service from him and his crew, made me a loyal to them. I try my best to live by the same principles… Just serve, and serve with all my heart and intentions.
Rob,
And you do exactly that! We have experienced it for ourselves 🙂
Yeah, Zappos is an amazing story. Sometimes I just think that for those big companies everything must have just been easy, or they got lucky. But no! They fought tooth and nail for that company… it was not an easy road.
And Tony… he is just like you and me! He just took action on his ideas and let himself think creatively about problems to find solutions. I really liked that!
He reads the audio book himself- which I like… cause they put a lot more emotion into the stories than another reader would.
Appreciate that Claudia, and you too are consistently serving all of us with this great content and intentional way of connecting with us. Thank you for being there.
But I agree, it’s easy to think that when a company is big and prosperous that they’re just lucky, but that’s not true… Besides, real luck from what we always hear from quotes like Seneca, and I’m sure I hear this all the time from Dan Miller is that Luck is what happens when preparation meets with opportunity…
And we prepare with our attitude of service…
Love that quote, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets with opportunity… “