The Misdirect- Why Zappos Really Keeps Customers Coming Back

I have been doing a lot of reading lately on a number of different topics in regards to customer service. One concept that has really started to stick out for me is the idea you need to "WOW" your customers in order to keep them loyal to you. It seems like everyone and their brother is writing about how you need to create a customer service experience that is a "blow your mind" experience in order to come out on top. The classic example that everyone cites is Zappos and their incredibly high Net Promoter Scores. They talk about the Zappos way and the Personal Emotional Connections that Zappos is famous for cultivating. They talk about how Zappos is always trying to create the "WOW" for the consumer.

I have myself been on the Zappos tour and have visited with their Director of Customer Service on a number of occasions. And what I have come away with is less about the froth of the "WOW"and more about the basics. In short, they just make it easy to do business with them.

They put really big and easy to see pictures of their products online to see. They make the ordering process very simple and easy to understand. They make it easy to buy with free shipping both ways. They don't use an IVR to screen calls, they connect you right to a live person. They give their agent freedom to make decisions without checking with a supervisor.

See the real magic to me of what Zappos has done has less to do with helping someone order a pizza, as their CEO Tony talks about in his book, and it is more to do with Zappos knowing, in detail, the journey of their consumers. And not just knowing that journey, but making it easy at every point in that journey to make sure they get what they need. The amount of effort that I need to put out in doing business with Zappos is minimal at best. In my opinion, this is the primary reason why people go back again and again.

If I ordered a pair of shoes and they shipped me the wrong size, I wouldn't care how happy they were, how much they "WOW'd" me or whether or not they were trying to cultivate Happiness if they could not figure out how to get me the right size shoes and made it easy to make that happen. If they put me through a bunch of processes and paperwork and multiple phone calls to make it happen, I likely wouldn't do business with them again, no matter how much "Happiness" they were delivering.

What Zappos understands is how to get the basics right. First, they know their customer journey inside and out. Second, they have figured out unique or interesting ways to make that journey easier. Sometimes that involves technology, sometimes it involves policy and sometimes it just means empowerment. And finally, they wrap it all up with awesome people that are all driving to the same goal.

But lets be clear, they are not successful as a business because they simply have great people that want to make you feel Happy. They are a billion dollar company because they understood early on that being easy to do business with was going to define them as a company. Consumers tend to be happy when the basics are done well and are easy.

That is the genius to Zappos....