The Power of WOW. The Employees of Zappos.com

her: “Do you have any proof they were stolen? How do I know this isn’t fraud and you just want more boots?” (She was saying that three pairs of boots had been stolen from the spot where the delivery service had left them.)

      But this is Zappos. Our company trusts us to do the right thing, and we in turn trust that our customers aren’t trying to rip us off, either. So I said, “Okay, I’m so sorry to hear they were stolen. Do you have the order information at all? Do you know what was on there? Let’s see if we have those in stock.” I just took care of her and sent her new stuff for free. She did not expect that. Toward the end of the call she said, “Wow, that was . . . that was easy.”

      She was so happy to know that the replacements for her stolen boots were on the way, it made up for every bit of anger she was feeling. And I have no doubt she told everyone she knows that story. And I bet she still tells that story whenever she wears those boots.

      What did that cost us? Not much in the big scheme of things. But that good will goes a long way. Even I felt better after that call, like I’d done something nice and made someone’s day a whole lot better.

       We trust that people are going to do the right thing. We start out assuming positive intent, which means we don’t have to put many rules and policies in place at all.

      So instead of spending 95 percent of my time catering to compliance issues in order to deal with the five-percenters, I spend almost all of my time here working on the more important thing, which is how to make this company be a place where employees want to work.

      

       TRUST IN ACTION

       Tyler Williams

      Head of Brand Aura

       My favorite snack is Tim’s Cascade jalapeño chips.

      I’ve been here for about eight years now. Longest job I ever had. And one of my favorite stories happened when I was on Holiday Helper duty. That’s when every employee at Zappos works the phones during the holiday season, just to alleviate some of the pressure on the Customer Loyalty Team. And I do mean every employee, going all the way to the top. It’s awesome, because it keeps us all in touch and grounded. And when you’re a Holiday Helper, you’re kind of getting back into the swing of learning how to do the phones again. If you haven’t done it for a while, you’re a little nervous, and you’re like, “I don’t want to screw things up for somebody.”

      One time this elderly lady called in to return a pair of shoes, and she was really selling it, like, “My bunions hurt and I really tried to make these ones work, and I walked around the house . . .” My first instinct was to say, “Yeah, no problem. Go ahead and return them.” But when I pulled up her account on the computer there were all sorts of alerts and notes from my colleagues. It turned out this woman had bought more than 100 pairs of shoes and returned every single one of them.

      I went through the notes while she kept talking to me and making her case, and I realized there had been an ongoing argument between CLT reps over this woman for quite some time. Some of my colleagues felt protective, as if she were ripping us off by taking advantage of our free return policy. They were like, “We need to cut this lady off!” But other colleagues were saying, “Well, we’ve talked to her and she lives by herself. She has no family, she’s on Social Security, and she’s at a home. And having something come in the mail to her, even though she can’t afford to keep it, brings her happiness.” Finally I got to a note—and it was written by Tony, our CEO, who works the phones just like the rest of us during the holidays. And his note read, “Let her keep ordering the shoes. It makes her happy.”

       The bottom line is we trust our customers.

      I was like, “WOW!”

      That’s the type of stuff that makes me fall in love with the company all over again. When I see things like that happen, I’m reminded that it’s real. Everything we talk about here, all of our values: They’re real. It’s not like we’re just putting on this “Delivering Happiness” thing like a show or a stunt or something.

      The bottom line is we trust our customers. We trust that the vast majority of people in the world aren’t out to hurt anybody. If a customer is returning lots of shoes, there’s probably a good reason they’re doing what they’re doing. Do we lose some money on shipping to this one lady? Yeah. But it’s not going to bankrupt us. We’re delivering happiness. We’re making her world a little brighter. There’s value in that.

      And sure, there are exceptions to the rule. There are scam artists. There are people trying to see what they can get away with. But this company has been at the front lines of customer service for twenty years now, and, statistically speaking, the number of con artists and thieves we encounter on a daily basis is zero. It’s such a small percentage that we don’t bother worrying about them. I mean, we don’t ignore them. We don’t let them get away with it. We do cut people off. We red-flag customers who’ve done wrong by us. We’re not fools. But we don’t treat all of our customers like crooks because of those very, very few who are.