Customer satisfaction survey is a big part of many companies’ operations. But do you know that as many as half of the so-called satisfied customers are still prone to switch? With lots of businesses attempt to improve their customer service, customer satisfaction is no longer a sufficient edge in today’s hyper-competitive marketplace. One company stands out from the crowd, however, by pursuing a happiness philosophy rather than mere satisfaction. The company is Zappos, the largest online footwear retailer. Monday marks the “official” launch of a book by the company’s CEO Tony Hsieh titled “Delivery Happiness”
What Is It About?
I consider this book a half-autobiography of Tony Hsieh and a half-biography of the teenage Zappos. It spans from Tony’s childhood all the way to when Amazon.com acquired Zappos as its wholly-owned subsidiary. The book is sectioned into three parts:
- Profit, which focuses mostly on Tony’s pre-Zappos time, including his experience with LinkExchange, a company he co-founded soon after graduating from college and eventually sold to Micosoft for $265 million in 1998.
- Profit and Passion, which is what I call the Zappos era. It tells the experience of Tony investing in Zappos at the beginning with his venture fund to eventually joining the company as its CEO. It went through the struggles of Zappos as a young e-commerce company and the process by which the famous Zappos culture came into being.
- Profit, Passion, and Purpose, which covers the Amazon.com acquisition and a final chapter on how your company can establish a happiness culture.
What I Got out of the Book
OK, enough about what the book is about. What did I exactly get out of the book? I would say out of the three sections, I learned the most from the second part. I will summarize my reaction in two sentences: “Oh, Zappos was not an overnight success as I thought.” and “Customer loyalty is not just about customers.”
Interestingly, before reading the book, I had discussed the Zappos.com case study in my MBA class. From the case study, it seemed like Zappos was an overnight success from zero sales growing to over $1 billion+ in no time. But now reading the background story of how the company got here, it was way harder than I had imagined. The company’s business model morphed from the original drop shipping idea to eventually completely warehousing their own inventory. The focus on customer service also did not start right at the beginning. It was part by force (for financial reasons) and part by choice that Zappos eventually became a strongly customer-focused company. There is an important message in this for all start-up companies: Don’t worry about getting everything right at the beginning; it’s the small steps that you take along the way that count. Of course, it is important to choose the right area (or the right table in Tony’s poker term) to do business in. But if you are already sitting at the right table, the rest is about playing each hand consistently and trying to learn with each success and mistake. If you cherish the individual steps and learn along the way, more likely than not, you will come out ahead.
“The brand is just a lagging indicator of a company’s culture.” — Delivery Happiness
The point that strikes me the most throughout the book, however, is that happiness (and loyalty) is not just about a particular group or type of people but about an entire ecosystem. For Zappos, that involved at least the employees, the customers, the vendors, and the investors. This is not so hard to understand. If everyone around you is suffering or unhappy, unless you are incredibly out of touch, you probably will find it hard to stay happy. I once heard that the friends of happy people also tend to be happier. Translating this to the business environment, your customers are much more likely to be happy if your company is a happy company. How do you become a happy company? By hiring happy employees and keeping them happy, by treating your suppliers and vendors in such a way that they will be happy to do business with you, and probably not as obvious, by yourself being happy. When you have created this ecosystem of happpiness, having loyal and happy customers will only be a natural byproduct. An MBA from a top b-school may give you an edge in knowledge. But eventually it is the simple principle of doing the right thing that really matters.
What Do I Think of the Book?
This book was not as enlightening as I had expected it to be, probably because I already pursue a happiness philosophy in my own life. But for those who have been struggling in the corporate world and are wondering why you do what you do everyday, it is a good wake-up call that you may be sitting at the wrong table and setting your eyes on the wrong thing. And if you are struggling with unhappy and disloyal customers, rather than merely addressing the symptoms, the journey really needs to start from within, within yourself and within your company. Only then, a true purpose can be discovered about your own life and your company, and everything else will fall into place.
You Want to Read the Book?
When I received my advance copy of the book, the publisher also gave me three extra copies for me to give away to my readers. So if you are interested in reading the book, please fill out my contact form. In your request, please briefly describe one small change that you can make to get yourself or your company happier. The first three readers to do so will receive a free copy of the book.
Here is to happiness!