Delivering Happiness

I finished reading a great book a few weeks ago when I was in Paris on vacation visiting my mom. It is only the second book I have *ever* finished reading in one sitting. The first book? TWILIGHT! The second? Delivering Happiness: A path to profits, passion and purpose - by Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos.com, Inc.

I was given this book at the Stay Classy awards last year where Tony Hsieh was a speaker. I've had it on my shelf for a while and kept meaning to read it 'next', and finally decided that this trip was the time to go for it. I try to alternate between business books and fun books, and since I had read a Marketing book and then a chick-lit book while in Paris, next up was a business book again. (Side note - when I came back to work after my vacation my boss and I were talking about books and I excitedly recommended this book to her .. and as it turns out she had just read it the prior week as well! And loved it of course.)

As I started to read the book I found myself turning pages down constantly. The more I read, the more I wanted to share parts (or all) of the book with someone. This hasn't happened since I read 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which I also blogged about last year. Overall the book Delivering Happiness is GREAT! Its a great story, it is insightful, funny, and inspiring. It seriously made me want to do more with my life!

I'm not a big online shopper and actually have never shopped at Zappos.com, nor did I know much about the company. By the time I finished the book I felt like a Zappos junkie who just wanted more! (On a side note, did you know that Zappos.com was purchased by Amazon.com for $1.2 BILLION in stock in 2009?!?!)  In the book they talk about how their department Zappos Insights offers company tours of their headquarters in Vegas. Guess who was going to Vegas a few days after returning from Paris?   ---> This girl!<--- I quickly requested a tour spot online for one of their three daily tours, and was SUPER excited to have made the cut! Barely! David hadn't read the book (yet!!) and seemed indifferent to the tour, but being the great sport that he is he was happy to go along with me.

A couple Thursdays ago David and I drove out to Vegas for one of my tradeshows and stopped at Zappos along the way. As we waited in the lobby I had deja-vu of some of the Bay Area start-ups that my friends had worked in back in the day. The funky, casual lobby was interesting and eclectic ... as was the rest of the building. The place was VERY 90's start-up if you know what I mean. Decorated cubes everywhere, casual clothes, games, themed meeting rooms, free food in the cafeteria, costumes, social events, random perks, etc.

The tour lasted about an hour and started with a video telling the history of the company (which I knew from reading the book), continued with a walk through the various departments, and ended with a photo session at the Zappos Royalty chair. I had a great time on the tour and though that Zappos looked like a really fun place to work. Not sure its somewhere that I would personally want to work (the cube clutter bothered me a lot and the super casual dress is not my first choice), but I like their culture and what they are trying to do as a company. 

I don't want to give away too much in the book because I really want you to read the book yourself, but here are a some of my favorite parts of the book that give you an idea of how Zappos has been successful.

Top 10 Ways to Instill Customer Service into Your Company

1. Make customer service a priority for the whole company, not just a department. A customer service attitude needs to come from the top.
2. Make WOW a verb that is part of your company's everyday vocabulary.
3. Empower and trust your customer service reps. Trust that they want to provide great service ... because they actually do. Escalations to a supervisor should be rare.
4. Realize that it's okay to fire customers who are insatiable or abuse your employees.
5. Don't measure call times, don't force employees to upsell, and don't use scripts.
6. Don't hide your 1-800 number. It's a message not just to your customers, but to your employees as well.
7. View each call as an investment in building a customer service brand, not as an expense you're seeking to minimize.
8. Have the entire company celebrate great service. Tell stories of WOW experiences to everyone in the company.
9. Find and hire people who are passionate about customer service.
10. Give great service to everyone: customers, employees, and vendors.

Zappos Core Values (more here)

1. Deliver WOW Through Service
2. Embrace and Drive Change
3. Create Fun and a Little Weirdness
4. Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
5. Pursue Growth and Learning
6. Build Open and Honest Relationships with Communication
7. Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
8. Do More with Less
9. Be Passionate and Determined
10. Be Humble

"No matter what your past has been, you have a spotless future." - Author Unknown

Interested in reading the book now? Check it out and let me know what you think! I'm curious to see if you'll find it as inspiring as I did.