Don’t be evil

A while back ago, I posted an article from McKinsey about eight business technology to watch.

In the end of the article I appended my own principle, “Don’t be evil”. I added this since I believe that companies that try to do good think will not collapse because of what they does.

Now I want to share my new knowledge about one company that does more-than-what-customers-expect. The name of the company is Zappos. Its main business is selling shoes using Internet. If Amazon is for books, then Zappos is doing more for shoes.

Zappos is a company that really put service before anything for its customer. The tagline in its home page reflects this, “We are a service company that happens to sell”. And yes, they really show this. What they do is really selling the service. You can get good shoes in many stores but not many stores sell good service. Not only they give what you can expect from an online company, they actually give more… This is kind of attitude that is NOT really expected by its customers. But who doesn’t like nice surprise? A bunch of positive testimonials shows how such attitude is missed by many people.

Its standard service is already astonishing. 4-5 days FREE delivery. Amazon (U.S) can only promise free delivery when you don’t mind to wait for more that 1 weeks. Friendly return procedure and customers even got UPS mail tags in the delivery package for FREE return shipping. We need to look hard for such service in other companies. In my experience, even if a company guaranteed easy return procedure, customers need to pay for the return shipping. I remember that there are several exceptions, but not many.

And have you found other company that asked its customers when they don’t receive your return package? Zappos is doing that. Along with that, its friendly customer service upgraded the service and gave the customer personalized service that can only be found when you’re an important customer. I don’t think customer who bought 7 pairs shoes and returned 5 of them has ever found this kind of service somewhere else. Shame German companies! Their evil-written-in-tiny-weenie-bity-and-hard-to-understand-contract-agreement trapped many foreigners and even Germans themselves.

Which companies are still providing direct phone number in the web site and actually processing each call by an operator? Zappos puts its hotline in each page of its web site and the hotline is connected directly by human. Oh no… Apple doesn’t do this. Not Paypal, eBay, or Amazon. Heck, even U.S. General Consulate in Germany processes its interview schedule with machine. Most of the time you just have to redial several times before actually speaking with a human.

原文地址：http://satukubik.com/page/2/