4 Things Every Business Leader Must Do For Customers and Employees (Lessons from Tony Hseih)
Late last year, the business community lost one of the best of us: Tony Hseih. His tragic passing reminded me of his beautiful light and I paused to reflect on some of the gifts he left us.
As many of you know Tony Hseih (pronounced shay), was an early investor and then CEO in Zappos.com. He led the company to unicorn status and Zappos was acquired by Amazon in 2009.
I had the chance to hear him speak during business school UCLA Anderson and then visited the Zappos headquarters on several occasions. On one of my visits I participated in their famous tour where I was treated to serenading HR departments, a visit to the “C Suite” affectionately dubbed “Monkey Row” and a chance to listen in on their top-tier customer service representatives talking with shoppers like close friends.
Below are a few lessons I picked up from Hseih and the Zappos culture he fostered.
Put the customer at the center of every touchpoint
Everyone says customers are a priority, but few actually practice full commitment to the customer.
At Zappos, they live it.
Call center reps at Zappos share their longest call times with pride. A rep I spoke with sheepishly told me that she once chatted with the same customer for 7 straight hours. Apparently, the record is over 10 hours.
All employees take turns on the phone line to reinforce the call center’s centrality to the mission. Their phone number is on every page of their website (they don’t hide it like other companies).
But I think the best example of customer service has to do with drunk friends ordering a pizza.
Do anything for the customer
Anyone who has enjoyed one too many drinks can attest to the near-nirvana of eating late-night pizza with friends. One such inebriated group huddled in a Santa Monica hotel room to get some grub, but room service had closed for the night.
They decided to order a pizza.
But instead of Googling pizzerias near the beach, they thought it would be funny to see if the 24/7 Zappos Call Center could help out.
The ringleader of the group giggled while his friend asked a nice, but admittedly thrown off, Zappos employee if she could get the group a pizza. The Zappos employee reminded them they were a shoe company before asking the group to go on a brief hold.
She came back with a short list of local pizza shops that were still delivering in the late hour.
The ringleader of this infamous prank? Tony Hseih.
He knew she would help them get the pizza because he wanted his employees to do anything for the customer.
Create “random encounters” with your employees
Tony Hseih, Former Zappos CEO
The Zappos Headquarters in downtown Las Vegas are housed in the old Vegas City Hall buildings. There is a massive parking lot that attaches to the side of the building via a catwalk style walkway. The only catch is that unless you have a disability or doctor’s note, you can’t use the walkway that would have swiftly taken you to your cubicle.
Instead, Hseih forced everyone to walk around the block and through the main courtyard.
If you didn’t already know, it gets hot in Vegas. What’s up with the sadism?
Actually, it’s a simple idea based on research that when employees bump into each other randomly, they will have a better quality of life and bring more innovation to the company.
One of the deep regrets I've had this year is the isolation in working from home. I loved my WeWork office and the great people I met there. I remember a random conversation with Apollo Emeka of Apollo Strategy that led to a series of projects for me and my firm working with Apollo. While these types of encounters can seem like a drag on efficiency, companies make up for it through the energy their employees bring to the firm.
Bring your whole self to work
“A lot of companies talk about work-life balance. We’re more about work-life integration. At the end of the day, it’s life.”
-Tony Hseih
Let’s face it: We spend more time at work than with our families. Well, maybe not this year. But the principle is true. We spend a lot of our lives with the people we call colleagues, employees and customers. So why do we pretend we are someone else around them?
Instead of sharing our passions with our co-workers, we create walls in the name of professionalism.
Instead of being vulnerable with clients and admitting when we don’t know all the answers, we try to create a myth of the all-knowing consultant.
Hseih knew that we had to be our true selves at work. That can be “a little weird” (he had reportedly lived in an Airstream behind the offices with a pet alpaca), but it’s also beautiful.
It’s with a heavy heart that I pen this first blog post for my new company, Kasvaa. We lost a great one, but I’m grateful for the lessons he left us with.
Cheers, Tony.
