Zappos! My Role Model! #Seriously

Hula Hoops? An accappella singing group? A core value of Create Fun and a Little Weirdness? This is all in a business plan? For a real business? A successful business?

What ever you may think of Zappos (and to tell you more about the shoe experience of Zappos, check out my wife’s blog at www.TheDeeView.blogspot.com) the company is actually the business model we use to run our business. Now we are accountants, with a rather serious selection of financial services to offer. How the could we possibly have anything in common with the retail SHOE Giant of the World?

Well, for one thing, Zappos has the Zappettes. (We are too small to have the Greg Ettes, but I’m sure that is coming). This is a group of staff that may spontaneously serenade visitors. The receptionists have Hula Hoops, which they may use on a regular basis. (Okay, we don’t have Hula Hoops yet, but we are in the market for a Gong.) The Customer Service Department (the Loyalty Team) have no limits on the amount of time they will take on the phone with each customer (never gonna happen in our office, but hey?)

But the most amazing thing, is that they have a really committed and caring take on customer service for their clients. We do that (though not as well without the Hula Hoops I fear).

They have values like: Create Fun and a Little Weirdness (@TheDeeView makes our staff dance during retreats. They hate it when they see her lugging the Boom Box into a conference room), Deliver Wow through Service (Hey, some of our clients are saying “WOW, the IRS hates me”, but hey, they are saying WOW People!) Embrace and Drive Change (it is an accounting firm, but we are all about making it great for our clients), No snobs (I made that up. I just hate snobs.)

Staff at Zappos have to be prepared to do the wave at any moment. And they have crowns you can wear if you are having a particularly bad day. (We don’t offer crowns, but you do get a free piggy bank.)

They go through 160 hours of Customer Loyalty Training. (Can we send our staff there?) And they love to have their staff Tweet about their experience working at Zappos. (Oddly, though we encourage our staff to do the same, they keep asking for extra money to stay late and Twitter. I don’t understand this myself.)

The point of studying the Zappos business model, is to see if we are giving the ultimate in customer service at our firm, making the most money for everyone and doing it in an efficient manner (cuz time is GOLD, isn’t it?).

So while we may not have Hula Hoops, Greg Ettes, or our Giant Gong yet, that doesn't mean we don't want our office to make people feel as good about paying their taxes as my wife does about her shoes!