By Emma Brownell for Intent.com
A company committed to corporate culture: Zappos.com
We’ve already caught up with x, y and z. In this interview, Tony Hsieh of Zappos.com explains why he’s committed to building a supportive corporate culture, and how this investment plays into his company’s business success.
Zappos.com was started in 1999 by Nick Swinmurn, after a particularly frustrating afternoon of mall and online shoe shopping. Finding that the shoe market was seriously lacking, Nick decided to start his own online shoe retailer. Two months after Nick founded the company, Tony Hsieh joined him as an investor and advisor.
Now, Tony is the CEO at Zappos – a company that stands out for its commitment to its employees. Tony discusses the importance of corporate culture, customer service and the years ahead.
“Your corporate culture is your brand.”
Why is Zappos so focused on corporate culture? Tony explains, “Our belief is that culture and brand are just two sides of the same coin.” He writes on the Zappos blog that, “if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff — like great customer service, or building a great long-term brand, or passionate employees and customers — will happen naturally on its own.
“We believe that your company’s culture and your company’s brand are really just two sides of the same coin. The brand may lag the culture at first, but eventually it will catch up.
“Your culture is your brand.”
The importance of company values
Tony has said that once his prior venture – LinkExchange – grew to 100 employees he didn’t want to go into the office anymore.His advice for employees or employers on boosting low company morale? “I think low company morale generally happens when there isn’t alignment in the personal values of people in the company when compared with the company’s stated core values. So my advice would be to get everyone on the same page in terms of values, and make sure that you hire, fire, and give performance reviews based on those values.”
How did Zappos determine what those values would be? “We asked the entire company several years ago what they thought our core values should be. It took about a year, but we eventually wound up with our final list of core values.”
Good customer service – at whatever price
The Zappos call center is US-based – not outsourced to India or another country where staffing costs would be much lower. When is it worth making this level of investment? Tony believes that, “In general, anything that improves the customer experience is worth investing in, because that drives repeat customer behavior and word of mouth.”
He’s also a big fan of Twitter – as both a corporate culture and customer service tool. “Twitter allows us to connect in a more personal way with both employees and customers. You don’t really need to be tech-savvy to join Twitter. It’s much more important to have a culture that embraces transparency.”
Surviving the recession
How is the recession affecting Zappos? “The good news is that we are still growing, although we are growing more slowly.”
What are good strategies for handling the downturn? “Regardless of how the economy is doing, it’s important to always make sure that every area of the company is running efficiently and performing well. This is of course easier said than done.”
How is Zappos retaining/downsizing employees in this market consistent with your values? “Values are really only values if they are the same regardless of what the economy or market is. We did lay off 8% of our employees back in November 2008, but we wanted to make sure that we took care of our employees, even the ones we laid off.” As he wrote on the company blog, Zappos continued to pay laid off employees through the end of the year, and it covered their COBRA health insurance costs for the next 6 months.
His advice for those laid off in the current economy: “Figure out what you are truly passionate about — what would you enjoy doing for 10 years even if you didn’t make a lot of money from it? If you go down that path and explore all options, not only will you be happier, but you’ll find that there is actually a way to support yourself financially as well from doing it — probably in a way that you haven’t thought of yet.”
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