What's the ROI of hugging your Mom?

Not everything lives up to the height advertised.  As such, at times I find myself inadvertently lowering my expectation of what I’m told to expect. So…my recent time spend at Zappos was a very pleasant confirming of meeting and exceeding expectations.

I had always known how powerful their customer service experience was and had always been blown away by its impact, but to actually be in and feel the employee culture that I had heard about.  That what something of a CX rebirth and complete revelations of renewal for me.

Per my signed agreement, I can’t share too much. But some things I can share are my impression and opinions from the visit:

  1. Nail your technology so your people can do what you hired them to do with being there for your customer and there to apologize for or make workarounds about the technology to be there for your customers
  2. Truly live your values and mission, NO I mean it, truly live them or take them off the wall today
  3. Trust your teams and hold them accountable; you might be surprised about how fast they get to a success state of self-governing
  4. Mean it when you try to provide work-life balance and as a leader be a positive example of the practice

Those are just some of my most impactful impressions for a company that is really getting it and doing it on the customer and employee experience side of things, we could all do well to be just a bit more like Zappos.

To close, though you might enjoy some quotes that Zappos have that inspire them.

What good is having a belly if there is no fire in it? Wake up, drink your passion, light a match and get to work!  -Simon Sinek

Be somebody who makes everybody feel like a somebody. -Robby Novak

Just because you can’t measure the ROI of something doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. What’s the ROI on hugging your mom? -Tony Hsieh