The Zappos Story
What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where an Internet shoe company is hipper than any band?
Have you caught this story yet? How Zappos pays people to QUIT?
It’s been burning up the Net for almost a week now. There was no press release, no in-store, no campaign, just some dude from the Harvard Business Review weighing in on another "dot com" company. Took almost a week for the story to show up in the straight news
and you wonder why print is dying, why new media is eating newspapers’ lunch…
Bottom line, you go to work for Zappos, there’s a four week training program, and if you decide after a week or so the job’s not for you, THEY PAY YOU $1,000 TO QUIT! Zappos doesn’t want any half-assed employees, people who are going to cut and run, they want BELIEVERS! So, in addition to being paid your salary for being trained so far, they cut you this additional check and say SAYONARA!
How fucking great is that?
What’s even better is Zappos is not capitalizing on the buzz generated. If Zappos were a band their fucking publicity agent would send out a press release asking for MORE press. And the sheep that are in old media would run it, and kill the story. It’s the viral nature that people are attracted to. They don’t want to be banged over the head, they want to DISCOVER! You’ve got to make something so great that people will find out about you WITHOUT YOU TELLING THEM ABOUT IT!
That’s the power of the Web. And you wonder why the major labels are being marginalized.
A great product? Shit, how long has it been since the business has offered that…
A money back guarantee? Shit, why would you want to return the CD IF IT WAS GOOD??
Great customer service… You can’t get anybody at the label on the phone, Live Nation, AEG and TicketMaster aren’t helpful either. You end up HATING EVERYBODY IN THE MUSIC BUSINESS!
The Zappos reps take as much time as necessary with customers. They’re empowered to make decisions. If you think you can make a decision at Interscope without asking Jimmy first, YOU DON’T WORK THERE!
I heard about Zappos a few years back, when a friend ordered a pair of shoes from the company. Last week, Felice ordered a bunch of shoes… Not to keep, she tried them all on, looking for just the right pair… You see, they’re wholly returnable! At the company’s expense! You love Zappos… It’s hard to love a band after you’ve been raped with ticket fee extras, never mind their label who’s gonna SUE YOU!
The music industry believes it’s invulnerable. People need entertainment, music, costs and troubles are irrelevant. But that’s wrong. Not today, with so many distractions. Music’s got to be great and the customer has to be respected.
Shit, at Zappos the employees are Twitter crazy. I’d bet my left nut that each and every record company CEO HAS NO IDEA WHAT TWITTER IS!
Can you feel my excitement?
I used to feel this way about bands.
Before everybody involved was doing it for the jet, before the acts were whored out to the Fortune 500, before there was more creativity evidenced by tech entrepreneurs than musicians.
