How I Knew Good Guy Tony Hsieh

“The Zappos culture is based on the dedication of our employees to our core values. Finnegan’s book provides straightforward tactics and best practices that can be useful for companies looking to hold on to the dedication and enthusiasm of their employees.”

            -Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos.com

Tony Hsieh died recently, tragically as a result of a house fire in Connecticut. This great man changed our world by inventing unheard-of customer service techniques at Zappos, his online store that originally sold just shoes and then branched out to other clothing products.

Just one example of Tony’s genius was he insisted Zappos call center employees have no prescribed goals for metrics like call times or calls that had to be referred to a supervisor. This is polar opposite to nearly every other call center I know, where agents are trained to get off calls as soon as possible and also to avoid referring a caller to their supervisor at nearly any cost. Most agents have actual goals for this and are told monthly how they are performing against those goals.

Another Tony idea was he wanted callers to talk to his employees, versus build elaborate voice systems so questions could be answered by software instead. We all know that feeling of calling an organization and having to claw through their computerized voice systems when we have an unusual question that only a person can answer. Tony would have none of that.

My first Tony encounter began with a SHRM conference in Las Vegas, circa 2009. Somehow, I learned that Zappos was sponsoring tours at their nearby headquarters, so I signed up, boarded their bus, and toured their facility. There I met the employee who held the record for the longest customer call, about 7 hours as I recall. This employee was honored by Zappos yet might have been fired by another company. I also met their onsite company psychologist. How many other companies have an onsite company psychologist?

The bottom line regarding my Zappos visit is about the bottom line. Tony made extraordinary investments for customers and employees, worth dollar values such that few other CEOs would take such risks. Yet Zappos’ resulting financial performance positioned Tony to sell Zappos later for $1.2 billion, $40 million of which was distributed among his employees.

That Zappos tour inspired me, and at the same time I was completing my first book. That book, Rethinking Retention in Good Times and Bad, was subsequently published in 2010 and is still selling copies ten years later. Book authors know that publishers are keen to authors securing “blurbs”, their word for the quotes from impressive people that don the covers or the first few pages of each book.

So, the combination of my being impressed by Zappos along with a touch of bravado made me reach out to Tony for a blurb. Doing so meant finding a way to reach him, inviting him to read all or some of the manuscript, and asking him to sign a contract that we could indeed publish his blurb. And the tough part then is to get a “good” blurb, one that will resonate with the book’s audience. Sometimes authors suggest specific language for the blurb and hope the blurb writer approves the suggested blurb, other times authors wait with crossed fingers that the blurb writer will provide a good one.

Tony was easy. So easy. He asked his assistant to call me, I explained the book’s contents, and she sent back the blurb you see at the beginning of this piece. There were no concerns about legalities, about who or how many would read the book…none. His only mission was to help me sell the book. Tony and I shook hands at a later SHRM conference, and he immediately recalled his contribution to my book.

We are formed by the people we meet, and some of those people put a bigger imprint on us than others. Tony Hsieh put a big, wonderful dent into me. And I am grateful for it.

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