There are few things that I have personally noticed that make Zappos.com stand out. Most importantly, the company has a brand based on excellent customer service. If you asked someone to define Zappos.com in one word, he or she will not say “shoes” or even “online store,” that person will say “service.” How many of you reading this chapter now can say that about your company? That your company’s quality of service is so good, so well known, that service is actually what you’re known for?

One of the ways that Zappos.com made this happen is by having a generous return policy. The company started out by selling shoes as an online vendor. It faced a huge hurdle going against classic shoe stores to earn its customers. The market was used to trying shoes on. Zappos.com had to bridge the trust gap and convince customers that they could buy shoes online, without trying them on. What was the first question people had for them? “If they don’t fit, can I return or exchange them?” Zappos.com said “yes” and earned the trust of their market. The Zappos.com web site states on its return pages that, “If you are not 100% satisfied, you can return your item(s) for a full refund within 365 days of purchase.”

But Zappos.com’s branding is not just about the free shipping and a long grace period for returns. The stories of its efforts to gain satisfied customers are everywhere online. One story that gives me chills is about a person who had ordered multiple pairs of shoes for his mother. She sadly took ill and was in the hospital. Not knowing what exact size of shoe would fit his mother or exactly what she may like, he decided to order nine different pairs of shoes to have her try them on and then return the ones that either didn’t fit or she didn’t want. Sadly his mother passed away and later on he realized he never returned any of the pairs of shoes that he ordered. They added up to a substantial amount of money. He sent an e-mail to Zappos.com explaining his situation, wondering if there was anything that they could do for him so that he could return all of the shoes. No one had ever worn them and there were so many pairs. He understood that he was outside of the return window, but he thought he would give it a try and contact the company.

The customer service representative who received the e-mail let him know right away, that day in fact, that the company would arrange for a UPS truck to show up at his house the following day to pick up all the boxes. His credit card would be credited the full amount of the original purchase and he would not be charged for the return shipping. The representative also expressed the company’s condolences on the loss of his mother. When the delivery truck arrived the next day to collect the shoes, the driver also brought along a bouquet of flowers with deepest sympathies from the customer service representative who had spoken to him the day before. The customer was overwhelmed by this response. Wouldn’t you be? When was the last time you received service like this from a company? He then blogged about it and that blog has been viewed by thousands of people. The thing is, Zappos.com did not perform its service with the goal of this customer’s blogging about it—the company does not do things so that people will tweet about them. Zappos.com truly believes that every experience a customer or potential customer has is a chance to wow them. The company cares about its customers. And this is what defines the Zappos.com brand and separates this company from the crowd.

You know what else is amazing about Zappos.com? The tour! If you have a chance to go to their facility in Nevada, you have to do it. It is an amazing experience! I saw this firsthand when I accepted the company’s offer of a tour of its facilities in Las Vegas. Anyone can do it. A company rep will pick you up in a shuttle from anywhere in the area and drop you off anywhere else in Vegas you want to go after the tour, free of charge.

I wanted to see what all the hoopla was about, having heard about the tour from other people, and to see if there was an experience gap even on a tour with the company. I wanted to know if there was a difference between what I would experience and all of the amazing stories I had heard or read online.

The problem with setting great examples that circulate online is that you set great expectations. When you earn a reputation for greatness, people come to expect that from you going forward. This tour even exceeded my already high expectations. From the woman who drove the shuttle bus, who had moved from Kentucky just to work for Zappos.com, to every stop on the tour, I was engaged and impressed. I left with better faith in mankind that companies can run on a high level.

The tour started with our tour guide, one of the top people in management, holding a large flag. The flag let everyone know, as we walked through the offices, that we were esteemed guests of a tour.

The hilarious part is that when you take the tour, every time you pass a group of cubicles or a team, they have their own thing they do for the tour. The first group we passed stopped what they were doing, opened their desk drawers, and each of them grabbed a camera and started taking pictures of us, cheering the entire time. Another group had those party clappers and waved them loudly at us. Another team had a song for us. Not one person looked put off or as if they were forced into this. Now, I am sure that every now and again when someone is having a bad day their team whipping into a verse of “Its a small world after all” isn’t the best for a headache, but still. I spent years in human resources and consulting, going into work places and speaking with employees. I know unhappy workers. I can feel them. I know the look. The employees I saw and met that day at Zappos.com were happy to work there. They were valued parts of the team and enjoyed their work. We should all run companies like that.

When we arrived at the call center part of the tour, I noticed the lack of a call-board. This is a popular piece in any call center that ranks each person on his or her call times. Most call centers judge their workers by how quickly they can get somebody off the phone. I noticed that the call-board was missing and asked the tour guide where it was. He actually laughed at the question. Zappos.com does not use a call-board. Call center reps have no set limit of time to talk to their customers. The shortest call that they had recorded was 40 seconds and the longest call was four hours.

The tour guide also added that the woman who was on the four-hour call did not end up buying a single thing. At Zappos. com the call center representative had a simple job—to help people. The reps were not on the phone with customers only to pick something out so they could buy it. They were there to help them. To let customers know about products that they were buying online that they couldn’t touch. They just blew me away. Do you know that Zappos.com allows their phone representatives to source a product for a customer even if they don’t carry it and it is from one of their competitors? They are empowered to send the customer in whatever direction is needed to help them. The reps have that much confidence in service. They understand that giving the customer a good experience will be remembered and is valuable. They believe this so much that they came up with their 10 core values, from their web site:

As we grow as a company, it has become more and more important to explicitly define the Zappos core values from which we develop our culture, our brand, and our business strategies. These are the 10 core values that we live by:

You can’t really argue with any of those 10 points. One of the biggest drivers behind this culture is Tony Hsieh who is the CEO. It would be very difficult to drive a culture like this without it being from the top down. He is @Zappos on Twitter.