The Power of WOW. The Employees of Zappos.com

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ a pulse, there is a purpose.” More than one person mentioned it at the microphone over the course of that night. And as we were reminded of that saying over and over again during the party, many of us in that room felt more inspired than ever to try to live up to our own personal purpose.

       “Where there is a pulse, there is a purpose.”

      When McKendree’s family got home to Tennessee, the celebration still wasn’t over. Word of what happened spread everywhere. People started talking about it on social media. Someone started a hashtag using the phrase “Operation Red Shoes.”

      It was remarkable. What started out in sadness was evolving through this connection we’d made. By connecting and sharing our stories we were almost magically forming a whole new tribe of support for McKendree.

      “Before long,” Susan recalls, “we felt like we ought to do something for them in return, to show the folks at Zappos firsthand what Luis and what other patients at St. Jude experience. We thought it would be so much fun to turn the tables, to fly Teri and the folks who instigated the trip and the party out to Memphis. McKendree even talked about using her Make-a-Wish to fund that trip—but she didn’t have to. Once the idea got back to St. Jude, some friends there stepped up and helped fund the trip themselves.”

      What can I say? The trip to Memphis was completely unexpected and completely amazing. We spent time at the hospital having a painting party with some of the kids. Susan and McKendree took us to Graceland and down to Beale Street. We felt so honored and so touched that this family and that hospital would reciprocate in that way.

      Spending time together in Las Vegas and Tennessee led to something more: Susan and I had a chance to talk, a lot, and to this day Susan and I talk and text and email and keep in touch on a regular basis. We developed a friendship that I’m pretty sure will last the rest of our lives.

      In the fall of 2015, McKendree, along with her sister, Bizzy, and Luis’s friends Allie and Hailey, launched a nonprofit in Luis’s memory: Operation Red Shoes (ORS). It’s a charity designed specifically to help families with teens and kids with their needs as they go through cancer treatments. A bunch of people here at Zappos made personal donations to help get it started.

      “We’ve got all kinds of support, including some celebrity supporters,” Susan tells me. “David Mickey Evans, writer and director of The Sandlot (1993), gave ORS the first large donation. I really do think this is going to turn into a major nonprofit that will help with some of the unique situations teens who are battling this disease find themselves in. Our goal is that it will keep growing and continue doing good work in Luis’s honor long after all of us are gone.”

      And that’s still not all! Another sort of legacy project got started around the same time, too. Luis had a dog, a Siberian Husky named Luna, that he had left to McKendree.

      “At first I didn’t know what to do with her,” she says. “Luna didn’t even really like me. She was so protective of Luis that she used to wedge herself between the two of us on his couch! But she likes me now. We’re friends. And we decided to breed her, to help spread even more of Luis’s joy to others. Three of the puppies actually went into training to be service dogs for children with cancer.”

      One of the puppies wound up going to Tia Zuniga, a Zappos team member who helped make Operation Red Shoes happen. She brings that dog into the office now just to hang out with her team and brighten all of their days.

      Like I said earlier: Opening your heart changes everything. And what Zappos has given to me and to all of us who work here is proof that business can have a heart, too. And when that heart is open, truly open, amazing things unfold.

       Christa Foley

      Head of Brand Vision, Head of Talent Acquisition, and Head of External Culture Training

       Avid reader. No joke, I read four to five books per week.

       In Greek mythology, Cerberus (or Kerberos), often called the Hound of Hades, is a three-headed dog that guards the gates of the Underworld to prevent the dead from leaving. I think of Christa as the three-headed gatekeeper of Zappos’ culture and brand. She’s not afraid to put her foot down anytime someone suggests doing something that may seem minor in the moment but might be the first step of a slippery slope that compromises our values in the long run.

       The “Operation Red Shoes” story didn’t happen by accident.

      It didn’t happen by chance, either.

      It happened by design.

      The possibility for great things to happen is simply built into the corporate structure here at Zappos—a direct reflection of our core values. And it’s the kind of thing you can make happen at your company or small business, and in your life, too.

      As Head of External Culture Training, I am lucky to lead an amazing team of Zapponians tasked with sharing the lessons (that is, “insights”) we’ve learned here at Zappos with other business leaders across the country and around the world. So I couldn’t be happier to see Operation Red Shoes kick off this employee-driven book, because it’s such a great example of what can happen when everything we hope to accomplish at this company comes together.

       Zappos Insights is the official name of the team that provides various training and coaching programs, including culture training (“Culture Camp”), customer service training (“School of WOW”), and external speaking (“Zappos Represents!”).

      Many people think that Zappos is a website that sells shoes. But that’s just what we are on the surface. What we really are, what we’ve always been, is a service company that just happens to sell shoes (and other products). We are truly a company built on putting service first. For us, it’s all about establishing and nurturing personal human connections.

       Internally, we have an acronym called PEC to describe what we are trying to accomplish with each and every customer interaction: Personal Emotional Connection.

      The depth of personal connection that Teri made on the phone with Susan and McKendree is something every one of us here at Zappos strives to make with every customer we encounter every day.

      There’s a lot of buzz in the business world today about creating a “customer-obsessed culture.” The idea is that customers are everything to your business, and they need to be treated like the dollar-wielding, camera-phone-touting, social-media-driving powerhouses they are if any modern-day business wants to survive, let alone make a profit.

      But at Zappos we don’t look at it quite that way. Not that we don’t have what some might call a customer-obsessed culture here. We do. We think about our customers all the time. But what do we mean when we talk about “customers”? And how do we interpret the concept of being “obsessed” with them?

      There’s no one formula to follow. At Zappos, customer service isn’t about following a checklist or a script. It СКАЧАТЬ