As I mentioned in my post about popular customer experience topics , I’m currently researching best practices for the 3rd principle of Experience-Based Differentiation : Treat customer experience as a competence, not a function . It’s a topic that I sometimes call customer-centric DNA.
It's not about shoes, it's about customer service. At least that was the gist of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh opening keynote at SXSW this year. Although the hoodie-wearing entrepreneur— #20 on the 2009 Fast Company 50—does sell about a billion dollars worth of shoes and accessories a year, what's more important is their platinum customer loyalty record.
Zappos has grown gross merchandise sales from $1.6M in 2000 to over $1 billion in 2008 by focusing relentlessly on customer service – a potent digital marketing tool. Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, kicked off day one of PubCon 2009 with a keynote on the importance of delivering happiness through service.