There is a terrific article in the September 14, 2009 edition of The New Yorker. It’s on Zappos and its unique company culture. Tony Hsieh, the company’s 35-year old C.E.O. has built around what he calls “Zappinesss” which grows from his three “C”s: clothing, customer service, and company culture.  The article really highlights how, particularly when it comes to customer service, it’s important to have a genuinely good company culture.  There are times when it seems forced, but the article does highlight moments when people are genuinely having fun at work…and passing that fun onto their customers.

Also, the article highlights the rarity of talking to human beings.  It’s a real differentiator that Zappos offers customers a generous return policiy and ulimitied phone support located in the US.

From the article

Zappos and its imitators—shoes.com, heels.com, and the Gap’s inexplicably named piperlime.com—are shifting this public transaction into the comfort and privacy of customers’ living rooms. There, thanks to Zappos’s three-hundred-and-sixty-five-day return policy, we can all be Imelda Marcos, sifting through ceiling-high piles of boxes, and waiting in sweatpanted indolence for the UPS man to pick up our rejects.

Unlike most Web sites, including Amazon’s, which seem to be operated by spectral forces rather than by human beings, Zappos prominently displays a toll-free customer-service phone number. There are no limits on call times, and the resulting sessions occasionally resemble protracted talk therapy. On July 5th, a twenty-two-year-old C.L.T. member named Britnee Brown, who has been with the company for a little more than a year, took a call that was a record five hours, twenty-five minutes, and thirty-one seconds long, from a woman on the East Coast interested in Masai Barefoot Technology shoes, which purport to mimic supposedly salubrious barefoot-on-the-beach walking with curved rubber platforms. “We started talking about her sister,” Brown said. The call that set the previous record lasted more than four hours, with a woman afflicted by peripheral neuropathy who had trouble feeling her feet. “She told me childhood stories, things like that,” Jennifer S., the operator who handled that one, said in a video posted on YouTube. Zappos has advertised sparingly thus far, preferring word of mouth, and (unlike most companies) encourages employees to let it all hang out on Twitter and Facebook.

Read the full article here: Link