Tony Hsieh built Zappos.com into a $1.2 billion online retailer on one very simple principle: People should be happy. Starting tomorrow, he will share his formula for producing it with the nation in a new book.
Viewers of CBS' Sunday Morning got a taste of Hsieh's philosophy in a feature the program aired on the founder of Zappos.com today. For Hsieh, the first rule for producing happy customers and workers is this: Forget all the rules.
Zappos does not limit the time call center agents can spend talking to customers; the practice helps build confidence among customers who might otherwise be chary about purchasing shoes online, where they can't try out styles before they buy. The company treats its employees very well, offering free food, recreation breaks, and other unconventional perks in exchange for employee loyalty, and even tests the effectiveness of its perks by offering to pay employees to quit. (Few do, and in this economy, can you blame them?) And Hsieh remains close to his employees by functioning more like them: he works out of a cubicle and draws a salary of only $37,000 a year. (His big payday came when he sold the company last fall to Amazon.com for $1.2 billion; Amazon promised to keep Zappos' quirky corporate culture intact as part of the deal.)
The end product is an extraordinarily loyal workforce, satisfied customers, and healthy profits. Said Stephanie Mehta, executive editor of Fortune, on whose "100 Best Companies to Work For" list Zappos appears this year for the second year in a row, "I think a lot of it boils down to empowerment - employees at Zappos feel empowered. They feel respected. They feel as though they have the ability to make decisions on their own."
Hsieh has distilled his formula for business success into a book, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose (Business Plus), a personal tale of near-ruin and redemption that officially goes on sale June 7. Advance reviews of the book are -- surprise! -- positive.
Shockwave is a robot cyclops-turned-laser-cannon, who became dictator of Cybertron , the Transformers' home world, after the other Autobots and Decepticons journeyed to Earth.
