Skype with Thomas Knoll from Zappos.com

It's no secret that I love heart(!) shoes.  So, when my graduate class had the opportunity to Skype with Thomas Knoll, Community Director at Zappos.com, I was pretty excited.

Thomas gave us a quick rundown (I still can't use that word without thinking of a certain episode from The Office) of Zappos' social media efforts:

1. The telephone - more on that a little later
2. Shoe Digest email with Q&A answered by customers
3. Blog - by CEO Tony Hsieh
4. Lifestyle sites on Zappos.com focusing on shopper segments
5. Twitter - most of the employees tweet

Despite being a company that operates by selling shoes and apparel via an online search, Thomas stressed that customer service is extremely important to Zappos and said that the telephone is its greatest tool. 

Really?  The phone?  I guess it's not all that surprising.  When you have a complaint about something, what's the fastest way to get to a person?  If you send an email, it goes into a void and you usually receive an automated response or hear nothing for days (if ever).  Online chats have long wait times and mixed success.  The phone, despite its wait times, is usually a guaranteed way to get to a human being of some type.  Interaction is key.

Zappos is also great because its humans are in America; the company's employees are split between its headquarters near Las Vegas, NV and its distribution center near Shepardsville, KY. 

Measuring Social Media

Thomas spent a great deal of time answering our questions.  Quite a few of them focused on the elusive "measurement" topic.  Interestingly, Zappos is more interested in making its customers say "Wow!" than reaching certain numeric social media or other goals.  The company doesn't necessarily convert social media to numbers or believe in adding in extra fees to bump up its revenue.

Employee Involvement = Customer Involvement

During our Skype session, Thomas had to dodge some darts (literally - his co-workers were shooting nerf darts as he chatted with us) to give us a tour of the building.  It's a cool place with group workstations that adjust for sitting and standing configurations.  Everyone seemed to be working together in small groups. 

Zappos' in-house culture translates to its customers who can answer questions for one another.  When asked how the company monitors customer-to-customer relations, Thomas made some great points:

• Negative comments are great because they give you somewhere to go.
• It's too easy to drown out a community by being overbearing.  
• Instead of shutting out the wrong information, join in and participate.
• You can't create community - it just happens.

These are some great points for me to take away as I work on my capstone project - creating a ruleset for an online community and moderating it!