The importance of having a customer obsession
 "Graphic recording" by Sunni Brown and Marilyn Martin
Last night, Amazon.com announced the intent to purchase hot ecommerce start-up Zappos for 10 million Amazon shares (or around $807 million). Wow, right? But, why am I writign about it?
Zappos is a unique kind of company. One that truly puts customers first and considers itself a customer service company and a product manufacturer second. They sell shoes, btw. As I write this, 1,025,349 people are following Zappos on Twitter, for example. As I've mentioned in 5C's on using Twitter for business, it takes something special for people to want to follow a company, and it is a testament to the truly personal management style of the Zappos team. Zappos has always understood the importance of having a customer obsession and the value that brings to their business. In acquiring Zappos, Amazon is acknowledging the competitive advantage of a custmer-centric approach, and one would expect them to integrate Zappos's approach into the Amazon business.
The other very cool thing about this news is the video Amazon founder Jeff Bezos sent to the Zappos staff. In it, he traces the history of Amazon and gives his short-list of everything he's learned in business:
1. Obsess over customers
2. Invent
3. Think long term
4. It's Always Day One
There's also the letter that CEO Tony Hsieh sent to the Zappos employees. It is excellent and worth a read. Plenty more info on the deal is here. It is worth mentionning that TechCrunch's Sarah Lacy broke the news. Score another one for the new school.
This is a solid and mutually beneficial merger of two strong companies, and both will benefit in the long-term.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
 Comments:
Thanks for re-purposing my graphic recording of Tony's SXSW keynote. Much appreciated. I was pretty excited to hear the news about Amazon this morning and feel confident that Zappos will maintain the core aspects of its culture. I don't think Tony or Alfred would go into something that didn't sustain what's important to them.
# posted by Sunni Brown : 6:52 PM, July 23, 2009
Hi Sunni. Thanks for stopping by! Loved your graphic recording. In fact, the whole concept of them is lovely.
@iboy
# posted by George Nimeh : 8:39 PM, July 23, 2009
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