Why We Love Zappos and Hate AT&T (or Tony Hsieh vs. Ralph de la Vega)

If you are the CEO of a company should you make it easy for your customers to reach you or should you make it as difficult as possible?

The answer...it depends.

If you and your company specialize in happy customers (like Zappos) then you have nothing to fear.  If your company is part of the axis of misery (banks, cell phone providers and airlines) then in order to get your important CEO work done you have to make it as difficult as possible for your customers to reach you (just try to find a way to reach Ralph de la Vega, AT&T Wireless' CEO).

So here's my question...if you are having to avoid your customers...what does that say about your company?

Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos) started following me on Twitter...just because I was a customer who had blogged about the company.  I gauranty you if I had a problem, not only would he want to know about it, he'd get it fixed right away.

I have a problem with AT&T (a company I would love to be able to rave about because of their relationship with Apple) and its virtually impossible for me to find someone who cares let alone someone with the authority to actually fix my problem.

Ralph de la Vega and the AT&T Wireless executives would do well to study Zappos Core Value #6: "Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication."

If you find yourself doing everything you can to build an impenetrable wall between you and your customers maybe you need to ask yourself why...and if you're the CEO maybe, just maybe you could do something to change it.

P.S. If you're trying to reach the folks who care at AT&T...skip customer service and go straight here:

The phone numbers for AT&T Wireless office of the president are:

Eastern States 877-707-6220
Western States 800-498-1912

Comments

[JC]

Zappos CEO is approachable - that is where we start recommending the man, then the company.... Think Branson.

[Mark]

Since working for a man such as Tony, I have asked many of the people that I have had the displeasures of having to talk with, "Why they couldn't become as dedicated to their customers, as Zappos is to theirs, or just why couldn't I at least speak to someone that can speak my language a little more pronounced than someone that has had a quick English lesson on only how to say the things that they are taught to say. (and that is only if you can get through the 15 to 20 minutes of press this # and then that # and then this.....) Thank you, Tony, for giving me a place to work that I can say "We still believe we should do our best to make sure that our customers are treated with respect from their own countrymen". Why can't all these other companies follow suit and see that the money will pay off in the long run, in more than the greedy CEO's lined pockets.