Seth is right.
Amazon purchased Zappos for all the right reasons. But, as the saying goes, the path to hell is paved with good intentions.
The key issue here is one of culture. As I experienced first-hand during the Zappos Insights Live Event last week, Zappos has an incredible culture. A culture built on creating happiness for employees, vendors and, of course, customers.
Amazon on the other hand, not so much. They offer low prices and great selection, but that's it.
Luckily for them, Amazon usually does such a good job with their web site and order fulfillment that it's seldom necessary for them to actually engage with their customers. In fact, they do the opposite of Zappos, and go out of their way to avoid direct contact with their customers. If you do get through to their customer service you'll be hard pressed to find anyone who can actually help you (or in my experience, speak English). This is the exact opposite of Zappos, whose 400+ Twittering employees love engaging with customers. In fact, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh personally engages with customers all the time. Jeff Bezos on the other hand...
The real question is when the dust settles who will influence whom regarding customer service? Will Amazon learn from the Zappos model and offer top-level customer service to its customers? Or will Zappos slowly slip towards providing Amazonian customer service from now on? Customer engagement is the new marketing and this is where the real culture clash between Zappos and Amazon is going to play out. May the best customer service provider (Zappos) win….
I know Tony. He's an incredible leader. Even though big companies have historically chewed up and spat out those they acquire, I think if anyone can make this work it's Tony and his team.
And while we're on the subject, if you haven’t done a Zappos tour yet, get to Vegas quick and take one. I promise it'll change the way you think about business.
