Back in the fall of 2008, when things looked only slightly less bad than they do now, I profiled e-commerce miracle Zappos.com for brand eins. CEO Tony Hsieh had caught my attention for a while as he was traveling the conference circuit and talking about corporate culture, particularly how treating your employees very well is the foundation for everything else a company does and sells. He and his management team are selling by investing in their staff's buy-in, not by cutting corners.
I decided to take a closer look at the company and spent two days at their headquarters in Las Vegas --blown away by the energy, motivation and at the same time close scrutiny and attention that everybody, even potential new hires, receive. (Their warehouse facility in Kentucky is different and I did not have the opportunity to look at that part of their operation. Stats suggest, though, that turn-over there is also significantly lower than in the rest of the fulfillment world.)
The visit and additional reporting around the zappos phenomenon led to the story "Die Spass-Firma" in the November issue. If that sounds familiar, turn to the feature that Fortune just did on their unusual atmosphere of work at play, or play at work.
It's a perfect blend to grow during the during the downturn: being in e-commerce, selling fast and easy at a discount over retail, plus treating your staff as the first customers of your brand. That's a winning formula:
Bei Zappos.com gehören Gewusel und Herumalbern zum Kern des Geschäftsmodells. Ganz bewusst: In Zeiten unpersönlicher Web-Händler setzt das Unternehmen auf E-Commerce mit menschlichem Antlitz. Dabei unterscheidet es sich auf den ersten Blick nicht von anderen Online-Versendern. Zappos verkauft Schuhe im Internet. Das allerdings erfolgreich: Mehr als eine Milliarde Dollar wird 2008 umgesetzt werden. Die Mehrzahl der Mitarbeiter nimmt am Telefon rund um die Uhr Bestellungen entgegen oder packt Kartons. Trotzdem schafft es Zappos, bei seinen Leuten inbrünstige Liebe zur Arbeit und zur Marke zu entfachen. Bei Zappos gleicht kaum ein Arbeitstag dem anderen, und jeder einzelne Mitarbeiter soll möglichst viel möglichst selbst entscheiden.
Spaß ist fester Bestandteil der Firmen-Philosophie. Zappos betrachtet seine Mitarbeiter als seine eigentlichen Kunden: Wenn sich Angestellte wie Könige im eigenen Betrieb fühlten, überträgt sich das auf die Kunden und sorgt auf Dauer für mehr Produktivität und höhere Umsätze, so die Überzeugung.
And that description of why they're thriving in the double cut-throat environment of e-tailing and call centers doesn't even take into account how aggressively the whole zappos crew is using twitter and other forms of media, new and old, to spread the gospel. In fact, the otherwise messy homepage links straight to the several hundred employees who are twittering.
zappos, in fact, has built such a strong presence as the go-to company for new economy workplace questions, that they recently started charging for their advice, called Zappos Insights. Or you could call it e-learning sold below retail, fast and easy.
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