Mainly focused on the organizational behaviour and customer support, Zappos is not only one of the most successful online shoe retailer store, but also one of the best companies to work for. One might immediately think there must be a correlation between the two.
In my opinion, having costume parties and other perks definitely help employees stay motivated to come to work everyday with enthusiasm. Many companies believe that the most important part of a business is to keep the customers happy, but I think it is important to understand that in order for customers to be happy, the employees must feel content prior to serving customers. Zappos has achieved its goal of “Delivering WOW through service” as it is reported that the company receives 5000 calls per day.
CEO Hsieh famously offers $2000 to any of the employees who want to quit because he doesn’t want anyone not liking their job. This is a good win-win situation because Zappos would get rid of any demotivated employees who might negatively affect the company’s “WOW service”, and the employees wouldn’t hesitate to stay because of the benefit they get. This strategic approach has proven successful as the company has sold $2.5 million of merchandise in 2009. Image source:
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=zappos+costume+party&um=1&hl=en&biw=1280&bih=738&tbm=isch&tbnid=iMYA2SSdD2Wi5M:&imgrefurl=http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/nov/29/cyber-monday/&docid=H1KID2NinDZpCM&imgurl=http://photos.lasvegassun.com/media/img/photos/2009/01/23/scaled.SVZappos0129MP10_t653.jpg%253F214bc4f9d9bd7c08c7d0f6599bb3328710e01e7b&w=653&h=435&ei=3L7PTsvUGOXXiQKZ2IVE&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=288&vpy=146&dur=2249&hovh=183&hovw=275&tx=205&ty=143&sig=101459790517152981404&page=1&tbnh=116&tbnw=155&start=0&ndsp=29&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0