I’ve been listening to the audio book “Delivering Happiness” by Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos. His life story, never ending creativity, and continual drive to pursue his goals have been eye-opening to say the least.
I’m sure many of you know about Zappos. You may have bought shoes from them in the past. I know I have and I was always impressed with their service. One time we bought a pair of shoes and expected them to be delivered in 4 or 5 days and they showed up on our doorstep the next day!
That made me a loyal customer.
If you don’t know the story of Zappos, here is the super short version. They are a $1 billion dollar online shoe company that was built from a couple passionate people who had a vision. They wanted to sell shoes by providing customer service that was outstanding. And they have. Their customer service, as an online business, is unheard of. It has made them what they are today.
I think there is a valuable lesson to be learned here.
Instead of simply trying to promote themselves and sell a product, they started from the inside out. They built a servant focused community within the company and then took that same motto out to their customers.
They go to extreme measures to do so. Their service reps are even trained to help customers find shoes on other competitors websites if they don’t have the shoe in stock or in the customers size! Who does that?!
Zappos took Zig Ziglar’s quote “You can have anything in life you want, if you just help enough other people get what they want,” to an extreme. They served and, through this avenue, found exactly what they were looking for.
Listening to Tony as he told the Zappos story, I was struck by the reality of the impact serving others has on our lives. Not only does serving others make a positive impact on every person I serve, but it impacts me as well.
Just as Zappos served and grew, so do I when I serve others. My heart is filled, my spirit lifted. It is a win, win scenario in my book.
Question: Have you been impacted by the joy of serving or the blessing of being served? Do tell! I would love to hear your story.
