I read this book recently and it blew me away. It has taken the US by storm and made it to Number 1 on the New York Times bestseller list. If you are at all interested in building better relationships with your customers, better service or just making your workplace a better place then this is a must read.
It is the story of Tony Hsieh (pronounced ‘Shay’) his life to date, the success of Zappos.com and his quest to use happiness as a central principle of running his business.
Now, some people might say that all sounds a little touchy feely and that it’s not for them. However, I would say that Tony and his team do use happiness as a central pillar in their business and they grew Zappos from zero to $1billion in sales in just ten years. That in itself demands respect and attention and I learnt a huge amount from reading the book. Some of the core things that I discovered in the book is how they:
- Have made customer service the core and the responsibility of the entire company and haven’t limited it to a department.
- Found that company culture is their number one priority and the thing that drives performance.
- Apply research from the science, and specifically the science of happiness, to running a business.
and why they
- Offer to pay every newly trained employee $2000 to quit.
I couldn’t recommend this book enough. It is available on Amazon but, if you are in the UK, you’ll have to wait til the end of the month to get it. However, for UK readers if you want to get a hardback copy there are other sellers on Amazon (UK site) that are selling hardback versions. That’s how I got mine.
Check it out and let me know what you think.
