Zappos’ Commercials Keep A Focus On Customer Service

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Zappos is one the greatest E-commerce success stories around and at last year’s Pubcon in Vegas, I had the privilege to see their CEO, Tony Hsieh address the attendees as the keynote speaker. What Tony talked about most was the importance of their company culture and their attention to customer service. If you have ever ordered anything from Zappos, it is likely you are a satisfied customer.

It is these vital factors that have enabled Zappos in expanding their inventory to several thousands of consumer products making them a fully online department store. It is incredible that a small business could reach this level from just a sole online site. The department stores we commonly visit got their start at a sole physical site. Even in advertising strategies, we are bombarded with Macy’s commercials on TV, meanwhile Zappos ads usually come to us via online banner ads and other forms of online marketing.

Recently, Zappos released a T.V. commercial campaign that is based on real customer service reps portrayed by puppet characters. In each commercial they show a puppet character handle ...
... a real customer service call. Each has a different personality. At first, I didn’t understand what they were going for here. I didn’t get the whole puppet thing. If you want customers to get an idea who is on the other end of that call, then why not use real humans? At first I thought, their angle might be to showcase an advantage of not having their customer service outsourced.

After some more thought and viewing some more commercials, it made sense. I started to take a deeper look into this strategy. Humans are pretty judgmental and face it, we form biased opinions. Instead of showing real humans that represent a certain group (because we all fall into one), these puppets were still relatable, friendly, and most importantly, they were human.

What exactly makes a puppet seem human? Well, looking deeper at these puppets and the people they represent, the props around the puppets made it appear as though they are in a real cubicle. You could see personal items, drawings, decorations, even office supplies. It was soon easy to focus on the most important traits you want in a customer service agent; happiness, friendliness, and they were human rather than a race or trait. While keeping some mystery, these are everyday people like you and me. I find some people are a bit perplexed at their tactic but I get it and its pretty genius. I think Zappos did a great job here. I can appreciate the creativity and a clever way to enforce the theme of customer service within their marketing strategy.