I don’t think the Zappo’s model quite fits this idea that the customer interaction wtih the company is because something is wrong. Buying shoes can be difficult even in a brick and mortar store. Zappo’s doesn’t require you to talk to somebody to make a purchase – they make it terribly easy to make a buy decision without talking to somebody – but if you need to talk to somebody, unlike most other companies, they are very happy to spend as much time as you need or want to make sure the product is right for you.

Another thing is that each of the groups attempting to recover the customer relationship probably don’t even know each other or are aware of each others’ efforts — they don’t coordinate. This is certainly true at my company, the biggest internet auction house in the world — eBay. But, then again, eBay is full of the smartest people in the world who don’t know how to do anything 🙂 —

eBay sucks — we all miss you shmula, we’re all drowning at eBay since you quit. Quitting eBay was one of the smartest things you ever did — everybody hates working here, but stays anyway. Nice working environment, huh?

Thanks for that golden nugget.

B

A consumer contacts the company because something is *wrong*, not because something is right. If you can eliminate all the wrong stuff, customers won’t need to call, and you won’t have to work so hard to make the subsequent interactions easy and pleasant — because there won’t be any.

Taking this line of logic to the nth degree, spending money on making those interactions as easy as can be is a waste of money that the customer doesn’t want to pay for. After all, if it’s right the first time, you don’t need such a fancy call center with so many employees.