The Zappos Experience: 5 Principles to Inspire, Engage, and WOW

Rafael Mojica, senior user experience architect at Zappos, explained how he and other members of the user experience team view their jobs. “It is an obsession to make our website—and ultimately all Zappos touch points—more user-friendly. We spend the bulk of our time focused on our website’s ease of navigation. Although our customers are very satis

Zappos has embedded hidden messages on bar codes on its delivery boxes and packages. Zappos buyers can use their mobile phones to find a special message. Once they scan the bar code and share their “happy” experiences by forwarding photos to Zappos, they are provided with a “special treat.

“The idea of feeding staff really didn’t emerge as a compensation or retention strategy; instead, the main idea was socialization. We wanted to have staff members all sit down and eat with one another and have conversations.

César Ritz, founder of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, once said, “People like to be served, but invisibly.” Two areas where invisible but important service takes place at Zappos are the load speed of pages on the Zappos website and the urgency with which Customer Loyalty Team (CLT) members answer calls.

“Cover letters are soooo old-fashioned, don’t you think? Show us who you are with a cover letter VIDEO! You will be able to upload one when applying for a position.

In designing and improving the user experience, the Zappos user experience (UX) team relies on a combination of active listening, user research, intuition, and trial-and-error approaches.

Companies like Zappos act swiftly, take responsibility (often even when the fault is beyond their control), enable staff discretion to fix problems, compensate fairly, do a little something extra to acknowledge inconveniences, and follow up until the issue is brought to satisfactory closure.

From my perspective, customer expectations are easily evaluated in terms of those that are predicted and those that are normative. By predicted, I am talking about realistic, practical, or anticipated outcomes that emerge from personal experiences, reported experiences of others, and sources of knowledge such as the media. In essence, predicted exp

We have to nail every part of the customer journey, from the moment a customer gets to the website to the moment when that customer finishes the order. Every aspect must be a pleasant experience.