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Zappos has built a great reputation as being all about customer service.  Until recently, I had only heard of their reputation, because I’ve never bought anything from them before.  Based on all the good things I’d heard, I decided to use them to order my next pair of shoes.  Once the shoes arrived, my biggest fear about ordering shoes online came true.  They were too small.

This is a fear, because returning things to an online retailer can be a big hassle.  I was in for a big surprise.

First, the return policy was great.  I had 365 days to return them.  This is great for someone as lazy as myself that likes to procrastinate.  They also left easy instructions in the box about how to print off a return label.  Suddenly, I was way less worried about sending something back.

The trouble wasn’t over yet.  When I finally went to print off the return label, my order wasn’t showing up in my account.  Here was the trouble I expected.  I was preparing myself for the dreaded answering service tree and the 2 hours I would spend on hold to get this figured out.  Right before I was about to call, I decided to change things up a bit.  I wanted to try out Zappos’ instant chat customer service feature to see if their customer service really lives up to the hype.

I was very skeptical to say the least, but after I clicked the button to get in line, I only had to wait a minute or so until I got someone to talk with me.  They quickly diagnosed the problem and emailed me a return shipping label.  They did all of this and were still extremely nice to me.  This isn’t the customer service experience I’m used to.

After my interaction with the customer service rep, I went and posted how happy I was with this experience on Twitter.  Within just a few minutes, I got a response from Zappos saying they were glad I had a good experience.  It feels great to just be listened to.  The customer service rep listened, and one of their Twitter users listened.  This shouldn’t be an amazing experience.  It should be a common occurrence, but it isn’t.

These little things have motivated me to write a post about my experience.  Now, the legend of great customer experience with Zappos will continue to move forward, and I am happy to help it move that direction.  How have brands interacted with you in the digital space?  What did they do right or wrong?  Let me know in the comments.

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