“It’s not about shoes”

The Amazon owned online retailer recently logged its longest customer service call at 10 hours and 43 minutes, breaking its own internal record. In typical corporate culture, employees are often denounced for their inefficiency, but this particular employee expressed that his colleagues had gone as far as offering him food and water throughout the call to show their support. This customer-friendly company is none other than Zappos, a 17-year-old e-commerce giant.

Established in 1999, Zappos was founded on striving for purpose beyond profit. Understanding the highly competitive market, the company heavily invested in building a culture internally, and externally with customers. Rather than spending a fortune on traditional advertising, the company focused its efforts on satisfying its customers to generate organic publicity. In fact, employees are encouraged to go to extra lengths to please customers by staying on support calls for as long as needed and even offering free service upgrades whenever employees deem necessary. This unique customer-centric culture eventually became the number one driver in the company’s tremendous growth.

Earlier this year, the company began adopting Holocracy; a forefront management system where power is removed from the management hierarchy of the organization. By distributing authority across the board, CEO, Tony Hsieh believes that it will cultivate a collaborative mindset and instill a sense of self-organization and management in its employees. In conjunction with a campus featuring an open layout, Hsieh has seemingly defined the perfect link between a productive work environment and a workforce built on close knit friendships. Never mind maintaining a work-life balance, Zappos has once again proven itself to be the leader of avant-garde business management.