Now, truth be told, I was a little hesitant to include this story because I don’t actually want everyone who reads this book to start calling Zappos and ordering pizza. She returned two minutes later, listing the five closest places in the Santa Monica area that were still open and delivering pizzas at that time. The Zappos rep was initially a bit confused by the request, but she quickly recovered and put us on hold. She took us up on our dare, turned on the speakerphone, and explained to the (very) patient Zappos rep that she was staying in a Santa Monica hotel and really craving a pepperoni pizza, that room service was no longer delivering hot food, and that she wanted to know if there was anything Zappos could do to help. In our inebriated state, a few of us cajoled her into calling Zappos to try to order a pizza.

We had missed the deadline by several hours.

My friend from Skechers tried to order a pepperoni pizza from the room-service menu, but was disappointed to learn that the hotel we were staying at did not deliver hot food after 11:00 PM. After a long night of bar-hopping, a small group of us headed up to someone’s hotel room to order some food. I’m reminded of a time when I was in Santa Monica, California, a few years ago at a Skechers sales conference. And sometimes, we get customers who call simply because they’re a little lonely and want someone to talk to. Other times, a customer may call because there’s a wedding coming up this weekend and he wants a little fashion advice. Sometimes a customer may be calling because it’s her first time returning an item, and she just wants a little help stepping through the process. The majority of phone calls don’t result in an immediate order. But what we’ve found is that on average, every customer contacts us at least once sometime during his or her lifetime, and we just need to make sure that we use that opportunity to create a lasting memory. In fact, most of our phone calls don’t even result in sales. A lot of people may think it’s strange that an Internet company is so focused on the telephone, when only about 5 percent of our sales happen through the telephone. Instead, we’re trying to build a lifelong relationship with each customer, one phone call at a time. But we’re not trying to maximize each and every transaction. “Obviously, in those situations, we lose the sale.

Delivering happiness