may09b.indd


the way I see it 
Rebecca Tolley-Stokes 

Try
on
a
new
pair
of
sensible
shoes


What libraries can learn from Zappos about customer service 
and organizational culture 

Academic libraries can improve relation­ships and increase their reputation 
on campus by adapting customer service 
philosophies based on trends in the busi­
ness world, specifically, the core values 
championed by thriving online shoe retailer 
Zappos.1 The current economic downturn 
can spread a bleak mood across campus. 
Graduating seniors grasp the burden of 
repaying student loans in a job market 
that reached an 8.5 percent unemployment 
rate. Faculty, staff, and administrators recall 
Depression­era advice from their parents 
and grandparents as they grapple for ways 
to do more with less. But now is the time to 
strengthen the library’s customer service ex­
pertise and serve our campus communities’ 
information needs by offering compassion, 
commiseration, and a little extra kindness 
that is modeled by the ten core values from 
which Zappos operates. 

Dubbed “the Amazon of shoes,” Zappos 
distinguished itself from other online shoe 
retailers in courting, and, more importantly, 
keeping customers by offering free shipping 
on purchases and returns, which makes 
customers happy about ordering multiple 
sizes to get a perfect­fitting product. Its 
365­day return policy also creates complete 
customer satisfaction because customers 
appreciate the company’s long­term com­
mitment to them, and the automatic VIP 
upgrade that includes next­day shipping is 
an unexpected perk. 

Excellent customer service, combined 
with leadership from their Gen X CEO 
Tony Hsieh and the thriving organizational 
culture at Zappos, join together, further 

cementing its success. The company’s em­
phasis on customer service and its loyalty to 
employees are why their call center opera­
tions have not been outsourced, a strategy 
businesses use to cut rising personnel costs. 
Further, Zappos call center workers sail 
through the retail transaction unscripted; 
their record for longest customer phone 
call is four hours.2 Both features, improvised 
conversations, and locally based call centers 
are rarities in our increasingly globalized 
economy. 

These business strategies, along with 
its admirable customer service, allowed 
Zappos to fl ourish while other online shoe 
retailers folded in an increasingly competi­
tive online retail environment. 

But what does the price of shoes have to 
do with libraries? Everything, really. Zappos 
operates from ten core values that can be 
customized to any library’s footprint.3 Many 
of Zappos core values are not novel, nor 
will they be alien to librarians. However, 
they are shared here to uplift morale, which 
may in turn stir conversations about service 
and organizational culture and boost library 
service practices with Zappos spirit and 
enthusiasm within academic libraries. 

1. Deliver Wow through ser vice. Go 
above and beyond to differentiate the quali­
ty of service users receive in the library from 
other departments on campus, as well as 
from competitors off campus, such as cafes, 
bookstores, and the public library. Students 

Rebecca Tolley-Stokes is reference librarian at East 
Tennessee State University, e-mail: tolleyst@etsu.edu 
© 2009 Rebecca Tolley-Stokes 

288C&RL News May 2009

mailto:tolleyst@etsu.edu


encounter roadblocks in offices and other 
departments on campus whose staffs are 
not trained to answer questions, cultivate 
ownership of problems, or empowered to 
follow a project or problem through to its 
resolution. Add unconventional and in­
novative components to library outreach, 
such as reference service at the university’s 
gymnasium, where daily gatecounts out­
number the library’s. Positive experiences 
are key to generating return visits to the 
library. Academic librarians recognize the 
fine line between showing students how to 
access information and completing assign­
ments for them. We keep the adage about 
teaching a person to fish as opposed to 
handing the person a fish in mind as we 
approach students. 

Maintain the boundary, but leave the 
student with an emotional impression, your 
name and e­mail for follow­up, a personal 
connection concerning a sports team, res­
taurant, or book. If it is raining outside, 
demonstrate your compassion and offer 
the student your umbrella, along with your 
business card so they can return the item on 
the next dry day. How does the library pa­
tron feel at the end of the transaction? Ask. 
Consider this a reminder of the Maryland 
Model of Reference Interview that many of 
us learned in library school, but are often 
too harried to summon each day. 

2. Embrace and drive change. As with 
every profession, there are librarians alert 
to changes within the profession and tech­
nology, and those who are not. Keeping 
abreast of new databases, or trends in social 
networking, improves the timeliness and 
quality of service. Change emerges from 
the bottom up at Zappos, and is driven by 
employees working in concert with custom­
ers. Those immediate, one­on­one interac­
tions are the basis of creating relationships 
between clients and organizations. Zappos’ 
focus on extreme customer satisfaction al­
lows it to rocket ahead of competition and 
provides a rehabilitated model of customer 
service. Regularly consult with library staff 
and student workers for their insights 

about improvements to library services 
and outreach. 

3. Create fun and a little weirdness. 
Even today, with scores of chic, sociable 
people drawn into the profession, old ste­
reotypes persist. Do not seem dour, unap­
proachable, and boring. Laugh and smile; 
inject humor into the library and into your 
relationships. Organizational culture, which 
celebrates and embraces the diversity of 
each person, makes Zappos successful. Zap­
pos’ employees don costumes and parade 
across the call center floor to spark team 
spirit and motivate workers as the day pro­
gresses. They collaborate to create videos to 
cheer up co­workers and to persuade celeb­
rities, such as Ellen DeGeneres, to visit the 
Zappos team.4 Then the videos are shared on 
YouTube and Facebook for broader distribu­
tion and appreciation. Zappos’ team verve 
and sentiments are viral. Though book cart 
drill teams are often the province of public 
librarians and SLIS students, forming a group 
and offering “exhibition” performances 
across campus is one way to demonstrate 
both flair and fun happening in the library. 

4 .  B e  a d v e n t u r o u s ,  c r e a t i v e ,  a n d  
open-minded. Leap into a new service or 
outreach area to learn fresh skills. We learn 
little from business as usual, and that is 
why a different set of challenges energize 
organizations. Explore possibilities like blog­
ging, Twitter, Facebook, and other forms of 
social media to connect with students before 
they become ubiquitous and passé. Be an 
early adopter or adapter of new media. In­
stead of handing out paper business cards 
to students, as suggested in the fi rst core 
value, text your business card information to 
students via Contxts, which uses SMS (Short 
Message Service) technology to exchange 
and organize professional information by 
cell phone. 

5. Pur sue g rowth and lear ning. Tra­
ditional types of professional development, 
conference attendance, and continuing edu­
cation are critical for librarians and library 
staff. Cross boundaries and nose about 
for trends in public and special libraries 

May 2009  289 C&RL News 



easily adapted to academic libraries. Look 
for opportunities to update your skills, for 
example, by turning an empty space into 
a “playground,” where library faculty and 
staff have fun with digital equipment and 
software that they may not be using in their 
personal lives for financial or other rea­
sons. They gain step­by­step knowledge of 
creating content and thus empowered, can 
troubleshoot questions students encounter 
as they use technology within assignments. 

6 .  B u i l d  o p e n  a n d  h o n e s t  r e l a t i o n -
ships with communication. Connect with 
library users across platforms, both in person 
and online, and then communicate. Offer 
regular library content. Introduce students 
to Twitter and recommend they tweet during 
a LI/BI session so that you have immediate 
and honest assessment of your teaching 
effectiveness by way of Twitter’s instant 
feedback loop. This style of transparency is 
a daring move, but one that endows students 
with control, your trust, and a vested interest 
in the session. 

7. Build a positive team and f amil y 
spirit. From the start, Zappos’ conscien­
tiously builds teams via strict hiring and 
training practices, which are key in creating 
and sustaining the organizational culture that 
spawns excellence in customer service. Po­
tential employees are carefully questioned, 
trained, and offered a $2,000 incentive to 
quit in the first few weeks so that they do 
not adversely affect the team’s vibe.5 With 
applicants for vacant librarian positions 
numbering in the hundreds, there is no 
reason that libraries cannot benefit from the 
abundance of applicants and select candi­
dates who impart optimism and innovation. 

Bolster your networks with novel forms 
of communication. Connect with your col­
leagues outside of the library the old fash­
ioned way with a weekly lunch or coffee 
klatch, as well as by using social media. 
Exchanges outside the office can kindle 
novel ideas because stress levels are re­
duced, guards are down, and attitudes are 
cheerful outside of the office. Managers at 
Zappos are encouraged to spend 10 to 20 

percent of their personal time with workers 
outside the call center. 

At Zappos employees reward each other 
with $50 bonuses for a job well done.6 When 
one worker is impressed by the creativity or 
altruism of another, they submit a request 
citing the reason their co­worker awed them 
via their software. Once approved by their 
manager, the nominee prints, decorates, and 
gives it to the person who impressed them. 
The award winner sees the $50 in their next 
paycheck.7 

Zappos employees develop strong rela­
tionships and emotional connections with 
their team and the CEO by using Twitter 
and Facebook as part of their daily work 
flow. Librarians cannot give one another 
$50 bonuses, but how often do we nominate 
one another for awards? Make it a point to 
recommend your colleagues for institutional, 
regional, and national awards to show your 
appreciation for their outstanding perfor­
mance. Funds occasionally accompany this 
sort of award. 

Experiment with Twitter in your library 
by having library staff and faculty tweet to 
each other about current trends in libraries 
or areas of personal interest, such as favorite 
comic books, local restaurants, or tourist 
attractions. 

8. Do more with less. Zappos functions 
from a basis of operational excellence by 
promoting efficiency and finding the best 
way to do business. One area, at least, may 
disturb librarians’ organizational orientation: 
Zappos’ warehouse is completely disorga­
nized.8 After experimenting with various 
methods of classifying shoes by make, 
model, or season, Zappos abandoned orga­
nizational schemes for UPC logging. Once a 
box of shoes enters the warehouse, its UPC 
label is scanned and its location is logged. 
As far as inventory control systems go, it 
works in a warehouse situation and might 
in closed stacks, but is not recommended 
for academic libraries. 

9 .  B e  p a s s i o n a t e  a n d  d e t e r m i n e d .  
Zappos workers share a consistent vision 
and purpose. Their organizational culture 

290C&RL News May 2009



converges at the goal of fi nessing customer 
service. 

Revisit your library’s organizational 
principles—namely its mission, goals, and 
objectives—to remind everyone of common 
aims. Hire people who love libraries, who 
love helping, who love service. List ten 
things you like about your library, or your 
job, or the profession, and select one or 
two of those items to focus upon. Cultivate 
passion by mingling with positive people 
in allied fields with whom you can share 
information and foster creative collabora­
tions. Apply expertise from a hobby or 
interest to a project or program and revive 
your passion. 

10. Be humble. Zappos distills humility 
into displaying quiet confi dence, treating 
others how we want to be treated, and 
never being arrogant. Granted, librarians 
are noble, humble, and long­suffering ac­
cording to the stereotype, but being humble 
affects our ability to promote ourselves, our 
libraries, and our profession. Our habitual 
deference served as a character defect and 
resulted in our low position in the hierarchy 
of information professionals. Our quietude 
has not served the profession or our profi le 
on campus. This core value is one librar­
ians internalize to our detriment and is not 
recommended. 

A regular review of scholarly commu­
nication in librarianship reveals frequent 
missives regarding enhancing customer 
service by revamping the library’s organi­
zational culture. Such reminders are useful 
as a reframing of the topic may ultimately 
capture a reader’s notice, sink in, and ef­
fect change. 

Zappos’ ten core values include worthy 
ideas for consideration in improving both 
the quality of customer service and imper­
fect aspects of the organizational culture of 
libraries. Use these ideas, or expand upon 
them, to improve practices and to reshape 
your library’s culture, so all can fulfi ll the 
shared goals and purposes of your library. 
Spending four hours answering a single 
reference question, or any service transac­

tion in a library, for that matter, is simply 
not viable for our service desks. 

We lack funding to encourage one 
another with $50 bonuses, but the most 
important lessons to draw from Zappos 
are not about monetary rewards, but 
about “complimentary” improvements to 
customer service and your organizational 
culture. 

Notes
1. C. A. Chouteau, et. al., “Gone Fishing: 

Using the FISH! Business Model to Moti­
vate Student Workers,” Technical Services 
Quarterly 24, no. 3 (2007): 41–9, Linda C. 
Brown and Benjamin Layne, “Lessons From 
the Ice Cream Parlor: Four Goals to Improve 
Customer Service and Individual Attitudes,” 
AALL Spectrum 9, no. 6 (April 2005): 6­7, 
Mark B. Bernstein, “How Customer Service 
Principles Ensure the Library’s Relevance,” 
AAAL Spectrum 13 no 2. (November 2008): 
21–22. 

2 .  w w w . f a c e b o o k . c o m / p a g e s  
/Zapposcom/7172307686?ref=ts&#/video 
/video.php?v=66809307641&ref=mf. 

3. about.zappos.com/our­unique­culture 
/zappos­core­values. 

4. www.facebook.com/video/video. 
php?v=691555155769. 

5. Keith McFarland, “Why Zappos Offers 
New Hires $2,000 to Quit; The Policy of 
Providing a Let­Out After One Week Has 
Gained Worldwide Attention,” Business 
Week Online, September 17, 2008, www. 
b u s i n e s s w e e k . c o m / s m a l l b i z / c o n t e n t  
/sep2008/sb20080916_288698.htm. Ac­
cessed March 21, 2009. 

6. J. M. O’Brien, “Zappos Knows How 
to Kick It [Part of a special section on the 
100 Best Companies to Work For; cover 
story],” Fortune v. 159 no. 2 (February 2 
2009): 54–6, 58, 60 

7. Conversation with Jenna, Zappos 
customer service representative March 24, 
2009. 

8 .  w w w . l o n g t a i l . c o m / t h e _ l o n g _  
tail/2007/01/everything_is_m.html. Ac­
cessed March 21, 2009. 

May 2009  291 C&RL News 

www.longtail.com/the_long
www.facebook.com/video/video
www.facebook.com/pages