The Disrupters is one of the most recent podcasts launched by the BBC. Featuring the Editorial Director of BBC News, Kamal Ahmed, and entrepreneur Rohan Silva, each week the presenters lift the lid on the realities of starting a new business. So far they have featured companies such as LinkedIn, Lastminute.com, The Cambridge Satchel Company, and DeepMind.
What is clear from the approach taken by this podcast is that industrial disruption can be positive. This runs counter to how most of us feel when we are affected by disruption. Most of us want security and stability at home and at work. To say that disruption is positive does not ring true for all of us, but look at some of those disruptors and what they have achieved.
LinkedIn has shaken up various industries, but most fundamentally recruitment. Lastminute.com led travel agents online and redefined online flight and hotel bookings. The Cambridge Satchel Company showed how a great idea and stylish product could quickly go global, and DeepMind (especially since the acquisition by Google) is shaping how we see Artificial Intelligence. All of these companies reshaped their industry and all these disruptions are now seen as positive.
As a shoe lover, one of my favourite stories of industrial disruption is Zappos. Now owned by Amazon, Zappos originally started out in 1999 as the first ever company that tried to sell shoes online. Even the Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh admits that selling shoes online sounded like a bad idea back in the nineties, but shoes were a $40bn a year market in the US at that time and 5% of those sales were already mail order, so Zappos was born.
A 2010 Harvard Business Review article by Tony Hsieh indicates how Zappos did more than just change the way that people bought shoes. Zappos redefined customer service and made the entire customer experience (CX) a strategic priority. Look at some of the points raised nine years ago by Hsieh in his HBR feature:
That HBR feature was from nine years ago. What it demonstrates to me is that many of the CX disruptions we see in the business media as contemporary strategic discussions were already being implemented by Zappos a decade ago. Why are we still reading earnest business journals discussing the value of CX when Tony Hsieh was doing it all for real in Las Vegas so long ago?
In a more recent 2017 profile of Zappos in Forbes magazine, the writer Micah Solomon is surprised to find metrics counting flowers inside the Zappos contact centre. When he asked what the flower score means he was told, that’s how many bouquets we have sent out to customers in the past month and year. Zappos didn’t just disrupt shoe retailing in the US, they set a standard for valuing customers – globally.
When you are facing an uncertain future because of digital or industrial disruption then it certainly can feel unsettling and negative, but it can lead to a better state. As Zappos demonstrated long ago, the conversation between a customer and brand on the telephone should in fact be at the very heart of every corporate strategy.
In case you haven’t registered yet, Sign up to receive fresh insights and invitations to exec events with our Webhelp Disruptor Series campaign: https://www.go.webhelp.com/disruptorseries
Get in touch if you’re facing disruption – or want to disrupt – and want to talk through the implications for CX. E: helen.murray@uk.webhelp.com
Author: Helen Murray
As the countdown to Christmas continues, David Turner CEO for Webhelp UK, India and South Africa, looks at 12 themes that will be trending in CX for the coming year and looks back on a very successful year. My personal highlight for 2019 was the sheer number of new brands that we were able to bring into the business. It’s always a pleasure to reflect that so many market leaders have...
ReadThe votes are done and dusted, the yeas and nays have been counted and the results are in! The Customer Experience Awards season has now drawn to a close and we are happy to announce some excellent news for the UK, India and South Africa team here at Webhelp. Across all the regions, our...
ReadThe European Contact Centre and Customer Service Awards were held last night at Evolution London in Battersea Park. The event was a glittering affair with over 130 tables filled to the brim with the brightest and best in the industry. The stars were out in force too, with distinguished...
ReadOur 11th edition of The HUB is here! In this edition, we give you insights about the new generation – Gen Z who are not only game changers but also a force to reckon with. And is data collection a friend or foe? Under this question lays the bedrock of our relationship with data collection which...
Read...
ReadStrictly Necessary Cookies
The website requires the use of cookies for essential functional requirements and these are outlined in the cookies policy.
Enhanced Functional Cookies
Some features of this website use services provided by third parties websites. These features use cookies to implement their services on this website and may collect data about your visit to help them optimize their functionality. The Webhelp cookies policy outlines the cookies used by these services.