Monday, January 18, 2010

Zappos user experience + customer satisfaction= Zappos big hit?

Hello,

Finally after a long time I had the chance to blog. Not that I was short of topics to blog about but I was certainly short of time to Blog about those topics. I always struggle to see the dividing line between customer satisfaction and user experience. Here is a short personal experience which possibly helped me to understand the difference.

Zappos is considered the amazon of shoes industry. It is know for it's great customer satisfaction and recently I guess it was taken over by amazon for a considerable amount of money. Anyways so I recently was in middle of my second chilly winter here in US and I had to get better shoes this time. I started searching online and found certain good deals but I had heard a lot about Zappos so I thought of spending some extra money and be satisfied that my money was in safe hands and that I would be treated well. Google rating's and customer feedbacks also helped me be double sure I was going in for the right place. Sorry I have to be very thoughtful about the money I spend since I am still looking for a job and finances are not a pretty picture. So I ordered these shoes from Zappos and it turns out that everything was awesome, on-time delivery and delivery was very well packed. The shoes gave my feet some warmth. So last point deserves a pause and I should say shoes gave me warmth initially. After some days I started feeling cold walking around with the shoes, one day I stared at my shoes and there were some cracks and just to remind everyone these shoes are still in their first month. Seeing those cracks I was very upset as despite having done the homework I think I failed and the shoes were no longer giving him a happy feeling which should have been the case with Zappos awesome customer satisfaction. Now I still haven't written to the company as I am literally running around looking for a job starting May and I think it's fine if my feet get cold sometime. Everyone has to struggle and I am fine with mine :). However I felt here was the case of a perfect customer satisfaction which has eventually failed due the bad quality of user experience related to my shoes.

Now how could user experience have made my feet have felt better today, if there was a option on Zappos website which either said the shoes were fit for a particular range of temperature or in particular states which I feel Zappos can get the information from either the manufacturer of shoes i.e. Deer stag in my case or the end customers themselves. This option would have given me a assurance that the shoes I m buying is possibly fit for my place and temperature. I honestly feel this would be helpful as the shoe manufacturer would be aware some conditions in which the shoes would create problems like this. Even if it is not possible by shoe manufacturer this is certainly possible by Zappos asking their customer about their satisfaction with the quality of shoes and if there is a specific manufacturer they find a trend for not having a good quality of shoes they can certainly take up the issue with the shoe manufacturer.

Am I being realistic or unrealistic? Not sure. I honestly feel online retail should go more on user experience. btw I recently liked the one click purchase option on amazon. It is sweetest thing in my life right now.

Hopefully I get time to blog more in this crazy job hunt.

Thanks for reading the post.