Human Resource Management of Zappos.com Introduction Human Resource management has a high impact on the overall organization being managed. HR management makes certain that human talent is used successfully and resourcefully to accomplish organizational goals. As an organization core competency, human resources has distinctive competencies that generates high value and sets apart an organization from competitors in areas such as productivity, quality and service, employee skills, and innovative changes. HR management activities can be grouped into categories which include strategic HR management; equal employment opportunity; staffing and talent management; compensation and benefits; and employee and industry relations. This paper will discuss some of these HR functions and the role Human Resources has at the company Zappos.com. About the Company Zappos.com is a website that started off just selling shoes but now sells items such as handbags, clothing, and housewares in addition to shoes. Their company logo includes their catchy name with an explanation point as the end in the shape of shoe print which leads consumers to believe Zappos has strong feelings about the service they provide to their consumers. Zappos believe that customer service is the number one priority and is focused on cultivating repeat customers which is why they have always provided free shipping on both orders and returns; occasionally provides upgraded shipping so customers can receive their shoes the same day that they are ordered even though this is very expensive to the company; and they only show products on their website that they actually have in stock albeit they lose 25 percent of their potential business by doing so (Walker, 2009). For a compa... ... middle of paper ... ...ure-is-your-brand Moran, G. (2011, April 7). Christa foley, recruiting manager, zappos.com – hr thought leader. Retrieved from http://www.chequed.com/hr-thought-leadership-series/?Tag=zappos.com Myers, I. (2011, May 11). How does zappos handle employee compensation: bonus vs. salary?. Retrieved from http://www.quora.com/How-does-Zappos-handle-employee- compensation-bonus-vs-salary Taylor, W (2008, May 19). Why zappos pays new employees to quit—and you should too. Retrieved from http://blogs.hbr.org/taylor/2008/05/why_zappos_pays_new_employees.html Walker, A. (2009, March 14). Zappo’s tony hsieh on twitter, phone calls and the pursuit of happiness. Retrieved from http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/aslissa-walker/member- blog/tony-hsiehs-zapposcom Zappos insights’ privacy policy. (2010, May 1). Retrieved from http://www.zapposinsights.com/main/privacy-policy/
Macy’s intended to deliver enhanced shopping experiences to its consumers through dynamic department stores and online sites. In this regard, the company developed a North Star strategy that allows it to improve its sales growth and to develop its existing core activities. The company’s consumer research monitors, analyze and anticipate their needs and wants based on the changing market trends. This allows it to strengthen its customer base and also helps it in identifying new markets and customers. Macy’s also identifies different styles and designs based on various occasions and events that allow it to capture the changing preferences of its customers. The company also celebrates various iconic events to interact with its customers which
The other problem people face with many other online clothing retailers is the inconvenience caused if they need to return a product. With our service, the customer does not pay the price for the product and has considerable amount of time to come to a decision as to whether or not to buy the product. This removes any remaining doubt in the customer’s mind and increases customer confidence levels.
Noe, Raymond A., et al. Human Resource Management: Gaining a Competitive Advantage. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2010. Print.
Service wins the game.” As Tony Allesandra states, in order to have+ a successful business, customer service must remain a priority. It is also proven that shoppers are more likely to return to retailers with good customer service over those without. This past summer, my mothers’ best friend was getting married, so my mom and I drove to the mall. Once we had found a parking spot, we both walked towards Banana Republic; I began to walk faster, as if I was being pulled like a magnet, and threw inspiring words back to my mother to pick up her pace. In no time, my mother and I were walking through Banana Republics’ entrance. The greeter said hello and asked us if we were looking for anything in particular. I told the greeter- named Lacey- about my mothers’ issue of not having a dress to wear. Lacey immediately noted my moms’ height and age which would narrow her down her choices, yet she still ended up finding several options that both my mother and I loved. With the help of Lacey, the hardest part of this shopping trip was trying to decide which dresses to put back; my mom ended up wearing lovely textured grey dress that fell just above the knee accompanied with a modest v-shaped neckline. Banana Republic not only made a sell with their superior customer service, but they also gained the trust of my family and free advertisement because my mother now recommends Banana Republic to all her friends. In
Zappos is an online shoe and clothing store. The idea of an online shoe store originally came from Nick Swinmurn in the year 1999. He then pitched the idea to Alfred Lin and Zappos’ current CEO Tony Hsieh. Zappos quick rise to success is mostly attributed to their ten core values. These values vary from creating fun and weirdness to being humble. However, the root of this company’s success lies only on one important thing: their regard for customer service. They value the quality time spent with customers over the phone rather than the quantity of customers.
Strategic human resource management involves the development of consistent and aligned practices, programs, and policies geared toward the achievement of an organization’s strategic objectives. It requires human resources (HR) managers to abandon the standard personnel management mindset and focus instead on strategic issues. These programs must be integrated into a larger framework that facilitates the organization’s overall mission and objectives (Mello, 2015). Nordstrom considers customer service to be at the core of the company’s culture (Spector & McCarthy, 2012) and sales is their service.
show the amount of vacancies in a job centres, if they can see if they
Zara, the most profitable brand of Inditex SA, the Spanish clothing retail group, opened its first store in 1975 in La Coruña, Spain; a city which eventually became the central headquarters for Zara’s global operations. Since then they have expanded operations into 45 countries with 531 stores located in the most important shopping districts of more than 400 cities in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa. Throughout this expansion Zara has remained focused on its core fashion philosophy that creativity and quality design together with a rapid response to market demands will yield profitable results. In order to realized these results Zara developed a business model that incorporated the following three goals for operations: develop a system the requires short lead times, decrease quantities produced to decrease inventory risk, and increase the number of available styles and/or choice. These goals helped to formulate a unique value proposition: to combine moderate prices with the ability to offer new clothing styles faster than its competitors. These three goals helped to shape Zara’s current business model.
More so, this directly led to service to loyalty, repeat business, word of mouth, and increased revenues. Zappos knew it was pertinent to necessitate ensuring that their customers received the products they were in search for. Furthermore, if the pair of shoes in which they wanted was out of the customers size, they made every effort as part of their policy to refer the customer to one of their competitors that had the item in stock. Not only were the customers singing Zappos praises but the employees were fully engaged and passionate about service to the customers. This highly resonated with the consumers and they could feel the positivity in the voices of the representatives in which they interacted with over the phone. By implementing focus on the customers and building lucrative relationships, this helped Zappos soar to new profitable heights. In addition, Zappos acknowledged that they never really paid much attention to what other companies were doing. They never knew that the decisions they made were in direct contrast to those of their competitors (Solis,
Business strategy and model: Zappos.com had a differentiation strategy with which they had differentiated themselves from the rest of the market. They had use a unique corporate culture in their company which was one of the major competitive edges of the company. According to the CEO of the company, Tony Hsieh, that everything that they had done at Zappos such as their relationships with 1,200 to 1,500 brands, policies and website style could be copied, however, the only thing that no one could copy from them was their unique culture. Zappos had 10 unique core values as a basis of their company’s culture, employee performance and their overall operations. They were hiring and firing people on the basis of their abilities that whether they were living up to these core values or not.
However, they managed to survive with the business acumen. These hard times forced the people at the helm of affairs to modify and sharpen the swords to fight the market of competition. The teams focused on more reliable customer service to avoid any future flaws and gave a new road map to curb the issues. Zappos is already brilliant with customer service and has collected many awards from customers in this domain. Many customers revealed to the company that they were shocked over the quality and timeliness of the delivery.
The focus on cultivating customer services is to ensure repeat customers, total quality management (Wheelen, T., 2015, p.292). Total quality management is an operational philosophy committed to customer satisfaction and continuous improvement, an intense focus on customer service where Zappos employees understand the existence of their customer’s needs (Wheelen, T., 2015, p.292,293). Zappos provided customer satisfaction through marketing strategy, free shipping on both orders and returns, and occasionally same day delivery (however, is no longer guaranteed) (Wheelen, T., 2015, p.216).
Offering the ideal services to the consumers guarantees the corporation customers loyalty as well as satisfactions. Along with customers’ devotion, the supply of quality services additionally draws in other clients that are going to furthermore want to purchase from the firm. Through this, the organization will probably generate more income compared to any other shoe selling organization in the entire nation of
Shopping and shipping: Zappos tried to put effort to make shopping enjoyable. The Zappos website was known as the easy shopping center. Zappos provides direction that how customers improve features, plan inventory and adapt search results. Zappos was adopted simplicity, creativity, great service of inventory and distribution. Zappos provides
Whether an organization consists of five or 25,000 employees, human resources management is vital to the success of the organization. HR is important to all managers because it provides managers with the resources – the employees – necessary to produce the work for the managers and the organization. Beyond this role, HR is capable of becoming a strong strategic partner when it comes to “establishing the overall direction and objectives of key areas of human resource management in order to ensure that they not only are consistent with but also support the achievement of business goals.” (Massey, 1994, p. 27)