Since starting on the top floor of their house in 1991, Pieter Zwart, Paul de Jong and Bart Kuijpers have made their company explode. In this small post I want to sidetrack from all the posts regarding actual information strategy and switching to something else that is as important to making your business grow: customer service.
To understand the idea behind the Coolblue model of customer service, we need to look at a company that was founded in the same year. For this we need to go to the other side of the world: San Francisco, where Zappos was founded.
Zappos was initially called ‘Shoesite.com’ and was nothing more than a company that sold shoes online. Some of their core values are shown in the figure. The most important of these core values, in my opinion, is to ‘deliver WOW through service’. This service, is also customer service. In an anecdote Tony Hsieh told in his book ‘Delivering Happiness’, he says that he once bet a Skechers rep that if he called the Zappos hotline, the employee would be able to locate the nearest late-night pizza delivery’. And they did. This WOW-factor that they tried to surprise the customer with was the most important thing that made Zappos the company that it is today, that same company that was acquired by Amazon for $1.2 billion back in 2009.
When we return to Coolblue, we see these same values popping up in their customer service. They are extremely helpful, great on social media and go out of their way to make customers happy and deliver that WOW-factor. It’s not surprising their revenue is growing with 50% per year and was exceeding the €500 million mark late 2015. (http://www.emerce.nl/nieuws/omzet-coolblue-naar-555-miljoen-euro-duizend-extra-banen)
Good companies are funded on happy customers; happy customers are created by good customer service. More companies should adopt the Coolblue/Zappos method to grow as it clearly works.
If there are questions about anything, contact Coolblue: they can help you.
(this post is *unfortunately* not sponsored by Coolblue in anyway)
Hi Yuri, I really enjoyed reading your blog! It is so interesting to read that the success of the business basically evolved around a great customer service. In my opinion, Pieter Zwart really thought ahead, since the internet wasn’t as booming in 1991 as it is now. Besides, I am wondering how they managed to arrange their marketing in such a way that people felt connected to their customer service. A lot of business try and have tried to achieve the same goals, but didn’t manage. I guess a combination of ‘luck’, the right time and an efficient strategy are a success formula for Coolblue.
Dear Yuri, thank you for your post. You mentioned that Coolblue is great on social media and I totally agree on that. The fact that employees respond to a message within 30 minutes on Twitter and Facebook is very customer friendly and really creates the WOW-factor. Coolblue was even thinking about extending their customer service to WhatsApp and give customers the possibility to receive an answer to their question via this service. Just like Zappos, Coolblue creates perfect customer service and the WOW-factor by their fast and free delivery 7 days a week. When customers order their product before 11:59PM they will get it delivered at home the next day already. As the blog mentioned, one of the values in the customer service of Coolblue is that they are helpful. In my opinion, that is one of the reasons Coolblue has opened five physical stores in addition to their online shop. This allows the company to provide customers with the best possible service, tailored advice and personalized information and that is what makes a customer happy!
Dear Yuri, Thank you for your post! I have recently (before we got the guest lecture) shopped at Coolblue, and I was amazed by their service. They really took their time to help me, and they installed my products immediately. I made a rather small purchase (in my opinion), but they definitely made me leave the store happy – and I would certaintly return if I need to. I agree with you – CoolBlue’s strategy is working, and certain companies can definitely learn from them.
Hi Yuri! Thanks for the blog on Coolblue. I didn’t know Zappos had such an influence on the growth of Coolblue. I had contact with Coolblue several times and I could feel the smile on the face of the employee I was chatting with. However, I think that Coolblue could make more profit if they would have less focus on customer care. The amount of time and money Coolblue spends on customer care is decreasing the profit. I do agree that this is not one of their incentives, but I think they should focus on the future and make sure they have enough reserves.