Blazing a trail of ethics, morality and social interaction

If you read us regularly you know I am a huge fan of Zappos. My dedication to this company is born from their dedication to me - their customer - which I have now been for several years. I have purchased dozens upon dozens of shoes and other goods, outfitting my wife, myself and our 4 kids.

My relationship with them began a year before I actually purchased. I used the site to search for products and read the content but was not, like many consumers, always ready to start shopping immediately. While real estate still grapples with how to deal the passive web shopper, trying like heck to corral them with lead generation and capture mechanisms from the first visit, Zappos, hung back. Chillin'. It waited for me and, in the meantime, gave me access to everything. One day, I became a customer.

And then things got great. 

I am also blown away by their CEO, Tony Hsieh - the man - and the clarity with which he guides his company. I don't know him personally. And I don't have too to understand his dedication to the process. I do know this for sure: Every decision he makes must bow at the alter of the Zappos brand promise and answer to the question: How does this increase the level of super service we offer our customers?

I read his blog. I follow him on Twitter and continue to marvel at how he exudes positive thoughts during these challenging times.

Today, Tony published this Blog post correlating the skills he's amassed as a businessman to the game of poker. It's pointless to pull a few quotes. It's best to read this in its entirety but clearly, in his world, being humble, friendly, appreciative and always open to the possibly someone knows more than you are the key takeaways for me.

Zappos is more than a vendor of apparel. In fact, they are more than a company that provides great customer service. Zappos is fast becoming a model of ethics and morality for those looking to blaze a trail forward in the world of online social interaction.

I get it.
I'm grateful for it.  
And I grow as a result.

- Davison 
Twitter: 1000wattmarc

What real estate can learn from a shoe peddler

Zappos is the leading online shoe site. They are a customer service-driven organization that has received a ton of business from my household the past couple years. But what concerns me here is the online experience, which is simply fantastic.

What makes Zappos great

It's simple in my mind. I'll use real estate language to explain it:

1. The "MLS" -- Zappos -- easily mingles inventory from a vast array of shoe "brokers" across borders through a brilliantly executed public search site.
2. The brokers who supply the inventory also supply awesome pictures and great content to merchandise their products.
3. Consumers are allowed to participate and contribute reviews solicited by the "MLS" on behalf of the "brokers."

Zappos' greatness is a result of this trinity of contributors working harmoniously, each vested in a common end result - a successful transaction.   

Here, everyone wins.
Hard work in and great results out.
This is what it's about.

What makes real estate search not so great

It's simple in my mind:

1. The MLS (most, anyway) won't mingle inventory from the vast array of brokerages across borders resulting in a less than useful search experience.
2. The brokers don't, can't and won't supply awesome pictures and great content needed to properly merchandise their products.
3. Consumers are never solicited for reviews by the MLS on behalf of the brokers because they fear this content.

Here, there's no winner.
Laziness in. Nothing great out.
This is what it's about. 

Online real estate will never fulfill its promise if real estate's three participants don't all step up to the plate.

Real estate talks a great game. But comes up short when it counts.

It's nice how everyone throws around the word "consumer," but meanwhile it's almost 2009 and people still can't search across MLS borders on most broker websites. Instead, they need to go outside real estate to do it. And while they might be able to look at homes on those sites, they can't source the critical knowledge about homes and neighborhoods because it's locked away inside the MLS, the brokerage and the minds of local residents. If real estate really cared about the consumer, this problem would be history.

It's cool that a few MLS's in the Bay area poured some celebratory bubbly over a decision to merge data. But the cheers are ten years too late. And the time just keeps tick-tocking away.

Zappos does it right.
It matters not that they sell shoes. 
That's not the big picture.

- Davison

Today's open social, a legacy from the past

If you think your customers know you because of your website bio, think again.
If you think you create loyalty from a simple brand statement, think again.
If you think all this innovation separates you from tradition, please think again.

The Past

Every Friday morning, as a boy, I joined grandma on her weekly trek to the butcher. Shelly knew exactly what kind of chicken grandma preferred for the Sabbath meal. It  was bagged when we arrived. Her name, scribbled across the wrapping. A few  marrow bones thrown in for her soup. No charge. And a sugary bow tie cookie for me.

Every so often as a boy, I'd join grandpa to the shoe repair store. Mario, the owner, was a tiny man dwarfed by stacks of shoes and shoe parts. His olive skin held a shiny patina from all the polish he handled. "Marco Polo!" he'd scream as I entered his shop. "Looka how bigga you get." Even if he hadn't seen me for a year. Even though I had hardly grown.

Back then, New York's Lower East Side was our Internet. These shops were our destination sites of choice. The owners garnered loyalty the old fashioned way -- by being there. Holding court. Playing to the crowd of visitors, customers, members.

They'd talk and joke -- share their opinions about anything.

Shelly and Mario were yesterday's webmasters. Social networks' architects. They epitomized the very essence of what "local" meant. When I think of them, memories overtake me. They had an intimate relationship with their customers. Chicken is chicken, but there was only one Shelly.

Sometimes, the conversations inside their stores were about politics. Sometimes it was about sports. Often, it was about the neighborhood. Who did what to whom. Who bought a new car. What home was for sale. Sometimes, it was idle banter.

But  it was always real. Honest. It mimicked life. And it was the foundation of their business.

Today

Meet Tony. Zappos resident shopkeeper. Standing behind his counter. Like Shelly, garnering loyalty the old fashioned way. By being there.  Sharing his thoughts. Playing to the Zappos crowd.

I received a Twitter message last week regarding his thoughts on service. It prompted me to go to the Web site. I shopped around and ordered three pairs of Doc Martins -- sneaker shoes and a pair of summer sandals. Asked for 3-4 day delivery. They arrived the next day. Just like his tweet suggested.

Tomorrow

I  know this whole Web 2.0 stuff is seemingly fleeting, trendy and difficult to  measure.

I know it can be argued that so much of what is being twittered about -- especially in real estate -- is hardly quotable, and borderline rubbish.

I know that discounting many of Web 2.0's higher possibilities is a predominant sensibility in real estate especially among die-hard traditionalists holding onto old-fashioned ways.

But I submit that what you are discounting is deeply rooted in good old-fashioned tradition. I submit that if applied correctly, blogs, Twitter and the like could very well be the vehicle by which those old-fashioned ideologies we honor so dearly can be resurrected.

I submit that these Web 2.0 tools stand to better connect you with your customers than the template, static, boilerplate Web tools you have been using for the last 10 years.

Nostalgia

Shelly or Mario never said anything all that memorable. But the social experiences inside their establishments have lingered for 40 years.

Your establishment is online. This is where conversations must now take place. To fight this inevitability is to buck the very tradition you hold dear. Real estate begins with a conversation, and what better way to start and carry one than with the array of free 2.0 tools at your fingertips?

Granted, learning how to properly use these tools might be an arduous swim upstream. But sometimes a trip back to the past is where you can birth a new future.

What  have you got to lose?

- Davison

When loyalty is based on indifference.

It's amazing what some companies take for granted.
It's amazing what some companies leave on the table.
It's amazing what some companies don't do to blow their customers away.

It's sad how little most companies invest in building affection with their customers. I could be talking about major real estate brands. I could be talking airlines. I could be talking about phone carriers.

My Verizon bill

After nearly dropping dead from the shock of my January cell-phone bill, I dialed 611 while pacing a trench in my living room.

As it turns out, the culprits were the hordes of Verizon folks who'd switched to AT&T over the holidays, reeking havoc on my free mobile-to-mobile minutes causing my otherwise stable charges to skyrocket. Just like that.

Verizon could have built an alert of some kind that recognizes when we, the loyalists, are on the threshold of a violent overage. But they didn't. They could issue a voucher for it's customers to be used against spiked minutes due to the anomaly of so many customers switching carriers at once. That would have been  mind-blowing. But the company instead chose to do nothing.

According to a summer poll conducted by M:Metrics, roughly two-thirds of people interested in buying the iPhone (the leading driver of a lot of recent carrier-switching) are not currently AT&T customers. Verizon knew this was going to happen. And they did nothing.

And that also blows my mind.

Being stuck is not the same as being loyal

I could leave Verizon. And go where? In a sea of phone carriers, they're all the same. One just as bad as the next. So I'm stuck with what I have.

Corporate folks, as they crunch numbers, tend to view this repeat business as brand loyalty. I disagree. And if the foundation of your business is built on that very same premise, I'd check it for cracks.

Had Verizon checked, it would have noticed that after getting over the shock of the bill, I had to wait over an hour to finally reach a salesperson who took another 40 minutes to investigate why my bill was over $600.

I hung up frustrated, abused, discarded.

What does this have to do with real estate?

Everything. What are you doing right now to mine the richest vein before you -- your existing and past customer base? What meaning are you applying to your brand right now that could translate into genuine loyalty?

Brokers: What are you doing right now, from the top down, to relieve frustration among your customers? To embrace them? To make them feel respected rather than used?

Your brands are stabbed into America's front yard. They know your names but they don't know you. They are hard-pressed to express your value proposition. You are like everyone else. How are you leveraging your differences, your essence, to enhance a sense of loyalty?

AT&T partnered with Apple to create that new bond. Maybe it's working. Who knows. I am already hearing a hue and cry from their newly converted about dropped calls and lousy service. Meanwhile, Verizon does nothing other push that oddball "Can you hear me now?" guy on us while it remains deaf to the gripes of its customers.

So this is my point: In the face of today's market, with all of the issues facing the American homeowner -- from shrinking equity to volatile credit markets to impending foreclosure -- what new bonds are real estate brokers creating? What new offerings or alerts are you presenting to your past customers that could not only bring immediate benefit, relief, information or counsel but that also could assign some new, greater sense of value for you and your brands?

Vendors: In the face of today's struggle to stay afloat, in light of the market and shrinking sales, what are you doing right now to drive new products, services, tools and pricing back to your current broker client base? Are you reengineering your technologies? Are you enhancing your old platforms? Are you working with modern code or are you just sticking to the same old, same old in hopes that your clients just continue writing checks because you've mistakenly confused the futility of finding a better vendor with loyalty?

Can you hear me now?

A new cell-phone carrier will one day emerge with a Zappos-like service ethic, an Apple-like retail experience and a Starwood-like rewards program built to cultivate affection and loyalty. Or not. What interests me is what this would look like in real estate. From consumers within the industry to homeowners outside it, all one has to do is gaze out across the landscape to see the millions of unclaimed, disloyal, stuck hearts looking, yearning and hoping for something they can fall in love with.

Don't wish the cycles would turn; turn them yourself.

- Davison

Time for a new pair of shoes

In the 1960’s Converse owned 95% of the sneaker market. The Chuck Taylor, its crown jewel, was the official shoe of the NBA.

Back then, a sneaker was once just a foot covering. A simple rubber sole. No arch. Canvas material that decomposed after six months. PF Flyers, the Chuck Taylor alternative, promised you could run faster and jump higher in them. I bought a pair. I didn't run any faster or jump any higher. It was just an empty promise.

And that was all a sneaker was.

Then came Nike. Reebok. Addidas. Puma. Diesel. They took the sneaker to places unfathomable by the old market giants. They incorporated technology into their construction. Sophistication into their style. Market knowledge into developing its utility. And elegance into developing their message. Today, these sneaker companies are lifestyle brands.

Looking through my newspaper's real estate section this past weekend, I likened what I saw to the Converse of old. Page after page of worn rubber souls, washed out canvas tops, and frayed laces.

I’m sorry, but it's getting to the point of being pathetic. One home, valued at over a million dollars, features a super-sized picture of the agent and a tiny photo of the corner of a backyard deck. A flower pot was the focal point. Beyond the flower pot was a field.

This actually angered me. I was angry for the seller, angry for the broker and angry for this industry that allows the bar for everything to be set so incredibly low. The entire real estate section in my paper, is utterly, maddeningly, sadly, useless.

My take away is this: If you work in this industry as an agent and if you are doing the same thing you did ten years ago -- the same ads, the same themes, the same disregard for technology, for utility, for style, for branding -- you are the Chuck Taylor's waiting to be clobbered by something new.

I have two pair of Chuck Taylors in the closet. Purple and Black. The black pair is from 1976, the purple from ‘77. I won’t throw them away because there is something to be said for respecting the past. But I’ll never wear them again. They hurt, they’re uncomfortable and they look funny.

- Davison

The Zappos MLS

Adidas Telstar. List price on Zappos: $59.95.

I get to see these shoes at every possible angle.
I get reviews.
I get contact options that include "click here for live support".

The Zappos MLS

There are three million products in the Zappos database from over one thousand different shoe brands. Eight years ago this company didn't exist. It was born from frustration. Born from the limitations shoe retailers built into their model.

Zappos' founder believed in a vision. A vision many are attempting to bring to real estate. That one day, most Americans will shop online. And the companies that succeed will be those that deliver the greatest selection and the best customer service.

In 1999, Zappos launched, defined by these two words - Selection and Speed. A brand was born.

Selection and speed. The two critical components in delivering high-end customer service. That's their differentiation. It defines their business.

Revenue:

1999: Almost nothing
2000: $1.6 mm
2001: $8.6 mm
2002: $32 mm
2003: $70 mm
2004: $184 mm
2005: $370 mm
2006: $597 mm
2007: $800 mm (projected)

Today, every one of Zappos' 1,300 employees are run through of a rigorous four-week stint at the company's customer loyalty boot camp. Service is not some credo plastered on their website. It's not a term that holds a different meaning for each employee, expressed 1,300 different ways. It's not relegated to just one department. Zappos is powered by service from top to bottom.

Speed and selection. Two words that should define a real estate search.

Selection = Every home for sale in the marketplace.
Speed = Instant access to someone incredibly prepared to help you buy one.

Every Zappos transaction concludes with a customer feedback survey.
It gives meaning to their brand.
It tells the customer that the things they stand for are real.
It says my opinion matters.

Real estate is filled with over a million wannabe brands. All share similar mission statements, similar brand markers, slogans and tag lines. Most mean nothing to the consumer. Over the last ten years business flourished despite it. Today, many are in the red because of it.

Zappos believes if they “continue to focus on providing the absolute best service and the absolute best shopping experience,” they will grow as a company.

Do you believe this would hold true for real estate?

-- Davison