Tony Hsieh from Zappos
callcenters, customer service, monetization, word of mouth
Tony Hsieh is the CEO of Zappos. They're on track to do $1 billion dollars this year, all online. Tony previously founded LinkExchange which he sold for $265M to Microsoft in 1998. While Zappos started by selling shoes, Tony shares how Zappos' focus is really on the customer experience and customer service it provides. Tony talks about how he went from investor to full-time employee at Zappos because it was really taking off, and as Tony said, seemed fun.Full Interview »
Ethan Willis from Prosper, Inc. joins us for today’s interview. He's very undercover - I have been trying to get this interview for at least a year and finally managed to convince him. I think a lot of you don't even know what he looks like. Prosper focuses on producing leads, selling to those leads, and then providing fulfillment. They work with people like Ken Blanchard, Donald Trump, and Robert Allen. Ethan also talks about his new book with Ken Blanchard (from the One Minute Manager series).
Matt Wise is the CEO of Q Interactive, and a really nice guy. But you're here for interviews, and so Q Interactive's interview is a good one – they actually started out as a coupons company (Cool Savings) and in the last few years completely reworked their direction to be a lead generation company. I think it’s yet another clear indicator that lead generation is one of the most powerful business models on the internet – many companies have reworked their business model in this same direction. We talk about the different methods of driving leads, what signifies "permission" and some sophisticated techniques to improve lead quality.
Meet Nathan Kinsella. He runs a $7M call center based in the Philippines. We had a very interesting conversation about how he acquires and works with clients, which is relevant to a large majority of the businesses here. If you're not working with a call center like the one Nathan runs, you're likely not selling enough and dramatically limiting the dollar revenue volume your business can do. And yes, call centers CAN work in an ethical manner that don't burn customers. You just need the right call center to work with.
PV Kannan runs 24/7, a $120M call center with 6000 seats. This was one of the top interviews. He's doing some very sophisticated data prediction to make his business extremely efficient; it's very impressive. Also impressive is the fact that his company is funded by Mike Moritz, the top VC from #1 VC firm Sequoia Capital. Mike Moritz is well known for funding Yahoo and Google and currently sits on the board of directors of Google. It's relatively unusual to hear about a call center in Silicon Valley (the HQ is based there), but as we all know direct response marketing is becoming more important so over time I expect to see more companies like 24/7 Customer.
Meet Martin Toha. He owns VoIP.com, a smaller competitor to Vonage. They’ve basically built a business model around making everything as simple and cost effective as possible, which really came through in this interview. Martin has spent a lot of time working with international call centers and has come up with a rather unique solution for working with call centers with his company.
