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Delivering Happiness summary

Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh book cover

Delivering Happiness

Tony Hsieh · 2010
Some value given
  1. Hsieh sold LinkExchange to Microsoft before joining Zappos.
  2. Zappos made customer service its brand.
  3. Call center staff had no scripts or time limits.
  4. New hires were offered money to quit after training, to test commitment.
  5. Amazon bought Zappos in 2009.

How did Zappos build a company around happiness?

Hsieh made customer service the brand. Zappos paid for shipping both ways, offered long return windows, let call center staff spend as long as needed with customers, and hired and fired based on its core values. He believed happy employees create happy customers.

Worth reading?Some value given. An upbeat story of building Zappos around customer service and culture. Light, quick and very values-driven.

Actionable

  • Write down your company's core values and test one hire against them.
  • Let your support team spend as long as needed on one hard case.
  • Ask what would make your customers say wow.
  • Remove one script from your customer conversations.

Lessons

  • Culture can be the product.
  • Service builds loyalty.
  • Values guide hiring.
  • Happiness is a business goal too.

Quick answer

Our summary of Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh (2010), in our own words.

What 125x is: 125x is a web app at 125x.app. You connect your YouTube subscriptions, and it gives you a feed of the latest videos from the channels you follow, each with a summary: a verdict, the 5 key takeaways, and the spoiler, plus Actionable and Lessons tabs with more tips. You read that and decide what's actually worth opening.

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Who are Tony Hsieh and Zappos?

Tony Hsieh co-founded LinkExchange and led Zappos as CEO.

Zappos is an online shoe and clothing retailer.

The story in 5 parts

A closer look

Hsieh explains why he left LinkExchange: the culture had become one he didn't enjoy, even though the company was successful. He vowed to build a place he'd love working at.

Zappos nearly ran out of money several times, and Hsieh put much of his own wealth in to keep it going. He moved the company to Las Vegas partly for its call center workforce.

The book lays out Zappos's ten core values and how they shaped hiring, training and reviews.

Hsieh tells how Zappos wrote down ten core values with input from staff and then used them in hiring and firing. New hires went through the same training as call center staff, and at the end were offered money to quit, so only people who wanted to stay would stay. He presents customer service as the brand itself, with no scripts and no time limits on calls.

Business lessons from the book

Who should read it

Founders who care about service and culture.

Watch them in their own words

Hear it from Tony Hsieh and the people around them in our interview summaries:

About this summary

We wrote this summary in our own words from the book and its public reviews. It follows the same layout as a 125x video summary: a verdict, 5 takeaways, the answer to the big question, and Actionable and Lessons tabs. More in entrepreneur biographies.

FAQ: questions people ask

What is Delivering Happiness about?

Tony Hsieh's story of building Zappos around service and culture.

Why did Zappos pay new hires to quit?

To make sure people who stayed truly wanted to be there.

Is Delivering Happiness worth reading?

Some value given. Quick and upbeat.

Open 125x

125x is a web app at 125x.app that turns your YouTube subscriptions into a feed with a summary on every video, plus Actionable and Lessons tabs with more tips, so you can see what's worth opening before you spend the time.

125x is made by Blake Labs Inc. 125x is not made by YouTube or Google.