Our June Customer Loyalty Training class graduated this past Friday, and, during the ceremony, they had a special treat from one of the graduating class.

Amanda (BOK!!!) C., who you might remember from a few blogs ago for her special chicken noise talent, really laid it down for the 60+ Zapponians in attendance.

Congratulation to all the new graduates! Roll it, yo!

Team Kaizen, representing our fabulous Customer Loyalty department and fully inline with our mission of continuous improvement, decided we were getting a little rusty on our ninja thumb skills. So, at Krissi's suggestion, we decided to have a little Kaizen Thumb War! Needless to say, it was a vicious and bloody affair...okay, not really, but we sure got in each other's faces about it! Here is the breakdown:

Round 1 – Jasime vs. Krissi
*Jasmine moves on
Round 2- Jasmine vs. Ernie
*Ernie moves on
Round 3 – Ernie vs. Jenny
*Ernie moves on
Round 4 – Ernie vs. Holly
*Ernie moves on
Round 5 – Ernie vs. Martha
*Ernie moves on
Round 6 – Ernie vs. Will
Ernie moves on and WINS!

So, congratulations to Ernie L., the Kaizen Thumb War Champion! Disclaimer: If any of you know Ernie and have seen his hands, you will realize this was not a fair fight. Sore losers?? You bet!

At this point, Kaizen decided it would be good to further humiliate me by highlighting my gross inadequacy in the battle of the thumb, so I went on to battle Krissi...and was ignominiously defeated. As I lamented by awful skills, Rob Seifker, who couldn't help but hear our antics, strolled over and asked to have a go. In the spirit of “Will's utter humiliation”, I was chosen to battle Rob...and subsequently lost. Let's go ahead and wrap this up now, but I just want everyone to know that I will have my sweet thumb revenge!

Our most recent Customer Loyalty Team class graduated last month, and this week, they all got together for lunch to reminisce and talk about how their jobs are going. The best thing about these classes is that it's not just people from our call center taking them. People all through the company, no matter their position, go through the training. This give everyone a chance to meet people in different departments, and grow our team and family spirit.

Check out the class talking about how they enjoyed the training, and how it has affected their current job.

Once the New Hires Graduate from their one month CLT training course they go straight to incubation where they are watched closely and receive helpful feedback to take with them once they are released into the wild. And we know it's stressful being new to the CLT Floor, so they schedule fun Core Value arts and craft time to help relieve some of the tension.

Like the mysterious things that are said to take place in Area 51, there were some really amazing things happening at our own Area 52 here at Zappos last week. Each day emails were sent out about promotions into this area. So we decided to investigate what was happening by speaking to Jane J., our Senior Manager in charge of our Customer Loyalty Team.

Our CLT team is our call center, which is our main interaction of Zappos and our customers. Area 52 is the management staff for CLT. While Zappos is know for customer service, and the amazing job our CLT does is one of the main reasons why, they feel like they want to continuously improve the level of service they give. With Zappos call center growing so rapidly over the past few years, they felt they wanted to make some changes that would strengthen the department, and the service they give even more.

Zappos believes that if you take care of your employees, they will in turn take care of the customers - happy employees = happy customers. The CLT department's goal for this year is to "Develop people and cultivate culture." By promoting several supervisors into management positions, this will allow each manager to have less reps under them, and therefore, build even stronger manager and team relationships.

Congratulations to all those going into Area 52's management staff, and thank you to everyone in CLT for continuing to deliver WOW through service.


Pictured above: Area 52 Customer Loyalty Management Team

CLT's newly established team of Senior Representatives met on Saturday, May 30th for a few cocktails and some good times at BJ's Brewery. Most of the group have worked together in the past, but some catching up was definitely in order. Following dinner, the team was joined by more friends, family, and even some of the management at the Rush Hour Tavern for further partying. Getting together with comrades outside of work is just another way we build a positive team and Family Spirit at Zappos.com

Thank you Drew G. (pictured far Left) for the Story!

Our CLT Team North America (aka Team Canada and friends) decided to remind Zappos how proud they are to be serving our Canadian/US customers today.
At 12:30 on Tuesday, led by their fearless leader Derek C., the team departed for a parade around the office. Dressed as Canadian Mounties, and sporting some fresh captures, the group made their way through the 2280 building triumphantly. At each stop, the team proudly delivered a loud cadence to let everyone in the general vicinity know to pay attention!

Thanks for writing, Drew G.!

Several Outdoor Brands attended our Outdoor Expo at our offices in Henderson, NV yesterday to help educate our team members on new and upcoming styles. Expos such as these allow our Customer Loyalty representatives, as well as other employees to understand how the items we carry on the website are sized, manufactured and designed. Our Customer Loyalty team strives to pursue growth and learning, as well as stay on top of the coolest styles. Big Thanks to the Scheduling team for organizing the flow throughout the day, and allowing everyone in our awesome CLT department to attend!

Over drinks and Karaoke at a Zappos Customer Loyalty Happy Hour, we discuss what CLT means to us.

Zappos employees love finding reasons to celebrate and eat cake and lucky for us with as many people as we have here at our office, it seems like there is at least one birthday celebration going on each day.

Today, is Lauren C.'s birthday and her team really went above and beyond for their celebration. Not only did they decorate her entire desk with cards and banners, everyone on the team made her a special birthday sweet.

Oh, and did I mention this was all done by the time their 4am shift started!?!

Happy Birthday Lauren!

John D. Is known around the office for having a love for the outdoors, an obsession with rock music and is rumored to have wrestled alligators as one of his first jobs. Lets take a look at his desk to see what kind of cool stuff he has to show us.

William has an entire wall full of items he has received from co-workers, and things he has collected in the past. Check out all the knick-knacks on his desk.

So a couple week ago, the CLT department set up an entire wall in their department for all of them to create ideas of what they think our core values mean to them. Each month a different team will decorate the wall under the core value they are given.

This was the very first month this was done, so check out what they came up with. Coming soon, Zappos Insights will be talking to each team to find out a little more about their creations.

The Canadian Team here at decided that it would be a grand team building event to have a Boys V. Girls egg drop (kinda like what we did in our grade school science fairs).

Materials:
20 popsicle sticks
10 cotton balls
10 straws
10 rubber bands
5 pipe cleaners
2 ft of tape
2 ft of string
small piece of cardboard
scissors
glue

Left over materials will be given out at the discretion of Chairman Jesse and Grand Overseer Aria.

Rules: No material can be glued to the egg. The outside of the egg may not be altered in any way. Your apparatus must be easily opened to inspect the condition of the egg after each drop. Should your egg be broken during the building process, you are automatically disqualified, although you can help the other teams should they decide to let you.

Teams have 15 minutes to brainstorm an idea for their apparatus. After the 15 minutes have elapsed, teams have 45 minutes to build their design. Drops will start at an unimpressive 4 ft. After that, they will go to 6 ft, 8ft, and 10 ft. Once your egg breaks, you are out. The top two teams will win first and second prizes respectively.

Play by play: Both teams survived the 4ft drop with ease. The 6 ft
drop, however, had the girls' egg smashed and broken. The guys' egg
survived the 6ft drop, but the 8 ft drop proved fatal. The men were
declared the victor of this match. The competition was fierce, and the
stakes were high. Everyone gave their all, and we all had a lot of fun.

Teams:
Andre Narcesse, Drew Gaines, Jesse Cabaniss (winners)
Sarah Hardgrove, Porsha Pressler, Kim Noret (also winners, but they lost the egg drop)

After 2 1/2 years at Zappos, Brandon really doesn't have any rhyme or reason for what's on his desk, everything just randomly came to dwell there.