#281: How To Make Customer Service A Profitable Venture
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people podcast zappos listening book customer service dude shit big friends fucking business fight feel read talk fulfillment center amazon person buddy
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sweat equity podcast and streaming show. The number one comedy business podcast out in the streets. There's 900,000 podcasts you can listen to thank you for listening to this one.
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Our show is about pragmatic entrepreneurial bias with
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Eric. Some people call me cool, Eric. I'm not gonna say word.
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Hashtag girthy ROI, hashtag
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It's a business online, scalable business domain. It's like an app on my phone. I got my phone phone but I don't need to phone's like an old school drug dealer. I got an app on my phone that gives me a second line my business. I don't answer my phone when I have potential clients calling up and go I don't go through this. Like I do. Where I don't go no limit studios, which is my favorite job to
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One company one Italian company. Oh, my gosh. I swear like 97% of the
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time. speak Italian.
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Hand I do the hand. Yeah, I know. I speak it. I just wanted. I wanted more. Baby. I wanted more. You want some more? Let's get this podcast started.
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More and more friends getting COVID Ooh, a lot more friends. Some you don't know. Some are friends of the program like Johnny B comedian, buddy and local radio DJ. Unless you well done a you know I called him up. I saw him post it on Instagram. And I was kind of want to throw the message out here. We've done it on previous episodes this year. But when I got it, you definitely I definitely didn't realize how checked out I probably was until you brought it up like three months ago and you're like, dude, you're out of it. And I didn't realize it until you were like, I felt weird for three weeks and then I put it together. I was like, Oh yeah, you were weird. for three weeks. It feels like having a concussion. Like where you're like you're pretty much back to normal if you've ever been knocked out it. It is that kind of brain fog. We're really undefeated. You've never been knocked out. If you've been in a fight ever. Yeah. No, yeah, that's a record. They're undefeated. What's the defeat you die?
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You know.
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Let's see my best friend in high school had like a three and 13
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Record.
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And he'd get wasted and like the funniest one was rolling off a dock into the bay. But hitting the little platform you get on like, on a dock where you have a boat, or it's like you could step the loading dock. Yeah, so it's only like three feet lower. And then the waters another like five feet lower on a roll barnacle. They rolled by punching each other roll down this king dock, and then hit the whatever that platform is called. Both of them knocked the wind out of both of them. Both rolled in the water. And then they got up and started fighting again. Really? Yeah, that's pretty badass. And I remember I was like, should I jump in? I don't know. Is Is that cool to do? And I remember getting my shoes and giving it to my buddy James Bond. I'm like, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna jump in. I was like, No, no, no. No, hold. Like, that's his fight, man. I don't want to you know, I don't want to make him look like a bitch. I mean, I'm scared of stepping on oysters. Oh, that's the big definitely got barnacle scrapes on there. Yeah, for sure. Low tide in Tampa. Yeah, it was, uh, but it was like one of those things that I wish I had, like, I can see it in my mind. Like, one of the funniest things that wasn't supposed to be funny. But you can just see him like, now it's hilarious. So what was your record, though? Oh, I don't. I don't ever remember like,
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waiting. You probably like I did. I never got in a fight. Unless it was my friends got in the fight. Like I never like was like, or it's my time take you out. Or I got this guy. Definitely. You know what I was really, like, just take it, you know, whatever. But that's like the one thing that I when I was in college in Gainesville. They had a Ladies Night and I was under age. And they had like the fat Eric.
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Well, I saw your high school picture recently. Yeah. And I was like,
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yeah, that was a lot of tuca shells. Yeah. No, it's not a structure.
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Yeah, totally. Phoenix.
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No, I was at a Ladies Night and I was underage. And I somebody gave me a girl's cup that I was not supposed to be holding. And one of the I didn't know the guy was a bouncer. He was like, my size came over and like broke it in my hand. And I was like, Dude, what the fuck and I like threw the whatever was left in it at his house. And I was like, dude, he's like, I thought he started walking off next thing you know, I'm on the ground. He's choking me out dude. Like, my I like bad It wasn't like no, no, I had scary but dude, my eyes like he couldn't like my eyes were blown out bloodshot from this dude. Like, choking me out for that. It was like over the top like, like Stallone, right when we arm wrestled after
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I got out of the room. Was it like the double Deuce?
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Patrick Swayze, bro. Okay. Roadhouse. I didn't get double Deuce reference. Or my dad's the Roadhouse fan. Okay, I'll hit up
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dad, tell him what's up.
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But yeah, that was I never got That's the last time I was physically
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have I fought any of my gun do with my buddies lately? We never fight not you and I don't know we're not we're not that I'm not that type of friend. I don't like to play wrestle right at shadow box and shit. Every now and again. I can get rowdy, but like Not really. Like, I never want to do that be like just leave me alone. Like, yeah into this cuz I would I used to be like, I couldn't have like a bike. I couldn't have a playful It was either like it was binary be like, either I'm chillin or I'm probably gonna get like kind of pissed and then really want to fight you. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's never like a fun. It's never like a good thing. It's never like, I'm glad I fought that guy. Unless you're a fighter in the UFC. You know, the only one i'm proud about is my buddy. In high schools. He was smaller guy was about to get hit. And I came up and was like, I don't even I don't remember this. He told me he tells me this story. And he said he came up and just crow hopped in just punch the guy was about to
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punch him crow hopped? Yeah, like, I always thought it was a pro hop, quote, like a baseball crow hop. Like a step in a throw, right? Like, exactly. I can't I like came down like a bike a throw for centerfielder
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I don't remember it, but he tells me about it. And someone else saw it too. And I was like, I guess it happened. That's when I drank a lot in high school.
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But I'm saying like, my friends that have COVID or you have someone that gets COVID here's the deal.
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I hope everything's okay. Honestly, like it's not that bad for most people. Okay, healthy beforehand. But like 60% of this country's like morbidly obese. That
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doesn't even include people with pre existing or not morbidly obese, let's say 40% but that other 20 I was accounting for not the healthiest probably either. No, no, no, I think okay, obese. I think that's the thing. We're not as an obese and like whatever percentage of that is morbidly obese. That's not the thing we're gonna talk about on the news because it doesn't help the advertisers. So it doesn't, it doesn't make the news cycle about nutrition during this COVID era, which is so fucking weird to me. But, you know, get your zinc go outside for a walk. You should do them anyway. Do the multibyte try to work on your breathing. If you can do some Wim Hof breathing. Do some Wim Hof stuff, and that's gonna help right yeah, for sure. Dig the well before it runs dry as Jordan Harbinger likes to say on his show, I think that's a good lesson of like, be proactive I tried to be and I think that helped maybe a little bit make it not so terrible when I got it. But the deal is, you're gonna feel like you had a concussion. If you've had one it you feel mostly back to normal, but it's gonna take it usually takes like anywhere from you know, two to six weeks for a lot of people to be like 100% mentally you just have this fog. Yeah, it's crazy. You walk into another room be like, What? Why did I walk in here? Do you? I mean, I'm not like busy minded. I do that all the time. But I'm saying like, that's usually when I got all that shit going on. Right? But like almost all the timers like, right Whoa, why did I I don't remember at all why I walked in the sermon. I'm just trying to think back of like, the last time I was really sick. Not Coronavirus, just whatever, like flu
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shot. No, I was just wondering, I'm gonna pay attention to that. See, I'm operating mentally. next couple weeks after I get sick. Now I remember getting really frustrated. I couldn't multitask like I normally do. Because a lot of digital work is like, start this over here. Work on it for about an hour. Okay, I can get as far as I can. Now I have to wait for something else to happen. Then I'm going to go over here start this work on this project for whatever two hours. I might come back to that first thing but like, I couldn't just shift like I normally did, you know? Yeah. And so it was like it was pissing me off because I was like, Man, what the? What's fucking wrong with me like, and I didn't realize no one talks about and thinks sucks. No one talks about it on the news either about like getting this like weird brain fog, you're just kind of zonked out. Yeah, it's an afterthought. I mean, I've seen it mentioned slightly, you know, like in passing is not like a thing to look out for or whatever. It's not even expected. I think when people get it, I emailed surprised. I heard I listened to Andrew Santana's podcast whiskey ginger, awesome comedian what probably one of the best like up and coming guys. I started that same time with him in LA so I kind of know him. I feel like a douche sometimes I hit him up but I'm like, he talks about getting it I go I just emailed him. I said Look, man, you're gonna fucking feel out of it for a little bit. And I was like, I feel like that at least is my good thing of my good deed for the week or something like as your excuse to not email me back? No, no one no, he got back to me. We went back and forth but it was just like, Look, no one's going to talk about this part. And we're seeing it we talked about it with sports betting right. You know, apply these things that you see you observe all the time. This this is a good pragmatic use for business life your friends and fantasy football but I mean like Cam Newton was out of it for a month Yeah, I mean it's there's zekiel Elliott doesn't look very good this year. I know he looks a little checked out I you know part of that's the team's terrible but like yeah, Ginger quarterback to the most evil ginger with eyebrows that slant down. Like he's mad all the time, right? Yes, clotted and him as a kid. But it's that thing of like, we don't the nutrition thing in the brain fog thing. I don't know why they're not talking about more, I guess because they don't sell commercials. They don't. But I hope that Pfizer kind of vaccine that mysteriously came out two days after Biden was setting Oh, here we go.
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I don't know what to make of that. Honestly, I don't have any angle. I just think that's just questionable. I'm done talking about it. I am to like, just but you know how PR works. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's definitely not helping any other situation.
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In terms of this thing, just sit you know, like, their PR teams just sitting around like we can we we can we can we blast it and we blast it down? Yeah.
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Should we now I could see a scenario. You know, what's it oxen? Occam's razor, the most likely outcome is probably the correct one. Right? The most logical one. And so, you know, what probably happened was like, no matter what, they're probably just waiting for the election to be over. Yeah, no matter who won
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And just putting it out then because, you know, you don't want to get swept into all that stuff. And they could probably wait a couple days. You're saying they didn't want it to be politicized? No that I don't I don't think they want maybe but I don't think they wanted it to their message if you're if I'm on their PR team, I'm like I would if I had my choice I and I can we can wait until after the you know, the run off state counts.
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Peel off until someone decides a winner. And we can wait a day or two I'm doing that because I don't want our messaging to get politicized and in Britain mixed up into both camps. Yeah. Besides like, you know, a 90% hit rate of it working it doesn't it they say the symptoms of the vaccine not the best worse than like actually getting it like I had it. Yeah, that's all I'm saying about the flu vaccine. I haven't got it for two years flu shots, and but you're kind of a fucking Yeah, the Wi Fi frog. But even when I was doing like, either spider monkey three years ago, I got one I got fucking as sick as I've ever been two years in a row where it was just like, Dude, why don't they give you the in, in part of it is giving you the Right, exactly. Well, I mean, it's supposed to be a you know, smaller dose to help you build up your immunity. But I thought that worked for gonorrhea and I went to go get gonorrhea and it didn't help my gonorrhea. Yeah. Still got the guy. Yeah. It burns when I pee.
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Yeah.
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So good luck with that.
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Yeah, I mean, look.
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I'm just I'm just that I feel like, we have this platform to get it out there. Whoever's listening. So if you have a friend, I got COVID. I found out some more of my family members got it. And I'm like, Well, if I don't talk to them, please tell them I pass along. The only thing I can really tell them is something that no one is and that kind of annoys me. Right? Like, yeah, I mean, I get it. They could also just listen to podcasts because we've mentioned it many times. And if they're not, hey, if they're not hate listening, my family ain't listening.
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That fun. Wonder what that's like, and if he listening, if they are listening misconstruing what I said on here to fit their narrative, then they really hatless. Yeah, I'm glad I don't have to deal with that. You know, that's good. Maybe. You know, it's one of those things where
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I don't have anything to hide necessarily been doing stand up so long you're, I empathize with your situation because you haven't been like, I always felt like I've been a public person for a while talking about stuff on stage for so long that like, none of it really bothers me. I try not to throw anybody under the bus. I was trying to make myself the Yeah, no, tomorrow. I don't feel like I do that, too. I know. But I'm saying you're in a precarious position a lot of podcast hosts are and sometimes we don't come from word he just kind of let it all out on stage over the years. Sure. I mean,
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no turning back on letting it all out. Yeah, I mean, like, anybody's that years ago, for Christ's sake or your sec to me? sec to me. Yeah, and anything that shout out to Dr. stylist. Yeah. So I need to sign up for that. I probably will put the pods down on Friday. So say protect me.
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And we'll figure out how to do that. They ask what kind of penis are you? Not great.
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kind of a bummer. Honestly, yeah, check the box. We were talking about Michelangelo's David earlier or I was like, given given us a little bit guys some you know, some hope don't say you have a little that's not true. Well, it's a grower not a shower, that's for sure. Okay. And I feel like Michelangelo's David you know cuz his his kind of looks like a lot of dudes. I know where it's just not even cresting over the balls. It's just kind of chillin, just like
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go back to what you just said about all the dudes and the winners that you know. Yeah. Although little winner. Oh, we don't know. We have like our subreddit and stuff. Oh, and like, we got meetups and word server. Yeah, I mean, it's on 4chan and stuff. Pretty cool, guys. Pretty cool. We meet up in Greco Roman wrestling. Well, you can't meet up with them. Yeah, well, you know, these guys are cool. They're fine. Okay. They told me they're COVID free. So don't worry about it. Maybe that's how I got it. Um, but to the Estonian
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what you know, what's interesting, on the level of what hate listening is adult inability to transfer message
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you know, I'm saying like in the business world all the time, right. Hey, can you you will
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Tell someone in person, Hey, can you send this email to say this, this and this and they don't write it down? And then cc me on that. And then you're on the email and you're like, this isn't what I said. Yeah. I mean, I have to deal with that. But But you know, I'm saying like, I'm just giving an example like that, that for me, that was game of telephone 10 years ago, but like,
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you know, I'm always so worried about how my stuff's read. I know, a way overdo it. Yeah, me too. Which makes you sound weak. Yeah, I'm like, Oh, no, I this but by this, I mean, this and this. I this is my definition of this kind of thing. You know? Yeah. I mean, in that book Delivering Happiness, the guy who
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created Zappos Oh, yeah. Tell me about that is, you know, it's okay to totally forgot. That's a great topic, because I want to hear about this book. Oh, Kate, all about it. Well, I mean, Zappos the shoe company? Yeah. Is like best customer service by far, maybe over the last decade or so. Like, right? I mean, that's the idea behind the book is that they just went all in on customer service. It was like, that's their gimmick. And then everything else follows. And, you know, it's, I totally agree with their position on it and everything because it's in an age of no customer service, right, people hiding behind keyboards and email and Zendesk and yeah.
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It's not just that even it's, it could kick it in, and you can, okay, reply above this line in the email. Your ticket has been received. We'll get back in two days with time that will call you or Verizon has the fuck, like the big companies have a fake person? chatbot. And you're like, No, I do not want to talk to a chat bot. I know what this is. This is a decision tree. Right? Yeah. But the guys are the opposite. Because you don't give a shit. Because you're an oligopoly. You have no competition. You have fake competition, you have three other people like the airlines, like, right? cable companies, internet providers, they don't give a shit. So they all they all laugh at the same country. All right, right. Yeah. Well, part of this book, I mean, it's two things basically, is customer service and creating a culture that your business have. One that people want to be around and one that people want to invest themselves in.
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Because what I found interesting is like, they have their, their tenants or their their mission statement, or whatever they called it. And, you know, one of them was like, are tenants like core values? Right?
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But like, part of it was like, it's okay to, you know, bring a little weirdness to things like be, you know, it's okay to cuss, like people cuss, like, don't worry about like, button yourself up, and you come to work at Zappos, that sort of thing. Yeah. Like, hey, we're gonna actually be humans, and not try to put this this Polish kind of exactly. voice on. We're gonna talk like, I bet I you know what, I bet that helps.
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I forget the term, but like, when you talk to kids, you always talk a little a level up to them, right? I mean, like, smarter, and a little bit like one, like one grade level up, or not always, some people don't do that. Some people go way down, but they say a lot of people just naturally Just do it. Whether they mean to or not. And I think like in that kind of similar way, I bet talking like a normal person and not like, Hi, how may I help you like that kind of right over the top? very polished, like scripted? I bet that cuts to the issues. empathetically? You know, for customers, oh, it makes a connection with them that you know, they can feel the realness of the other person on the other side, knowing that it's not going to be from a script, and they're going to listen to your individual unique problem and do their best to figure it out. I mean,
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shoes in general, you know, like, as I'm reading this, it's like, okay, that's cool at all. But like,
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it's just shoes. Yeah, their business model isn't really like they're not doing we have exclusivity on these lines. Right? Right. And, you know, they really came out of the scene, late aughts. I think
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big time. Yeah. You know, when they became a huge company, but like, and we're this book, I think, starts I believe, but like, No, no, it started as a young child. Well, I remember the rear management styles costing
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it more employees so like they, they spend a lot of money on the employees for this customer service. You know, what they do is a four week training program. And I guess at the beginning, they say
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At the end of this four weeks, you are going to be given the chance to walk away and we'll pay you $2,000.
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Oh, interesting. Yeah. And think about that. We'll take it. Not a lot. It's not. Yeah. But if you're okay, so it's I think it's a great amount. It's just enough. It's a perfect, it's the perfect amount, figured it out, right? Because the person that doesn't really want to be there that's there for a job that has $2,000 problems. Because that's the type of person that they're one in there. And then very small to Vegas. Yeah. So, you know, yeah, you're you might be pulling in some people that are down to go short money, right. Yeah. I mean, I, Vegas thing, I don't think there's anything
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behind them moving there. Besides them just all like in Vegas taxes.
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Yeah, remember that tax, good tax stuff for businesses? You read the book? And I didn't, I didn't. I know. I'm just saying I knew I've heard about all their stuff for for a decade now. Like, yeah, the story of
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so when I used to work for a mom and pop air purifier company, our customer service team read it. read something about Zappos, I don't know if it's this book or not. But I remember the story of like, there's someone who a customer that would call in and they just talked to him for like, 23 hours or something crazy, like, a nine hour stints and shit like, and they were just like, yeah, this is, this is part of the job is like, that's how the customer service agent had it was like, I'm happy to do it. Like, that's great. I know. Whatever, that whatever that chicks name was like that he's talking to? Yeah. Because they're like, that's the added value we provide, right? Our product is not that much different. Or our so we've earned it. All. Right. And so if you're in they're not, they can't cut on price. Because the second shoe market is like, it's not the high end stuff. It's they're competing with everybody really
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an ad that at the earlier kind of odds, they're still competing with a lot of retailers to Sure. When people are like, I'm not putting my credit card on. Oh, yeah. Goodbye, anything. And now people are like, Can I buy shit on my watch?
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Yeah, it doesn't work like this. But like, they they go, okay. And this is like, kind of business 101 shit, where can we? Where can we Excel? And they were like, now we're gonna be the best at it. Like, of any business, which I think is cool, right? And but I mean, if you think about it, it's like,
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Damn, like, they didn't really have a choice. You look back. It's like, if they didn't do that they would not be around today, right? I mean, what's like Amazon, right? Amazon was like, okay, we do books, right? When they just did books, and they killed it, doing books, but they're like, we're gonna figure out logistics better than anybody. Mm hmm. And we're just gonna fucking do that. And then like Zappos, what they did is they took any costing,
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any cost, like big cost for them. And they made it into another like sub brand. So, Amazon has a like, a lot of web. A lot of web, like server traffic. They go, oh, Amazon Web Services. We're just going to have this was a huge cost. Now it's a moneymaker. Oh, no. And Zappos now teaches, I think, on executive level, a lot of customer service strategy, right? Like they they become so good. They literally write the book on it. But they also like it becomes a revenue stream for them on top of already kicking ass. Oh, by teaching it right. Yeah. The ball. I'm thinking of it. The guy's name is Tony. And I don't know how to pronounce it. But it's, it's h s. Let me let me read it there. Um, the best reader of this bunch. Tony
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HSIH
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rolls right off the backwards Tom. Hmm, yeah, that does give me like, I think I'm getting dyslexic as I get older and reading that definitely is like, Oh, boy. Yeah, where do you even start? But they so they, they, they take that big cost that they have? And I think about HR to kind of being able to be almost executive like, here's how you do it. Yeah, I mean, the here's the management class on this. Yeah, you're right. They wrote the book on it. It just, I just find that interesting. Like, you get so good at something that is such a burden of a cost. I think I saw a infographic it had Amazon was like, web services and then their fulfillment, right? Yeah, cuz now if you got a product takes is brings in more money. All of it like they just basically if you look down their profit and loss chart of like, like 2010 or something and then look at the biggest chunks
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Their p&l. It's like web services. Okay now people buy server space from us. fulfillment center. Okay, you want a product on Amazon? Well, yeah, you can fulfill it yourself or someone that's not our fulfillment center right but it's a pain in the ass. Yeah, probably gonna cost more unless you have a lot of volume. Yeah
