Online apparel and footwear retailer Zappos.com always wants to create memorable customer experiences. Now, Zappos officials want to make that customer experience amazing through Zappos Adaptive, a curated collection of functional and fashionable products designed to make life easier for those who have challenges getting dressed.
Zappos Adaptive features new clothing brands such as 4Ward and Independence Day Clothing, boasting fashionable items that are fully reversible, soft to the touch, tagless, and free of buttons and zippers. What’s more, Zappos Adaptive offers an extensive line of easy-on shoes including slip-on, bungee and cord, hook and loop, diabetic and orthotic friendly options.
This initiative is an extension of Zappos’ longstanding mission to meet customers’ needs and provide the best customer service possible. To support the launch, Zappos has created a dedicated customer loyalty team trained to assist customers shopping for products for special needs. Zappos is also teaming up with Madeline Stuart, a model who advocates for inclusiveness and diversity, and Alexis Wineman, Miss Montana 2012 and autism advocate, to help spread the word about this new offering.
Saul Dave, director at Zappos, told Loyalty360 that the initiative started with a single call from a customer.
“I was in new hire training at the time, took the call and developed a connection with the customer when she was unable to exchange the shoes for her grandson,” Dave explained. “The customer went on to tell me that her grandson has autism, which makes it difficult for him to tie his own shoes. I wanted to serve this need and provide an amazing experience for the customer, so I sought out people at Zappos to talk about catering to anyone who has challenges in getting dressed. This was met with enthusiasm, but at the time, the Zappos structure was such that the initiative did not get off the ground. A year later after Zappos adopted Holacracy, I was still passionate about the idea and found an outlet to be able to create my own team to drive the effort. Although the core team is small, Zappos Adaptive sparked excitement and gained support across the company, and many teams pitched in to help make it a reality. The initiative is an extension of Zappos culture, with its foundation of providing WOW customer service to everyone.”
Dave said the goals for Zappos Adaptive are to extend the already amazing customer service and provide a new offering to fill a void for an underserved community.
“We are striving to carry a wide assortment of products to cater to a variety of needs,” Dave added. “After researching, we found that customers looking for these types of products are shopping in many places or having a hard time finding what they need. Our aim is to make the shopping experience easier by providing an array of products in one place, as no other retailer is doing this. We launched initially with three new clothing brands and we are featuring our vast selection of easy-on shoes.”