Why Zappos is awesome when it comes to customer service?

Image via Facebook.com/zappos Zappos.com is an online shoe and clothing shop currently based in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Zappos is known for its disruptive marketing strategies and is one of the most successful brands on social media platforms.
Zappos was founded in 1999 by Nick Swinmurn and since then it has become one of the world’s largest online stores in the world.
Now, we are going to dissect various elements of their social customer service approach one by one to find out how the e-commerce giant is doing on social media;
Parameter 1 – Tone of Messaging
Zappos is fabulous when it comes to talking to its customers – Both on Facebook and Twitter!
They are very to the point and follow a very gentle tone!
Especially, in the below screenshot, Zappos team is carrying a very informal tone which suits to the brand image

Parameter 2 – Are they sending canned responses, without understanding the context?
Not at all – I just love the way Zappos responds to its customers!
They not only solved the problem but went out of the way to reassure the customer – This indicates that we have a human not an automated machine sitting on the other side!

Parameter 3 – Turnaround Time
On Facebook their response time is close to 1 hour and on twitter the response time is 141 minutes for @Zappos_Service
This is a point of concern – Zappos Team should be real fast and quick when talking to its customers online as majority of people online expect a response within the first hour.
Parameter 4 – Is brand sending personalized replies?
Yes, and they are doing it in style!
People are very pleased with their mailers as Zappos send extremely customized messages which is shown in the post below on Zappos Facebook Page;

Parameter 5 – Is brand following up on the complaints?
After sifting through many queries, I observed that Zappos is taking the customer on their own customer chat application – It looks like a good move to me as it doesn’t allow the negative sentiment to spread publicly.
But, Zappos haven’t closed any complaint which they got through social media platforms – The ideal practice would be to leave a message on the same comment thread saying the problem has been resolved!

Parameter 6 – Is brand answering to all the queries?
Yes, they are – And, not only to queries, Zappos is answering to all the appreciation mails/posts/tweets as well.

Parameter 7 – Is the brand present on major complaint forums?
Zappos.com has created a benchmark for its amazing customer support strategy. I just googled “Zappos customer service” and look what I found;

Parameter 8 – Is brand sending duplicate replies?
Not at all!
Zappos customer support team is sending original personalized responses specific to the complaints and as well as to the appreciation posts/tweets, which is very encouraging.
Suggestion: Though, Zappos customer service is very good, they should work on their turnaround time as it is pretty much lower than the industry standards.
I give Zappos.com – 9/10 on their social customer service standards and approach!