I’m not a Zappos customer, but I do applaud them for putting their employees on Twitter. Why? Because if I buy something from them, I know I’m not supporting a dysfunctional company that has one person who actually bothers with Facebook and Twitter and 100 people who are miserable because their boss doesn’t respect them.

While I would actually handle their campaign a bit differently by actually accentuating the fun of buying new clothes and shoes and hiring people who understand this, there is no argument: it is easy to wrap your head around what kind of company Zappos is. When we enter a business and see a bunch of miserable teenagers who don’t care to answer our questions, we assume the owner has no pride in his or her business. When we walk in and see a bunch of people who are passionate about what they do, it tends to rub off on us. We focus on the quality of goods and services versus just the price.

The online space is no different. When we see a company Twitter page, we assume they went to some social media seminar or saw it on CNN and decided to give it a whirl. We don’t assume that a company is ethical or actually has good products. When we see that other employees happily use their Twitter feeds and associates their online identity with the company, we can get a clearer picture about how that company works.

Mark my words: the companies that see the greatest ROI by using social media will be the ones who focus on providing the best service instead of getting the most followers or being seen standing next to Jeremiah Owyang. We don’t care if you are social media famous– we care if we get value by using your goods and services. By listening and valuing our customers whether it’s via social media, the phone, or in person, we can foster sustainable brands that will always survive in the future.

*Scooby Noise* Errr? Did not have such a good experience.

I put up this post about a pair of shoes I wanted. I then went into Twitter and said “Hey @zappos, maybe you can help me out” and linked to the post. All I wanted was someone from Zappos to send me a few URLs with shoes that were similar so I didn’t have to comb through the site myself. And it took them a month to finally catch on, and I got three different people sending me messages on the subject. One of them found the exact pair for twice as much as I’d bought them for, but by this time, I’d already bought a similar pair of shoes from a department store for 30 dollars less. I was in Europe with limited internet access by the time they got back with me. Meh.

I COULD NOT HAVE MADE THIS SALE ANY EASIER FOR THEM. I took a pic of the shoe I wanted with the size. Go and find it and send me a URL and NOT a product code, and do it when I ask you to and NOT weeks later. I give you money. Done. I operate the Twitter feed for @sunandski, and if someone made a sale this easy they would get a response within hours and perhaps minutes.

Zappos is not the cheapest shoe site online by any stretch. Yes, they give you free shipping two ways, but if they charge more than even the manufacturer of the shoe, who cares? You can charge more if you offer the service, but in this instance, my shopping experience was not made any easier by going with Zappos.

Crucify me for pointing this out. I really don’t care.