The Culture at Moosejaw is Nuts—Perfectly Nuts!

Jan 22, 2014
By Mark Hopkins

I’ve always been a sucker for great customer service. Amazon Prime gets my vote for great service without a human being involved, but Moosejaw is now setting the standard for service when I need to talk to someone about an order. Why does this matter? Because in a world where differentiation means life or death for an organization, I will go out of my way to do business with one that acts like it wants to help me.

Jenny had a birthday this week and had been coveting my Hestra leather ski/work gloves.  Amazon didn’t have what I wanted but Moosejaw did. I ordered the gloves but received an email the next day that the gloves were on back order. I called the customer service # and talked to a guy (Dan) in Detroit whose handling of the situation was amazing. I had already received a discount for being a first time customer but he added another discount because he wouldn’t be able to get them to me before Jen’s birthday and upgraded (at no charge) my shipping to 2 day because he thought he might be able to get them to me in time. They did end up getting to me before her birthday and she loved them.

I asked Dan how he ended up answering phones for Moosejaw and he told me a story that shed some light on the intentionality that ensured that my experience was no accident. Dan is an economics professor at a Michigan community college that was closed from mid December to mid January. As Dan was thinking about making some extra money during the break, he drove by a bowling alley that was having a hiring fair that day. On a lark he went in to see what was up.

He was greeted by a Moosejaw recruiter in a cow costume who gave him an electronic form to fill out that poked fun at the company and Dan. When Dan entered that he had a master’s degree, the system responded with “Show Off !”. The system must have liked his answers to some of their off-the-wall questions because he was told to interview right away with the guy in the potato sack. He did, and his own sense of humor and passion for customer service earned him a job that started immediately. Why the costumes? It’s consistent with their slightly wacky culture and, well, why not?

It’s beautiful. Moosejaw gets to put a headset on a fresh face who is well educated, customer service oriented, and doesn’t need benefits. I’ll bet that Dan will be back with them this summer and I can guarantee that I’ll look at Moosejaw the next time I need outdoor gear. It’s this kind of off-the-wall yet synergistic approach that is required in order to create prosperity in the hyper competitive world we live in.