Zappos has always aimed to avoid call center customer service complaints. In order to accomplish this the online retailer has 500 employees in a call center in Las Vegas who endure seven weeks of training on customer service.

The training for all new hires go through four weeks of initial training, and contact center employees have an additional three weeks of training before they reach the call center.

Part of the company’s appeal is its policy of free returns, no questions asked.

“Returns are part of our business model. In fact, we encourage customers to order multiple sizes if they’re unsure of what to order, and then they can return the size that doesn’t work for them,” said Rob Seifker, director of customer loyalty, Zappos. “It’s really how you want to look at it, but providing this service is an investment we make in order to provide the best possible service for our customers.”

The company has been called “insane” and “fanatical” for the way it will do anything to please its customers.

In 2011, Zappos sent flowers to a woman who ordered six different pairs of shoes because her feet were damaged by harsh medical treatments. In March, a customer service representative physically went to a rival shoe store to get a specific pair of shoes for a woman staying at the Mandalay hotel in Vegas when Zappos ran out of stock. It also overnighted a free pair of shoes to a best man who had arrived to a wedding shoeless and paid the tolls on the Massachusetts Turnpike one day in November.

Zappos’ product catalog includes an array of items, such as clothing, footwear, house wares, beauty, accessories and sporting goods. However, the company’s focus of advertising is often on customer service rather than shoes and shoe brands.

The customer service dedication led to a 2010 campaign, “Happy People Making People Happy.” The campaign used real customer calls with puppet actors (“zappets”) and scenarios included a woman figuring out which male admirer sent her a dress, a woman exchanging Nike work-out clothes for a deep fryer, and returning a dress because she wasn’t “emotionally ready” to wear it.

“Perceptions are not easy to change overnight unless you’re willing to be bold,” said Michelle Thomas, senior brand marketing manager at Zappos. “Our biggest efforts revolve around building likeability around our brand so that consumers turn to a brand that they trust, find reliable, and have an emotional connection. That’s where service comes in!”

In related news, Advantix Solutions recently announced that it is going to make use of inContact’s contact routing platform to support its strategic customer service efforts. inContact is a provider of cloud-based call center software and call center agent optimization tools. It states that its services and solutions enable call centers to operate more efficiently, optimize the cost and quality of every customer interaction, create new pathways to profit and ensure ongoing customer-centric business improvement and growth.