It all started a month ago when @melkirk tweeted:

@melkirk: If you could interview anyone who would it be. @schneidermike: I thought about it @melkirk and I would like to interview @zappos.

About an hour later I got a direct message from Tony Hsieh asking me to send along my questions.  Tony’s and Zappos’ committments to the nanoblog twitter have taken the already excellent customer service of Zappo’s to a new level by giving people the ability to directly access its entire cast of characters.

I asked Tony what makes a good follow on twitter and how he decides who to keep track of in his near 14,000 follows.

I pay attention to the people that I’ve met in person. I’ve met a lot of people initially through twitter online, and then I’ll run into them at a  conference or when I travel to another city. Once you’re able to put a face to the name, all their tweets become a lot more interesting!

Burning desire to serve humanity is what differentiates Zappos from your average e-tailer. I asked Tony from where this stems.

“I’ve always thought that customer service was important, even at my previous company LinkExchange that I co-founded. The difference with Zappos is that during the first few years, we shifted from thinking that customer service was important to really wanting to make customer service what the Zappos brand is all about. I think my passion for customer service comes from being annoyed when I receive bad customer service, which happens on a daily basis.”

Zappos is full of innovative ideas. Gregory Ng of Contagious wanted to know whose idea it was to pay people to quit.

All our ideas at Zappos come from either our employees or our customers.  For us, company culture is our #1 priority, so it seemed pretty obvious that we should be willing to pay people to quite in order to protect our culture. We’ve actually been doing it for several years.  I don’t remember how it hatched, it was probably like most other ideas where there was a group discussion and it came out of that.

Corporate culture is everything to Zappos. They are the kind of company that attributes big wins to the entire organization. This became evident when I asked Tony about his best day at the office.

There have been so many best days at the office, but I would say one of the best days was when we finally signed Nike because it was a brand we had been working for over 8 years to try to sign up. Once we heard the news, almost everyone in our headquarters took the afternoon off and we all celebrated at a local bar down the street.

I wanted to know if there was some kind of secret formula to Zappos success, so I asked Tony about Zappos analytics practices. If they do start using analytics, watch out!

We probably don’t do as much analytics as we should. We really just try to provide the best service to everyone across the board. The problem with trying to do analytics on an individual customer level as it relates to profitability is that you’re not taking into account the word of mouth that an individual customer might generate, which is usually worth much more than the direct profits from any individual customer.

If you were not with Zappos, then what?

I’d probably be involved with another consumer company. The idea of building a consumer brand that people are passionate about is exciting to me! It’s kind of like having the good parts of fame without the bad parts.

Who is your mentor? Where or to whom do you look for inspiration?

I don’t have a single mentor. My belief is that there’s something to learn from anyone no matter what their position or background, and that anyone can be inspiring somehow. I’ve been told that I have a diverse group of friends. I think that’s helped me in the business world, even if they aren’t all from the business world.

Do you ever disconnect?

Yes, I love watching movies. I turn off my phone and can get immersed into another world for 2 hours!

Complete: If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me ___________________ .

How is it possible to buy shoes online without trying them on? (Answer: it’s free shipping both ways, so it’s easy to try on different sizes in the comfort of your living room.)

What question did I forget to ask you that I should have?

I’ve talked about the importance of company culture, but it’s really hard to actually understand what I’m talking about until you visit our offices.  We give tours on weekdays, and we invite all of your readers to come visit our offices for a tour next time they’re in Vegas. They can just email tours@zappos.com to schedule one (a tour takes about 45 minute to an hour).

Tony, thanks for the opportunity to interview you. Thanks for being accessible to your customers and for making Zappos a social culture.

I forgot to ask you why there are no loafers for adults with blinking LED lights in them. Maybe next time. Hope to meet you in person in the near future.