The Nordstrom Way to Customer Experience Excellence. Reeves breAnne O.

we all know that the key to success is a satisfied customer, few of us are as single‐minded as Nordstrom in creating and sustaining a customer‐obsessed culture and hiring people who fit the culture and who happily provide that exemplary service – because it's demanded and expected of them.

      When it comes to singing the song of customer service, anyone can recite the words but few can carry the tune.

      Becoming the Nordstrom of Your Industry

      Most companies, large and small, base their business model on their own internal systems. These systems are set up to make life easier for the company not necessarily for the customer.

      One three‐panel Dilbert cartoon strip, by Scott Adams, illustrates this mind‐set. In the first panel, the lead employee tells two others: “Our goal is to ship a million units this quarter.” In the second panel, another employee asks: “Do we have any goals that involve making customers happy?” In the third panel, the lead employee responds: “I'm talking about our goals; not theirs.”

      When we show that cartoon strip in our keynotes and training sessions it inevitably gets a knowing laugh from the audience. It's funny because it's true. Too true.

      On the other hand, because Nordstrom is dedicated to making life easier for the customer, it believes its job is to adjust to the customers' needs at the time of the purchasing decision. Nordstrom doesn't determine what good service is; the customer does.

      “From the sales floor to support, no matter where we work, our challenge is to constantly put the customer at the center of everything we do,” said Blake Nordstrom, who runs the company with his brothers Pete and Erik. “The ultimate filter for all our efforts should be: ‘How is this meaningful to the customer and will it increase sales?’ If something is important to the customer, we should find a way to deliver it. If it's not important to the customer, we need to question if it's worth our time and focus.”

      Nordstrom has no official mission statement or value statement, “because sometimes that becomes the flavor of the month,” said Blake. Mission statements “are only as good as the words on the paper.”

      Nordstrom is customer‐driven not customer‐focused. “Customer‐driven” means that Nordstrom puts the needs of the customer in the center of every decision on how and where to allocate resources. It means putting the customer in the driver's seat and setting aside notions and historical preconceptions of how the customer wants to be served. Customer driven is about empowering customers to dictate their terms when it comes to the different ways they choose to shop.

      This mind‐set is significant because of the astonishing speed with which the shopping experience is changing and how customers are reconsidering the service experience. Customers want to do business with companies that swiftly recognize and respond to their needs and desires.

      Nordstrom has been ranked as a retail industry leader in customer satisfaction by the American Customer Satisfaction Survey in each and every year since 1995. Nordstrom has consistently ranked as America's favorite fashion retailer in Market Force Information's annual survey, which cited Nordstrom as the industry pacesetter in (1) service, (2) ease of shopping, (3) ambience, and (4) brand value.

      Nordstrom has long been a popular subject for study among authors of customer service books and educators at business graduate schools such as Harvard and Wharton. Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill, once advised press aides for members of the United States Congress to use the “Nordstrom approach” when trying to sell producers of political talk shows on the benefits of booking their bosses. The New York Times Magazine noted that a minister in Bel Air, California, told his congregation in a Sunday sermon that Nordstrom, “carries out the call of the gospel in ways more consistent and caring than we sometimes do in the church.”

      In an article in the Nashville Tennessean newspaper, a writer called for local schools to create a “customer‐centric culture,” to create “the loyalty and enthusiasm that is crucial to participation, funding, and community pride. The Walmart model is good for some things, but if it is quality you desire, Nordstrom is the way.”

      Businesses of every kind strive to become the Nordstrom of their industry. Over the years, we have collected dozens and dozens of examples of this metaphor.

      Recreational Equipment Inc., a Seattle neighbor, has been called “the Nordstrom of sporting goods stores” and Specialty Foods magazine described A Southern Season, a store in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, as “the Nordstrom of specialty food.”

      A top broker for Century 21 once told Fast Company, “I want people to think of me as the Nordstrom of real estate.”

      A dean at Fullerton College in California vowed to create, “the Nordstrom of Admissions and Records.”

      The University of Colorado Hospital installed a baby grand piano (a popular feature in many Nordstrom full‐line stores) in its lobby and began advertising itself as “The Nordstrom of Hospitals.”

      You can find similar comparisons in yoga studios, restaurants, cloud computing, office furniture, public libraries, construction supply distribution, hot tubs, dental offices, pet stores, thermal rolls, foundries, workplace giving, doors and windows, and contract consulting.

      We've even found “the Nordstrom of garbage collection.” I don't know what its return policy is, and I don't want to find out.

      Even Nordstrom uses this metaphor. In describing the company's Rack division of clearance stores, Blake once said, “We like to think that the Rack is the Nordstrom of the discount world.”

      So, what does it mean to be the Nordstrom of your industry? It's not just a smiling face that greets you when you enter the department. It's covering every aspect of the business – the things the customers see and the things that they don't see.

      How can an organization create a culture and atmosphere to provide Nordstrom‐like service? This book answers those questions and shows you how to do it.

      A Family Business, a Public Company

      The old saying about a family business goes like this: The first generation builds it, the second generation enjoys it, and the third generation destroys it. We don't bother to mention the fourth generation because few businesses last that long.

      If there was ever a family business that defies that stereotype, it is Nordstrom. Technically, Nordstrom, which was founded in 1901, is not a family business. Although Nordstrom has it's been a publicly traded company since 1971. The chairman of its board of directors is not a family member and has never worked for the company.