Wherever You Shop, Nordstrom Delivers on Customer Service
Nordstrom translates its legendary customer service online to delight the customer through every channel.
As we learned in the Nordstrom case for FRC, the Nordstrom business model revolves around delighting the customer. Happy customers are loyal customers with high lifetime value, and thus drive profit for the company. While most companies provide lip service to customer service, Nordstrom actually delivers, and they do regardless of where you shop鈥攐nline, in-store, or on your mobile phone.
Customer-centrism informs every aspect of their operating model. As we learned in our FRC case, their 
sales compensation model empowers employees to exercise judgment and do right by the customer, every time. Stories of their service range from hand-written notes to customers to above-and-beyond聽searches for lost jewelry (see this article about Nordstrom employees who opened up the store鈥檚 vacuum cleaners to recover a lost diamond from a wedding ring).
As e- and m-commerce have grown as a percent of sales across the retail industry (), Nordstrom has done an incredible job of supporting its customer-focused business through its online operating model. A couple important and interesting components of the online model:
- Inventory pooling: Nordstrom pools its inventory across channels, making all products available to customers shopping in the channel of their choosing. When they first rolled out their integrated inventory, conversion rates doubled ( for additional detail). Inventory pooling doesn鈥檛 sound sexy, but it is customer-centric to the core.
- Offering free beauty samples with purchase: beauty shoppers are accustomed to receiving free samples when shopping in-store. Nordstrom meets this expectation online by including three free samples with every online beauty purchase, unusual in the online channel but pleasing to the customer.
- Free shipping and free returns: Shipping is always free at Nordstrom.com, both ways. It鈥檚 costly but is critical to reassure the customer that she needn鈥檛 fear shopping online.
- Commitment to digital innovation: Announced just a few months ago, Nordstrom is investing in its mobile platform to meet customer鈥檚 omni-channel shopping needs.
- As , co-president Blake Nordstrom said: 鈥淭o evolve with our customers鈥� rapidly changing expectations,聽we鈥檙e rolling out new features at a rate three times faster than last year鈥� As customers continue to want a more integrated shopping experience, we view mobile as a long-term priority to provide a richer experience for our customers.鈥� (Emphasis added.)
Nordstrom鈥檚 quote captures perfectly how their business and operating models are intertwined: it all comes back to the customer.Nordstrom sees impressive returns on its investments in online customer service, with web sales growing at 25.5% in 2014 compared to the national average of 15.4% (from ). Its operating model reinforces its business model, which continues to inform its decisions on how to operate the business鈥攁 virtuous cycle for the retailer and customers alike!
Nordstrom is definitely the classic!!! They do indeed also have a strong digital strategy. I use their mobile a[pp all the time…
Nordstrom seems to be the epitome of customer centricity, it’s pretty incredible! Have never shopped there myself but have worked for companies that continue to invest in customer centricity. They’re investing hundreds of millions in customer data, and predictive behaviours. I do wonder if Nordstrom invests equally in customer data, or whether their operating model is suited to personal relationships and not institutional relationships. Thanks!
Interesting post Midori, I would imagine that it would be incredibly difficult to translate a core competency that revolves around human interaction and a customer-centric focus–it seems that thus far they have been able to do it. As the mobile business scales, I wonder if they will be able to sustain the same level of satisfaction.