Nordstrom, ticker: JWN - Nordstrom stock price chart. Legendary Nordstrom Service Nordstrom Company

Nordstrom is a legend in the US retail business. The company has gone through the classic path of evolutionary transformation of a small business into a large one. Starting with a single shoe store more than 110 years ago, the company today has more than 240 retail outlets, including

• department store chain Nordstrom for the sale of clothing and accessories operating in the premium segment;

• network of stock storesNordstrom Rack(operating since 1973), through which collections that are unsold in regular Nordstrom stores are sold at discounted prices. Thanks to this discount network, the company was able to quickly update the assortment of its main stores and minimize its losses from markdowns of illiquid stock;

• Nordstrom Direct, servicing customers through mail catalogues, through an online storeNordstrom.co (launched 1998) with a 24/7 toll-free number and shipping to 44 countries worldwide.

Nordstrom owes much of its success to its long-standing tradition of high-quality service—its willingness to do literally anything for its customers.
Brand Promise:"Nordstrom" on the company's website reads as follows: "We adhere to the simple principle on which our company was founded: to earn the trust of our customers - one at a time."

The inscription on the envelope: "We thought about those whom we would like to see in our store
most of all, and we remembered your name"

Service is central to Nordstrom's corporate culture. This business card company, the alpha and omega of its business success.
The main principle which the company has been guided by for many years and which has allowed it to achieve success in the market can be formulated something like this: “Find out what your customers want and do everything to make sure your employees give it to them.”
Company motto:“The only difference between us and the store next door is how we serve the customer.”
Nordstrom likes to say that once you forget about profit and focus on service, the money will immediately come to you.

Client stories that have become legends

Those who have ever made a purchase at Nordstrom become ardent followers and missionaries, they begin to exchange stories with each other about “going to Nordstrom”, trying to outdo each other in the implausibility of these stories. Mythical stories and legends are spread about the company. Everyone is talking about amazing customer service.
The explanation is simple: the service here is truly unsurpassed.

At Nordstrom, employees treat every customer request as an opportunity to express themselves and build their company's reputation for excellent customer service. The company strongly encourages this behavior by promoting employees recognized for providing extraordinary services.

Many regular Nordstrom shoppers can recall more than one time when they were pleasantly surprised by the level of service in these stores.

There are already hundreds of customer stories about the stores of this retailer, and although today they can already be considered classics, they are worth remembering again because of their originality.

Legendis a story about a company, based on real events, which is often repeated and told by the company’s employees themselves, clients, as well as experts (management gurus) and serves to shape the company’s image. Legends allow you to create an exclusive image of a company and define its face. Legends are PR stunts that help keep an organization's core values ​​alive.

• A store employee personally ironed a newly purchased shirt for a customer who needed it for an important meeting that same day.
• In the winter, a store employee warmed up the engine of a customer's car while he finished shopping.
• The saleswoman personally knitted a shawl for an elderly client who was afraid that a standard-length scarf would get stuck in the needles of her wheelchair.
• An employee managed to deliver party outfits to an angry customer at the last minute.
• One of the most famous stories occurred in Alaska, where Nordstrom (a rare case in the activities of a company that prefers organic growth) expanded, acquiring several stores and remodeling them to fit its format. One of the purchased stores used to sell car parts, and a client came to him and asked to reimburse him for the cost of car tires, which were clearly not new and even bald. The manager serving this customer, without hesitation or saying a word, took the customer's car tires, returned the money on the check, taking it out of his own pocket, and during his lunch break drove to the auto parts store, which had moved to another location, and there, Finally, I handed in the tires and received money for them. Thus, the buyer managed to receive compensation for low-quality car tires, despite the fact that Nordstrom does not sell tires.
• A salesperson noticed a woman searching for something on the floor at Nordstrom. After talking with her, he learned that the day before she had lost a diamond earring here and now could not find it. The seller went to the cleaners, shook out all the garbage bags from the vacuum cleaners and, after a long search, finally found the lost earring, which was returned to the customer.
• A client from Portland wanted to buy an Armani evening dress for his daughter's wedding. He ran around the whole city, raised half the state of Oregon, but found nothing. Out of despair, he looked into Nordstrom store, where he often shopped and was registered regular customer, knowing for sure that they do not sell such goods there. An employee of the store, who had helped him with purchases many times before, asked him to leave the dress measurements just in case, and the next day she called him on the phone and said that she had found a dress that could be picked up the next day. As it later turned out, the store employee found the desired dress in New York through her friends - store managers, and then, with the help of the same personal contacts, organized its urgent delivery across the country.
• In one town, a man walked into a Nordstrom store looking for a tuxedo to wear to his daughter's wedding. As it turns out, Nordstrom didn't have tuxedos in their product line, and the customer was asking for same-day delivery. However, the seller took his measurements, took his phone number and promised to call back when the tuxedo of the appropriate size was delivered. After this, the seller contacted the designer's distributor in New York and arranged for urgent delivery of the tuxedo to the client. As a result, the tuxedo was delivered right on time.
• The seller took longer to pack the goods than usual and, as compensation for the long wait, he paid the buyer a parking ticket.
• The client was in a hurry, he was late for his plane, and he urgently needed to make a purchase. The store salesperson delivered the goods ordered by the customer over the phone directly to the airport.
• Buyer department readyth men's clothing, after several visits, purchased a suit in one of the chain stores, to from He sat on it poorly. Eventually the buyer wrote a letter to the president of the corporation. The letter from the dissatisfied buyer was received by none other than the co-chairman of the board of directors of the corporation, John Nordstrom, who very soon sent a tailor to the buyer's office with a new suit for fitting.

Father and Son: John Nordstrom co-chairman of the board of directors of the corporationAnd
Blake NordstromPresident and Director, Nordstrom, Inc.

• After the suit was altered taking into account all the client's wishes, the purchase was delivered to the buyer free of charge.

• The store clerk stopped the customer and asked if her shoes were purchased from their store. Having received an affirmative answer, the seller insisted that the shoes be replaced immediately, since “their quality is clearly not that good.” high level what it should be."
• Sellers will arrange delivery of shoes or dresses the right size from another store directly to the buyer's home.

• A man whose wife had just died called one of the chain stores. He wanted to know how much debt he owed on his bills. He was told that the debt was $1,000 and asked why he was interested in the status of his account. The man spoke, and a few days later he received a letter from the store saying that his wife was a wonderful customer and he could consider his bills paid in full. But that's not all. On the day of the funeral, the store sent flowers.
• A man came to the store to change the shirts he had bought. He bought them in another store, but in Nordstrom branded packaging. "Everything is fine!" - said the seller of the men's shirts department. “We’ll change them, and in the meantime you can choose something else.”
• The 7-year-old son of one of the clients came home one day and said that tomorrow he had to participate in a school play wearing black trousers and a white shirt. Actually, he was warned in advance, but he forgot to tell his parents about it. The boy did not have such trousers, and the time had already passed eight o’clock. The boy was very upset and very worried because he did not want to let down the participants in the performance and look stupid without appropriate clothes. The client himself was out of town at the time, and his wife could not leave home because she was caring for small children. What to do? The wife immediately called Nordstrom and told them about the problem. The saleswoman promised to pick up three pairs of matching trousers from the children's clothing department and deliver them to the client in the evening on his way home. We agreed that the wife would return the extra pairs later, when she could. The client's home was thirty minutes north of the San Diego store. At about half past nine - the boy was already fast asleep - the saleswoman brought the client the right size trousers. The next morning, when the boy woke up, three pairs of brand new trousers were waiting for him. One couple sat on it just fine. The child, completely happy and contented, went to school for his performance, confident that his mother could work miracles. When the wife brought the two remaining pairs to the store, she talked with the saleswoman, and it turned out that she lived thirty minutes south of the store. She drove thirty minutes to deliver the order and then spent another hour getting home. This woman stayed late not only to meet the customers' expectations, but also to please them.
• On the eve of Mother's Day, the host of the morning show on Las Vegas radio station Lite 100.5 called the Nordstrom store in her mother's town and asked for a gift of her choice to be delivered. At the same time, the presenter complained that she was late with the order and that it would not arrive at the right time. “No problem,” the seller replied, “I live not far from your mother and will drop off a gift for her on the way home.” After this, in one of the morning broadcasts, the host of the morning program said: “From now on, I only shop at Nordstorm stores.” And all of Las Vegas heard it.

Stories like this, told by customers, are excellent advertising, transmitted by word of mouth and attractingMore and more new customers are coming to the chain stores. In addition, with The "bald tire" case was featured on the front pages of several newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and the New York Times. It is mentioned in many books, and probably hundreds of speakers have given this example in speeches to thousands of people around the world. How much does such advertising cost? Is it possible to name the price of such PR?

To be fair, it is worth noting that the company itself never advertises its own “good deeds” at all, and does not use them for marketing purposes, preferring that only customers talk about them.
But at the same time, the company collects and carefully preserves stories about the “heroic” deeds of its employees who did something extraordinary to please Customers.
Every business day for sellers Nordstrom starts with a small meeting where they are asked to talk about how they and their colleagues interacted with customers the day before and what they did for them. Salespeople who do the most for customers are rewarded and their stories are featured on the company website.
Letters of gratitude from satisfied customers are first publicly read by the Store Director. If the letter contains gratitude to a specific employee, then the Store Director congratulates the employee to the applause of his colleagues.
After Thanksgiving letters enlarged and inserted into frames that decorate office corridors in the manner of photographs.
In addition, Nordstrom employees themselves write heroic stories about each other, which, along with customer reviews and letters in which the employees themselves express gratitude to customers, are taken into account in the competition to see which store will receive a monthly prize for the best service.