Seeing value of customer service in retail
Author of three books on Nordstrom culture to address trade show
Richmond Times-Dispatch; September 23, 2004
By Gregory J. Gilligan

Retailer Nordstrom Inc. doesn't just sell clothes, sh0oes and cosmetics.

It primarily is in the customer service business, according to a best selling book about the culture cultivated at Nordstrom

Author Robert Spector said most businesses could learn a few lessons from the Seattle based chain's philosophy and adapt them at their companies.

“Most companies, are set up to make life easier for their organization as opposed to what works best for the customer," said Spector, who wrote "The Nordstrom Way: The Inside Story of America's #1 Customer Service Company."

"They forget what it is like to be a customer," he said. "Customer service is very important to a company's survival, whether it is at a $6 billion company or at the corner butcher."

Spector will deliver that message this morning as keynote speaker at the annual Biz Line Trade Show at the Greater Richmond Convention Center.

The show, sponsored by the Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce, features more than 200 exhibitors. It runs from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Spector's book, published in 1995, provided the first up close look at how Nordstrom became the national standard bearer of customer service. He wrote a second book about how other businesses have learned lessons from Nordstrom, The former business journalist’s third book on the chain is scheduled for release in the spring.

Nordstrom did not pay Spector write the books, but the company did provide him with access. The retailer is pleased with the books and even gives them out to department managers and to employees as rewards.

Spector spent more than an hour yesterday walking through the Nordstrom store at Short Pump Town Center, talking to employees and signing their copies of his first book.

He recalled some of the legendary tales of how Nordstrom employees have gone to such great lengths for customers.

His most recent favorite: A woman in Oregon called the Nordstrom store because she lost a hubcap while driving by the store. She hadn’t been shopping at the store that day, but asked store employees to look for it. An employee found the hubcap, washed it for her and delivered it to her home.

"The best thing about the story is that they washed the hubcap," Spector said chuckling. “Amazing service."

What's even more astonishing, he said, is that the woman hadn't even shopped at the store that day. “It all goes back to Nordstrom sells service."

While chatting with employees at the Short Pump store yesterday, a similar incident unfolded before him.

A woman who had shopped elsewhere in the mall was passing through the Nordstrom store and needed assistance taking items to her car. Nordstrom employees Russell Morris and Shawn Phinney carried her bags, a basket and a box.

The customer service stories are well known inside -and outside- the chain, Spector said. The tales help foster a tribal culture where the employees are empowered to go out of their way to do whatever is necessary for the customer.

More businesses, he said, need to focus or refocus on customer service. They can do so by hiring motivated, friendly workers and by dumping rules that often get in the way of providing customer service.

Spector recently did a search on the Internet search engine Google trying to find out how many companies described themselves as Nordstrom like. He chuckled to find dozens, from a yoga studio to a garbage hauler.

"Everyone wants to be like Nordstrom, but few achieve that status," according to Spector.

Speak Up, Says Consumer Expert
Tampa Bay Tribune; October 9, 2003
by Cherie Jacobs

TAMPA- Attention consumers, Robert Spector has some advice for you: Speak up.

“Don’t let companies roll over you, or tell you ‘Sorry, that’s our policy. These are the rules,’ Spector said. “You have to demand things. You have to make noise.”

Customers can get better service from retailers if they insist on it, said Spector, a speaker and best?selling author on customer service and corporate culture.

“Don't be afraid to ask,” he said. “It's amazing what you can get if you're not afraid to ask.”

Spector has written four books, including The Nordstrom Way and Amazon.com: Get Big Fast. He stopped in Florida on Wednesday as part of Customer Service Week, which ends Saturday.

The sputtering economy has affected customer service, he said—sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.

“When the economy is going up, any idiot can sell a lot of stuff,” Spector said. It’s difficult times, like now, when retailers differentiate themselves. When three stores carry the same merchandise at the same prices, how well they treat customers is the only thing that can differentiate a retailer, and keep customers coming back.

“It’s like relationships. When everything is going along fine, it’s easy to be married. It's going through hard times, and getting through it, that [makes it] more than a piece of paper."

But customers also should know what to expect, he said. Attention to customers is different at a high?end store than it is at a discounter, for example.

“You can’t expect Nordstrom?like service at Wal?Mart or Home Depot," Spector said. “You have to be realistic.”

Spector predicts retailers on both extremes will survive—the high?end stores like Nieman Marcus, and the discounters like Wal?Mart and Target. But the stores in the middle range, such as traditional department stores, won't be as lucky.

I think we’ve already seen the slow death of the department stores,” Spector said. “They’ve outlived their usefulness.”

“Their problem is, they're trying to match the discounts of Target and WalMart,” he said, But they don’t have the same structure.”Customers are more savvy these days, he said. They have more choices.

“Customer service, by itself, is no guarantee of success,” Spector said. “But the absence of customer service is a guarantee of failure.”

Winning Business Ways
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Matthew Philips
From: Richmond.com

This year marks the 10th anniversary of BIZLINC, Richmond’s premier business-to-business trade show. To celebrate, the Greater Richmond Convention Center welcomes national best-selling author and renowned customer service guru Robert Spector, who will open Thursday’s BIZLINC with a special pre-event speaking seminar beginning at 8:30 a.m.

Best known for his book, “The Nordstrom Way: The Inside Story of America’s #1 Customer Service Company,” Spector has spent the last several years traveling the world as an expert on world-class customer service. As a speaker and business writer, Spector delves into all aspects of customer service and examines the crucial details that set the good apart from the great.

Spector began his professional career as a business journalist. His work has appeared in such publications as “The Wall Street Journal”, “USA Today” and “NASDAQ Magazine.” In the early 1990’s, he was given unprecedented access into the world of Nordstrom’s and as a result wrote the first and only up-close-and-personal look at how the company became the gold standard of customer service.

Published in 1995, Spector’s “The Nordstrom Way,” spent 17 weeks on the Business Week Bestseller List and was nominated for the Booz Allen Hamilton/Financial Times Global Business Award.

Spector has also penned several other business-related titles including, “Amazon.com: Get Big Fast: The Revolutionary Business Model that Changed the World,” as well as the acclaimed follow-up, “Lessons from the NORDSTROM WAY: How Companies are Emulating the #1.”

His newest book, “Anytime, Anywhere: How the Best Bricks-and-Clicks Businesses Deliver Seamless Services to their Customers” examines how top companies are offering world-class customer service across all channels of distribution.

When asked what the difference is between good and bad customer service, Spector says that it’s usually a matter of perspective. “It all goes back to the basic decision of creating a business that is either easier for the customer or easier for the company,” Spector said in an interview with Richmond.com. “A funny thing happens when people get into business: they forget to think like the customer. Keeping the customer’s best interests in mind is a one of the keys to good customer service.”

Also, a little effort can go a long way in forging good customer relations, according to Spector, who says that as a business journalist, he has always been skeptical of companies labeled as unique. But during his time spent researching Nordstrom’s, Spector saw first-hand what a unique company really was.

“Nordstrom’s is one of the few examples which really fits that bill,” said Spector. “They’re one of a kind; their culture is special. That’s not to say it can’t be replicated by another company. It’s nothing earth shattering that they do. It’s all very, very simple. But what it comes down to is maintaining the same commitment at every level of the organization. It’s just a matter of wanting to do it.”

Three Questions for Robert Spector from Retail Perspectives: Inside the World of Returns Management

1. You have said in the past that Nordstrom is America's number 1 customer service company. In your opinion, What are the keys to providing exceptional customer service in the retail industry?

Nordstrom doesn’t possess some secret sauce or a state-of-the-art training program. But what the company does have is a top-to-bottom, bottom-to-top commitment to customer service. Nordstrom people know that they are not in the apparel business or the shoe business or the cosmetics business; they are in the customer service business.

In my presentation, “How to Become The Nordstrom of Your Industry,” I explain how Nordstrom creates, maintains, encourages, empowers, and nurtures a 45,000-employee entrepreneurial culture that is 100 percent committed to serving the customer.

In my more than twenty-years of studying the company and interviewing their top executives and salespeople, I have boiled The Nordstrom Way down to these Nine Management Principles:

Provide your customers with choices—of products, services and service channels.
Create an inviting place for your customers—in person, online and on the phone.
Sell the relationship: Service your clients through the products and services you offer.
Hire nice, motivated people.
Empower employees to take ownership…by minimizing the rules.
Sustain the people on the frontlines through a culture of support and mentorship.
Nurture a service culture through recognition and praise.
Advocate teamwork through internal customer service.
Commit 100% to customer service.

2. How do retailers’ return policies affect their ability to provide excellent customer service?

Retailers must appreciate that returns are part of the cost of doing business. The easier a retailer makes returning a product, the better relationship that retailer will have with the customer.

In my current bookCategory Killers: The Retail Revolution and Its Impact on Consumer Culture, I point out that when Charles Lazarus, the father of the category killer, started Toys “R” Us in 1957, he instituted a no-questions-asked return policy. Lazarus learned early on in his career that, “the customer who raised his voice generally got his purchase taken back anyway, regardless of the merits.”

Back when Nordstrom was a two-store footwear retailer in the 1930s, brothers Everett, Elmer, and Lloyd Nordstrom dreaded having to deal with obviously outrageous or unreasonable returns. So, they reckoned, if they could pass off the responsibilities for the adjustments and complaints, the business would be more personally enjoyable.

“We decided to let the clerks make the adjustments, so they would be the fair-haired boys,” the then-89-year-old Elmer told me back in 1992. “We told them, ‘If the customer is not pleased, she can come to us and we’ll give her what she wants anyway.’” Nordstroms tracked the costs of the return policy for the first year and found they could afford to maintain it. Plus, in a world where most retailers made returns an ordeal, Nordstrom made the experience as painless as possible, which generated priceless word-of-mouth advertising. It still does.

In 1983, I did the last published interview with Eddie Bauer himself. Eddie (who died in 1986 at the age of 86) was the quintessential Pacific Northwest sportsman—a hunter, fisherman, camper, trapper and mountaineer. He was also a record-setting stringer of tennis rackets. Here’s a great return story that I wrote about in the company’s 1995 corporate history,The Legend of Eddie Bauer:

In 1920, he opened the Eddie Bauer Sports Shop in downtown Seattle. One day, a customer named Jack returned a tennis racket that Eddie had strung. The racket had obviously been left out in the rain because the strings were broken and expanded. Eddie told Jack that no retailer could guarantee strings on a racket left out in the rain, and said he would restring the racket for cost. But Jack insisted that the strings had gone bad on their own.

“With that remark, I blew my top,” Eddie recalled. “I invited Jack to go with me to the alley and I would punch him in the nose.”

But Eddie calmed down and began stringing other rackets, leaving Jack standing there. Neither man said a word for several minutes.

“Finally, I realized this whole situation was comical, so I started laughing. I said, ‘Jack, I’m going to string your racket and I’ll do a good job. The customer is always right.’

“Jack was receptive and I did a beautiful tournament stringing job for him, gave it to him and asked him to please not let it get wet. He thanked me and from then on, he could not help but have a good word for me. He did me a great favor, because he helped me establish my guarantee: Every item we sell will give you complete satisfaction or you may return it for a full refund.”

3. What impact has multi-channel retailing had on customer service?

I explored that topic in depth in my 2002 book Anytime, Anywhere: How the Best Bricks-and-Clicks Businesses Deliver Seamless Service to Their Customers, which featured several multi-channel retailers, including Frederick’s of Hollywood. The book has a simple premise: winning companies are the ones that provide an excellent customer service experience across all channels. The Internet has made customer service more important than ever. In the old days—not that long ago, actually—shoppers stayed loyal to favorite stores for many years. No more. Today’s consumer is apt to more loyal to the deal than to the dealer.

At the same time, customers are demanding than ever. They want what they want when they want it. They want the companies they deal with to know them across all channels, but they also demand that their privacy be protected. They want companies to be proactive, but not invasive. They want to be able to track and check the status of their order and, of course, they want to be able to easily return unwanted items—either by mail or at the retailers brick-and-mortar stores or at drop-off centers.

Consequently, companies are continually pressed to do more and more for their customers. One way to ingratiate yourself is being available to your customers anytime, anywhere, and via any channel. That means providing telephone numbers, fax numbers, and e-mail addresses—that are easily accessible—because most customers want to communicate directly with someone; someone who can take care of them. Is there anything more essential than communication to good customer service?

Hometown ties still bind
Home News Tribune (New Jersey)
March 23, 1998

You can take the boy out of Perth Amboy, but you can't take Perth Amboy out of the boy."

That's Robert Spector talking, from Seattle, where he lives with his wife, Marybeth, and their daughter Fae. It has been his home for the past 20 years or so.

Spector is a home boy at heart and pines for Perth Amboy. He still has family and friends here and will he in the area to be inducted in the Perth Amboy High School Hall on April 24 at the Pines Manor in Edison.

Perth Amboy fascinates Spector, even as it did before he left.

When he comes by for a visit, he said, "I like walking around, going past my old house on State Street, down to the waterfront. I like to have Perth Amboy envelop me while I'm here."

What brought him to the Hall of Fame was his success as a writer. Spector is the award?winning co?author of "The Nordstrom Way," published by John Wiley of New York. The book, with the subtitle "The Inside Story of America's No. I Customer Service Company," was published in May 1995 and has been featured on the BusinessWeek Bestseller's List. It recommended the book "for anyone looking to understand customer service at its best, this book bubbles with insights."

Spector, taking an upbeat attitude of "Hey, that's my town!" is a proud collector of material about Perth Amboy and can whip out references by such well known writers as Russell Baker of the New York Times, New Yorker critic Brendan Gill, novelist Fletcher Knebel and James Thurber, one of his favorite writers.

Most of the references are tongue in cheek, and sometimes there is even official reaction to perceived negative remarks about Perth Amboy.

Spector notes that in "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," by Thurber, Mitty was a graduate of Perth Amboy High School and had a Perth Amboy banner tacked on the wall of his room.

Spector knows the true value of his Perth Amboy even though he now lives 3,000 miles away. Perth Amboy, for Spector, is a town bill of memories, good friends and racial amity, and a town worth remembering.

It is where he got his start as a writer in high school when he worked for the Perth Amboy Parks Department, editing a newsletter that went to all the city's parks. It was where he was the editor of the 1965 Perth Amboy High School yearbook. He also worked as a sports correspondent for the Perth Amboy Evening News (which later became The News Tribune of Woodbridge, a predecessor to this newspaper). When he wasn't doing this, he was working in his father's butcher shop three days a week in the Farmers' Market on Elm Street, and two days a week in his dad's shop in the Farmers Market in South River,

“At the butcher shop,” said Spector, "I swept up and cut salami. But when I wasn't doing that, I was writing."

His parents are the late Fred and Florence Spector, natives of Ukraine, who made it to Perth Amboy via Newark. Bob moved to Perth Amboy when he was 2½.

He must have made some impression at the high school. Mary Ann Bath, whose maiden name was Novak, is confidential secretary to High School Principal Ben Rotella. "I'm also Class of 1965," she said. "That's one dinner I'm going to have to go to."

Bath's daughter, Dena Michele Bath, 'is a cosmetics consultant at Nordstrom's in the Menlo Park section of Edison and "loves her job."

Even though he was editor of the "Halls of Ivy," the 1965 yearbook, Spector was never voted to be the one most likely to do anything. But from Seattle, he wrote an op-ed piece that appeared in the New York Times on Nov. 23, 1996, about yearbook picks. Citing his experience at Perth Amboy, he wrote, "I'm hoping to be selected ‘most improved’ at our next reunion."

Before he became a successful business writer, Spector had an extensive background as a reporter and editor and feature writer, He was a ghostwriter for Dr. Joyce Brothers, he was a writer for the game show "Twenty Questions" and a humor writer for "National Lampoon" and radio personality Don Imus and for the comedy team of Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara.

His humorous remembrance of his short career on the Perth Amboy High School basketball team was published by Sports Illustrated in 1982. I've just read it again. It's funny.

Spector has written privately commissioned histories of such firms as Eddie Bauer, Kimberly?Clark and Chevron.

"I had the last published interview with Eddie himself," Spector recalls. "Bauer was a fisherman and a bit of a sports merchandising legend. He died in 1986 at 86, and I interviewed him in 1983 for a Pacific Northwest magazine."

The uniqueness of his book on Nordstrom's is that Nordstrom did not commission it and had no editorial say in its production. The biggest coup, says Spector, was getting the Nordstrom family to cooperate. The book is not carried in Nordstrom stores, Spector says. "It would be very unNordstrom?like."

His success with his book on Nordstrom's has led to invitations to speak in various parts of the world ? usually by companies or organizations seeking to find a tie?in with the Nordstrom approach.

Spector is comfortable before large groups, he says, and that comes from what he calls a "life?transforming experience" when he gave the eulogy for his father in 1990 at Temple Beth Mordecai in Perth Amboy.

"I felt my father's spirit wash over me," he said, "and I spoke about his life, his career, his family, and his humor...

"I used the theme of a John Lennon song, 'Working Class Hero' ? that's what my father was. I took that feeling of my dad whenever I give public talks. I have no nervousness at all."

Entry into the Perth Amboy High School Hall of Fame will be a signal honor for Spector, but the same honor, he believes, should go to 1965 Perth Amboy classmate Eli Reed, a black documentary photographer and author of "Black in America," published by Norton with an introduction by black photojournalist Gordon Parks.

Others who will be 'inducted this year in the Perth Amboy High School Hall of Fame are attorney Jay Ziznewski, Class of 1966; Jose E. Rodriguez, Class of 1970, Dr. Seymour Oliet, Class of 1945, and Dr. John Andrako, Class of 1941.

Spector has two sisters in our area: Sandra Goldberg of Edison and Barbara Eisner of Westfield. Sandra is a travel consultant at World Travel in Edison, and Barbara is a pharmacist with the Middlesex County TB Clinic at Roosevelt Hospital. They also worked in the family business.

They're glad for Bob’s success but look forward to his trips for other reasons.

"He's the baby in the family," they said.

Featured Alumnus: Robert Spector '69
Franklin & Marshall College Alumni Magazine
Summer 2002
by Paula Holzman

In his own words, Robert Spector '69 has "written just about everything except for the labels on soup cans."

The acclaimed author and speaker has written humor pieces for The New York Times, business articles for USA Today, company histories for Nordstrom's and Eddie Bauer, and recently, Amazon.com: Get Big Fast (Harperbusiness 2000), a book about the strategy of the massive web site that peddles everything from books to facial scrubs.

"Writing is my only marketable skill," Spector joked. "In my youth, I wanted to be a comedy writer. I wanted to be Rob Petrie [from the 'Dick Van Dyke Show']."

Business, rather than comedy, has become Spector's specialty. After graduating from F&M with a major in sociology, Spector wrote for a variety of publications. Then, in 1990, he met Patrick McCarthy, Nordstrom's all-time top salesman. After extensive interviews with McCarthy, Spector drew up a book proposal, but found that publishers were more interested in a piece about Nordstrom itself.

Five years later, Spector finished The Nordstrom Way, which spent 17 weeks on the Business Week Bestseller List and was nominated for the Booz Allen Hamilton/Financial Times Global Business Award.

The Nordstrom Way focused on Nordstrom's famous commitment to customer service. "Customer service is the business. It doesn't matter what you sell," Spector said. "There is a great quotation from an employee of Southwest Airlines: ´We're not an airline with great customer service; we're a customer service company that happens to be in the airline business.'"

The book also began Spector's speaking career. "It's good to be an expert," he said. "It pays better than being a journalist."

He then took his experience from The Nordstrom Way to write Amazon.com: Get Big Fast, released April 4. He notes the similarities between the companies, pointing out that Amazon's concern with customer service has translated into a web site that loads quickly, is simple to move around in, and, most important, lets customers shop with ease.

More amazing still is that Amazon.com personnel were able to respond to esoteric requests for books. "They'd get service requests like, ´My mother used to read this book to me as a kid. I don't remember the title. I don't remember the author. But there was a character named Pamela,' and they'd find someone who knew the book," Spector said. "Now that's customer service."

New Title Looks at Category Killers
Bookselling This Week: January 25, 2005
by Linda Castellitto
January 25, 2005

After Robert Spector's 1995 book The Nordstrom Way became a top seller, the author became somewhat of a customer-service guru: He parlayed the book's success into a follow-up title (Lessons From the Nordstrom Way) as well as speaking engagements across the U.S. and around the world -- including appearances at BookExpo America and regional bookseller conventions. It's been 10 years and counting, and he's still traveling and talking about customer service.

"It's so ironic," Spector said. "I was the worst worker of all the Spector cousins and children [at my parents' butcher shop]. My dad would get a huge kick out of this." He might also enjoy the appreciative way in which Spector mentions the family business in his newest book, Category Killers: The Retail Revolution and Its Impact on Consumer Culture (Harvard Business School Press).

Though Spector may have avoided taking his turn at the cash register, he closely observed the practices his parents put into place as they dealt with their customers -- and managed to thrive despite a changing retail landscape. "Neither of them got past eighth grade; this is not a sophisticated marketing plan we're talking about. They had a mom-and-pop butcher shop, and they found ways to be special. They sold specialty ethnic foods, and did business in three or four languages" with their clientele, primarily fellow Eastern European immigrants.

The importance of building strength through specialization is a theme in Category Killers. Spector asserts that category killers (Home Depot, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Wal-Mart) will continue to loom large in the retail landscape -- even as they change the way cities are arranged, money is spent, and store owners do business.

He said, "This is the most dynamic period in retail in American history because there are so many things happening in so many places at the same time." For example, he noted, "There is the stereotype of a Wal-Mart the size of several football fields, located out in the sticks and killing downtown areas. Part of that is true; on the other hand, Wal-Mart is in Los Angeles, it will be in Chicago.... These big-box retailers are re-gentrifying neighborhoods. Retailing is the thing that always brings people back. Retail and restaurants become reasons to have a neighborhood."

In addition, he said, "the classic shopping mall is going through major changes because we don't have as many department and anchor stores. There is the emerging concept of a lifestyle center, which creates more neighborhoods.... Malls are no longer the walled-off fortresses you can't see from the outside. Lifestyle centers are smaller, and there are different mixes of stores." For example, he pointed out that someone who shops at the upscale department store Nordstrom one day will go to Target the next day. "Before, it was apples and oranges -- you wouldn't think of mixing those kinds of stores."

Indeed, the dollar store is seeing a boost in popularity as well, again due to seemingly unlikely clientele: "One of the most popular dollar stores is in Beverly Hills," Spector said. "Everyone likes a good deal." In response to the trend, stores like Target and Wal-Mart are experimenting with aisles featuring $1 items.

But what's a small retailer -- say, an independent bookstore -- to do, if offering such steep discounts is not an option? "Really smart booksellers understand retail is retail is retail," Spector said. "And if you're going to be a specialty store, you have to be special."

In Category Killers, he profiles Minneapolis' Wild Rumpus (online at www.wildrumpusbooks.com). "That's a perfect example," he said. "The owner, Collette Morgan, says 'We do things the big stores can't do, or won't make a commitment to do.' They make the store a happening, from the way it's laid out to the events they have."

It's important, too, Spector said, that stores make use of multi-channel marketing: "You have to coordinate your store, your Web site, your phone, and your catalog so you give seamless service to your customers. You need to have the same look, and provide the same information."

It's true, the author conceded, that the category killers can sell books more cheaply than can independent stores. However, he said, "They only sell certain popular books. I was at Costco last week, and they have a relatively low number of titles. An independent bookstore could carry a few of those as a service, but it really goes back to finding something that will differentiate you from your competitors."

He explained, "My father sold certain ethnic foods -- head cheese, fatback, stuff you wouldn't want to touch, much less eat. But A&P didn't carry that stuff, so customers came in for it and bought other items while they were there. Use unique items, special orders, or a particular subject matter as a reason to get people to come to the store in the first place."

Spector is busy working on his next book, which he describes as "the yin to the yang of Category Killers -- a memoir about working for my parents, and will touch on the American immigrant experience, and mom-and-pop stores. I think it's the book I was meant to write." In addition, February will bring an expanded re-issue of The Nordstrom Way.

The Flow of Information

By Robert Spector

Listen to this feature(Real Player Required)

Robert was interviewed on our speeded up life by Ethos Channel.