Nordstrom Inc.: The Customer Service Gap

Nordstrom’s has successfully distinguished itself by offering high-end merchandise, more personal selling, and having an open showroom floor, This sets them apart from other retail stores like Target, Walmart, Etc. Because their product line is simple and easy to follow.

In this report, I am researching Nordstrom in order to gain information on if this company would be a good company for an undergraduate student to complete an internship with. I plan on finding out information on topics such as company culture, financial analysis, growth, and competition. I will look deeply into the company’s strengths and weaknesses in order to learn about sustainability and potential for long-term employment.

This store is an off-price retailer that buys the overstock or imperfect items from other department stores. The prices are usually lower in contrast to Nordstrom that sells exclusive clothes from various designers. The level of service is much lower than in Nordstrom. Salespeople are not as enthusiastic and motivated to provide that one-on-one attention to their customers.  As a result, they do not tend to build long-term relationships with customers. Usually a customer cannot find an item due to the store 's disorganization and it is difficult to ask for help finding specific products.  Furthermore, Ross ' strict return policies and guidelines make it difficult for customers to return items.

Nordstrom’s is classified as one of the biggest U.S. department stores. Along with Sears, Macy’s, and JC Penny’s, Nordstrom manages each department in their stores as an individual buying center. Every group functions separately from one another, and is administered by a buyer who is in charge of all varieties and styles of merchandise sold. Promotions that can be used in the stores are included, as well. “The company has also benefited from a new computerized inventory system that gives buyers and salespeople the necessary data to make smarter decisions about what is needed in the stores—and what isn’t.” (Lamb, Hair, McDaniel 569). This new and improved system allows the department store to market a greater amount of full priced items, which ultimately increase sales. The buyer is also able to easily determine what items to obtain and exhibit in the store by using this system.

In Menswear of Nordstrom, they hold a very strong marketing mix. Within their marketing mix, they have product. Men’s wear in Nordstrom has a very large scale of items from mid-tier to high fashion. It consists of more than hundred brands. Some brands are offered exclusively at Nordstrom only for men’s wear, such as Paul Smith lines. The items for men’s wear is quality oriented and mostly British styled. The selection of items are also vary from suits to casual and even sportswear, too. In service side, Nordstrom provides unmatched customer service for men by customizing products and providing tailored services to their needs. They also have service called Trunk Club, which gives fashion direction to men who don’t have time and who don’t

Value chain is the ability to take a product and add some value along the way to make it appealing to the customers in such a way that they be willing to buy the product at a certain price. Many companies in today’s business world analyze their value chains to identify the ways which continue to attract their customers. The value chain analysis consist of two parts, primary activities and secondary activities. The first ones support the actual physical process of buying, manufacturing, shipping and selling the product and the secondary activities are actions that support the process, such as procurement, technical support and human resource management.

In year 4, we will expand the line to department stores starting first at Nordstrom. Nordstrom currently has a Topshop within the department store so we will add to that. This department stores fits the line very well and it will help new customers reach the line since Topshop’s are only in major US cities. Putting the Green line inside the department stores will create more brand recognition since this will allow more consumers to see and learn about the brand and the line. By year four we will know exactly what our best sellers are and those are the pieces that we will put in the department store. The Green line will be on Nordstrom’s website as well because of how good their online sales are doing.

Nordstrom is an American upscale fashion retailer that was founded by John Nordstrom and Carl Wallin. Nordstrom, headquartered in Seattle in 1901, commits to continue providing their customers with the best possible service. Since then, it has successfully improved every day. It all started from a small Seattle shoe shop to the leading fashion specialty retailers today. With a total of 323 stores spread out in 39 states and Canada, Nordstrom continues to give customers the access to off-price fashion at considerably high savings. Nordstrom always refers to their business as a continuous growth, as any business should. They provide opportunities to serve their customers in more ways with inspiring styles and keeping a fresh shopping

I have picked Nordstrom, Inc. the American chain of extravagance retail establishments headquartered in Seattle, Washington. The organization has 349 stores working in 40 states, Puerto Rico and Canada. Nordstrom additionally serves clients through nordstrom.com, nordstromrack.com, and its online private deal website, Haute Look. To develop the business there are new domains Nordstrom needs extend their business as a feature of their general money related methodology. On account of the general microeconomic condition for the nations to be considered for an extension, they need to give extraordinary chances to Nordstrom to enhance their universal nearness. China is the clearest open door. Growing in can be affected by the expense structure and

Nordstrom’s and Topshop’s marketing strategy both target a specific segment of the market. While Nordstrom’s focuses on higher end/quality goods and competitive pricing, Topshop’s offers consumers the runway and street fashion at affordable prices. The companies are examples of niche marketing, which “allows the organization to create more narrowly focused marketing plans for its brands than segment marketing approaches.”(Finch, 2012)

Description: The speaker Nicole Smith told us that Nordstrom’s philosophy is to make customers feel good. They work on creating long-term relationship with their customers. Therefore, their employees should love their company, know well the products that they are selling, and know what the customers are looking for. All their higher level position such as store manager must have experience of working on sales floor and get promoted to a higher level position.

WalMart's (NYSE:WMT) expertise in discount retailing is globally recognized, as is their supply chain and extensive logistics capabilities. What differentiates WalMart from the many other discount retailers is their extensive reliance on buyer personas or representations of their customers. All aspects of the WalMart value chain are predicated on serving their customers as cost-effectively and efficiently as possible. WalMart has also created an extensive information systems network that includes satellite uploads of data on a daily basis from their thousands of retail locations to their Bentonville, Arkansas headquarters (WalMart Investor Relations, 2013). The intent of this analysis is to evaluate the mission, vision and strategy of WalMart from the perspective of improving its customer service while also taking into account its financial position. To accomplish this, objectives are provided, combined with performance measures and expected levels of performance as well. All of these factors taken together provide senior management at WalMart with insights into how they can profitably improve customer service.

• Knowledge gap – This is the difference between customer expectations and the service firm’s perception of the customer’s expectations, needs etc.

Customer satisfaction is the customer’s evaluation of a good or service in terms of whether it has met their needs and expectations (Vander Schee, 2016). The culture of the organization is to focus on delighting customers rather than on selling products (Lamb, Hair, & McDaniel, 2017). An example of a highly satisfied customer would be Nicole Snow, who owns a small business in Maine. One day she reached out to FedEx on social networks and asked for help in getting her supply chain set up. The team responded immediately and helped her solve the problem (“FedEx,” 2015). Here customer satisfaction is greatly shown the customers’ needs and expectations have been met by

Kotler & Keller (2008) build on this definition, stating that customer satisfaction is determined by “the degree to which someone is happy or disappointed with the observed performance of a product in relation to his or her expectations”. Performance that is below expectations leads to a dissatisfied customer, while performance that satisfies expectations produces satisfied customers. Expectations being exceeded leads to a “very satisfied or even pleasantly surprised customer” (Kotler & Keller, 2003, p. 80).