Aiming for 5-Star Service? Here’s How to Get There

Want to win gold stars for your customer service and win customers for life?

Robert Spector

You won’t find a better model of diamond-studded service than the luxury department store Nordstrom. The Seattle-based chain is renowned for a class of service that has spawned legendary tales about salespeople who go to extremes to serve their customers.

Journalist-turned-author Robert Spector has studied Nordstrom for 30 years and is currently at work on the sixth edition of The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence, due out in 2012. Now an authority on customer service, he delivers speeches, workshops and online trainings that draw on Nordstrom’s example.

Spector also finds models of good service among small independent businesses, and he profiles many such businesses in his latest book – The Mom & Pop Store: True Stories from the Heart of America (Walker & Company, 2010, $16).

Spector knows a little something about the travel agency business, too. His sister, now retired, was a travel agent for 25 years.

What does Nordstrom do right, in a nutshell?
Spector: It’s very simple. They view everything from the eyes of the customer. The idea is to make life easier for customers, so they’ll buy more stuff. That experience extends to every aspect of the organization, from the merchandise, to how stores are laid out, to the kind of people who help you. Nordstrom.com is a very easy website to use.

Most companies, 99.9%, are set up to make life easier for the company, not the customer.

What are the hallmarks of great customer service?
Spector: Customer service is obviously somebody who is friendly and who sincerely wants to help you. It’s also providing your customer with choices in products and services and service channels. It’s creating an inviting place, whether it’s a website or store. It’s thinking like a customer. If you were one of your customers, how would you want to be treated?

One other key is that Nordstrom empowers its salespeople. They give the people on the sales floor the freedom to make decisions, and management supports them in those decisions.

Why is empowering employees important?
Spector: Let’s say I have a problem with a pair of shoes I bought. Nordstrom has a virtually unconditional money-back return policy. When I bring back this item, nobody’s going to make me feel bad or make me fill out forms in triplicate. They just take it back. That makes people feel comfortable.

You’d be amazed how many people tell me variations on the same story: I’m a man who’s going to a business meeting and the airline lost my luggage. It’s two hours before the meeting and I’ve got nothing to wear. I go to a Nordstrom store, they get my size and a suit, take me right to the tailor, and the tailor alters the suit, so I have it in time for my sales meeting. Or they send it to the hotel or deliver it themselves.

These kinds of stories become part of the Nordstrom culture.

The payoff is customer loyalty?
Spector: Yes. Nordstrom spends their money on the sales force and that return policy, because that’s the best advertising.

All Nordstrom salespeople make their money on commission; you can make a six-figure income. You’re empowered to build your own business, to be an entrepreneur within the business. The really good salespeople there want their customers, when they think of Nordstrom, to think of them. Salespeople are always claiming customers as their own, but when a customer claims a salesperson as their own, that’s powerful. That’s loyalty. That’s relationship.

How can travel agents apply ‘the Nordstrom way’ to their businesses?
Spector: You have to know more than your customers know. You have to go beyond what’s on websites, come up with inside information. If you’re looking at a hotel [on a website], and you read people’s comments, they’re all over the place, and they’re from people you don’t know. The agent has the advantage of being a real person who can answer questions and get into subtleties that the websites can’t.

It’s giving personal, anecdotal information. ‘There’s this wonderful little restaurant you should try.’ Give me a little jewel, a tidbit, and I’ll never forget you.

It goes back to the mom and pop way of doing business – you do for the customer what no one else will do, or has the desire to do.

Say more about the mom and pop way.
Spector: All the businesses I interviewed for the mom and pop book were in businesses that everybody else was in too. But they were bringing something special to what they were offering.

In the travel business, the one thing you have control over is the service and attention you give. You’re not going to beat people on price; you’re all offering the same kinds of services. So what else is left to differentiate you? Find a wrinkle in what you offer.

I grew up in a family business; my parents had a butcher shop. I saw firsthand what it takes. It’s listening to the customer, providing what they want. It’s being honest. My father had a great sense of humor; he made people laugh. It’s providing steady, dependable service – with a little flourish every once in a while.

How does social media come into play in customer service?
Spector: It’s finding ways to be closer to your customer, to be relevant to your customer, to remind them you’re here to serve them. It is one way of staying in touch with your customer by giving them relevant information.

Most agents probably think their service is pretty good. How do you know if you’re delivering?
Spector: The ultimate proof of customer service is the bottom line. That’s the beauty of retail – you get a report card every day. You also know if you look in the mirror: Do I still have the energy, the excitement, the desire to give the kind of service my customers are asking for?

If agents were to do one thing today to improve their customer service, what should it be?
Spector: Think like the customer. If you put yourself in the customer’s point of view, you can’t go wrong.