Management’s Bottom Line: The Customer

Sometimes the simplest situations point up the importance of how an enterprise is run. The nearest shopping mall can offer several good examples.

In many stores, the customer makes a purchase, and the sales clerk gets out the staple gun to close up the sack and then attaches the sales slip on the outside. Sometimes one staple isn’t enough. What that says is that the store looks upon every customer as a potential shoplifter. It’s a sort of cut-your-losses mentality that gets in the way.

Contrast that with some other places, most notable among them the Nordstrom department store chain. No staples on the bags. On the contrary, the sales people leave the impression they like what they’re doing. And some of the things they do are astounding.

Here are a few examples:

The other day, a fellow got a little sleepy waiting while a friend tried on some clothes. He dozed off in a chair, and the saleswoman promptly offered to go up to the cafeteria to bring him coffee.

In the same Nordstrom store, a woman arrived in jeans and tennis shoes to try on fancy dresses. The clerk promptly came up with a pair of high-heeled shoes for her to borrow, then encouraged her to wear the dress she had tried on but not yet purchased while she shopped for some matching items in other parts of the store.

In the credit department, a customer asked to make a complicated change in his charge account. Store officials called him back twice over the next couple of days--though they were Saturday and Sunday--to be sure the matter had been taken care of properly.

That sort of activity suggests that somewhere in the Nordstrom organization, somebody is providing strong management and a strong message: The main difference between stores is how the customer is treated.

Part of a Big Family

“They tell you that you can’t do too much to satisfy a customer,” says one woman who just landed a sales job at a Nordstrom store. The person who interviewed her spent more time talking about the virtues of working at the store than asking her questions. Formal training for her job includes a look at Nordstrom’s history as a family-run enterprise that tries to make the sales force part of a big family.

“I applied there because I’ve never dealt with a grouchy salesperson at Nordstrom,” says the new employee. “I figured it’d be a good atmosphere to work in.”

Each salesperson keeps a book listing his or her clients with the goal of establishing a continuing relationship. Indeed, one Nordstrom shopper says “her girl” often calls her with special items and frequently offers them at a special price.

Unfortunately, however, not all shopping expeditions turn out so upbeat. Now we turn from the sublime to the burrito. There’s a Taco Bell in the Valley that a smart somebody should be able to buy very soon--and very cheap. It isn’t that the folks there treat customers badly. It’s more a case that they can’t get organized enough to treat them hardly at all. The problem isn’t with inadequate clerks, it’s with management. In this case, very visible management.

Recently, the place appeared adequately staffed by a half dozen energetic people. The only problem was that only one of them dealt with customers. In fact, this person also kept reaching above the main counter to activate an intercom and talk with “drive-thru” customers as well as those inside. Meantime, the single line at the counter kept growing.

The one person handling all this business was the manager. And what did all the other employees do? They hopped to a series of orders to perform this task or that task. Since the manager couldn’t bark those orders fast enough, other workers tried to look busy--or just looked confused. Apparently the manager felt none of them could be counted on to handle customers--or anything else beyond the one-at-a-time directions she gave them. Consequently, fast food it was not.

If you wonder why some big companies flourish with good management or flounder with bad, just remember they’re a Nordstrom sales person or a Taco Bell manager multiplied many times.