Nordstrom prioritizes excellent customer service to remain a leading retailer. Management ensures employees understand that customers are the top priority. Employees are trained to treat all customers as individuals and address their unique needs. Nordstrom also uses technology like mobile devices and interconnected stores to provide personalized service, timely deliveries, and gather customer feedback to constantly improve the customer experience. This focus on personalized, convenient service across all customer interactions has helped Nordstrom sustain success for over a century.

1. Running head: CASE STUDY 1
Customer Service at Nordstrom: A Way to Mitigate Potential Conflict
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2. CASE STUDY 2
Customer Service at Nordstrom: A Way to Mitigate Potential Conflict
Introduction
Customers are vital in the successful running of any organization. Managers strive to
ensure that their organizations are sustainable especially because of competition in any business
sector that has been fueled by technological innovations and globalization. At Nordstrom, the
management has learnt that dealing with disgruntled and dissatisfied clients affects customer
loyalty. At the same time, customer loyalty happens to be a key ingredient in ensuring the
organization’s sustainability. Conflicts between employees and customers must be handled with
care because this would ensure that the customers’ loyalty is maintained. However, some
employees are unaware of the methods, which they could use to handle their differences with
customers. Leaders are obliged with the mandate of ensuring that employees know how to deal
with different situations, as well as different clients. This is so as all clients are different and they
have special expectations from the services they receive. Nordstrom is “An upscale retailer
headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and operating almost 200 stores in about three fifths of the
states of America, provides some valuable clues on how to do customer service the right way”
(Nelson & Quick, 2009, p. 508). This implies that the organization has a wide client base, and it
ensures that their needs are met all the time in order to continue growing its customer base. At
the organization, customers are treated as individuals because they come with diverse needs.
The Role of Management in Customer Service
Managers play the role of leaders in any organization, and this is not any different at
Nordstrom. The organization’s philosophy has been the same for more than one hundred years. It
strives to “Offer the customer the best possible service, selection, quality, and value” (Nelson &

3. CASE STUDY 3
Quick, 2009, p. 508). Senior executives, who are three Nordstrom brothers, insist that customers
should be given what they want. Upon recruitment, the management ensures that all employees
are aware that the customer is the king. They handle customer returns per individual case. In
addition, at sometimes returns are accepted even after several years after the purchase.
The Role of Employees in Customer Service
Employees must understand the importance of customers in an organization. Frequent
shoppers and those who spend huge amounts of money in an organization must be treated with
excellent customer service. This can be attributed to the fact that they act as the organization’s
advocates by referring their friends and relatives to the organization. This saves money, which
could have been spent on advertisement while it increases customer base. Moreover, employees
must understand the needs of frequent shoppers in order to ensure that the customers’
preferences are well known (Friedman, 2010).
Customers’ Roles
Feedback from customers is very important because it is used for the improvement of
services. Nordstrom encourages all customers to offer any feedback because this goes a long way
in obtaining better services in the future. Customers who are dissatisfied with their goods are
encouraged to return them even when they have lost their invoices or receipts. It is worth noting
that clients are happy when they realize that an organization values them. On the other hand,
dissatisfied clients lead to lost business, which affects the organization’s profitability (Post,
2011). Managers, as well as employees, find it difficult to better their working relationship with
clients if the clients are not treated as individuals. Clients ought to know that their needs vary and
as a result, they should expect individual treatment from the organization. It should be noted that

4. CASE STUDY 4
Nordstrom has “Embraced online customer reviews, opening their websites and the brands they
sell-to the slings and arrows of public opinion” (Nelson & Quick, 2009, p. 508). This ensures
that the organization has adequate feedback from customers, which it uses to improve services.
The Use of Information Technology
Recent innovations in information technology mean that the communication has been
made easy. Employees at Nordstrom have mobile gadgets, which they use to search the
organization’s inventory for any size that is requested by the customer. The shopper is given the
opportunity to pay at the spot and does not have to queue at the cash register. This saves time for
the customers as well as the employee. In addition, the company uses it huge store network to
deliver online orders in real time. It stores are connected via the internet to reduce chances of
stock running out because a given store can request a certain commodity from another nearby
store. This increases customer satisfaction because they get what they want within the shortest
time possible (Gibb & Hassan, 2004).
Conclusion
Organizations are increasingly finding it difficult to stay in the market because of
increased competition. However, Nordstrom has noted that excellent customer service is an
ingredient that would make it remain a leading upscale retailer. All customers are treated as
individuals. The management as well as employees understands that customers are very
important. In addition, the organization uses the internet and other information technology
techniques to improve customer satisfaction through feedback and personalized customer
service. Frequent shoppers are given excellent treatment by the employees in order to increase
their loyalty. The organization does customer service the right way.

5. CASE STUDY 5
References
Friedman, M. (2010). "The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits." The New
York Times Magazine: 1-6.
Gibb, F. & Hassan, S. (2004). “E- Book Technology and its Potential Applications in Distance
Education.” Journal of Digital Information, 3(4):125-132.
Nelson, D. & Quick, J. Organizational Behavior: Science, the Real World, and You. New York:
Cengage Learning.
Post, J. E. (2011). "Global Corporate Citizenship: Principles to Live and Work." Business Ethics
Quarterly, 12.2: 143-153.

6. CASE STUDY 5
References
Friedman, M. (2010). "The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits." The New
York Times Magazine: 1-6.
Gibb, F. & Hassan, S. (2004). “E- Book Technology and its Potential Applications in Distance
Education.” Journal of Digital Information, 3(4):125-132.
Nelson, D. & Quick, J. Organizational Behavior: Science, the Real World, and You. New York:
Cengage Learning.
Post, J. E. (2011). "Global Corporate Citizenship: Principles to Live and Work." Business Ethics
Quarterly, 12.2: 143-153.