Company & its Strategy: The Company Philosophy to offer the Customer best in service, Selection, quality and value was the competitive advantage of Nordstrom in being no 1 in implementing the High-service strategy as its Key success factor and being the Gold Medalist in National Retail Merchants Association.
To be able to sustain the competitive advantage Nordstrom had an effective sales team comprising of young talents (Heroics) who gave their full time and efforts in maintaining the reputed position of Nordstrom by giving exceptional customer service increasing the brand loyalty amongst customer and sales/square foot.
Decentralized system in the company enabled regional store manager to make their own decisions to enhance customer service
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The competitive edge of Nordstrom being successful was based on its superior customer service. This service included writing thank you notes to customers or retrieving desired items from other departments and many other exceptional things but the hours spent to maintain this service was not a part of salespeople´s evaluation i.e. SPH.
The SPH ratio discouraged spending time on delivering customer service because every hour spent on that means losing time to achieve sales. For example, a sales clerk who is very concerned with serving customer and thus helps to retain customers will come off badly in term of his SPH ratio compared to a colleague who is only focusing on sales and doing badly on customer service. There are high chances of Customer Dissatisfaction also if the SPH system continues and soon the Competitive advantage of Nordstrom of exceptional customer service can
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The Gap occurred because of the inconsistencies between HR strategy and HR systems.
Hard vs soft elements
I believe that the Nordstrom Hard elements like strategy, structure and systems were strong but Nordstrom soft element like people, shared values, style of management and skills were not aligned to company hard elements. There was an imbalance between these two elements and in leadership class we have studied that a business can be successful if there is a balance between hard and soft elements.
Conclusion:
The company was using SPH as a tool to force employees to work off the clock but not to record them in SPH and at the same time was saving money by manipulating employee behaviors by not rewarding them for their actual efforts and time. The SPH and its complaints by employee was not taken seriously by Management and thus it resulted into loss of company financials and reputation.
Company was unable to align its employee KBF with Company KSF.
I believe every compensation system should be such that it should reward the employee fairly based on productivity and efficiency of
Consumers are always satisfied with good customer service. When it comes to retail store customer service and satisfaction it is important because department stores are large in size and finding help can be difficult. Colloquy, a company concerned with building customer value, released a survey and asked 3,000 consumers across five geographical areas to rate their personal experiences with retailers. Macy’s was ranked number one in the department store category, with the most loyal customers. To keep up with technology advances Macy’s has invested time and money into developing a more efficient online shopping site, Macys.com and Macysweddingchannel. This investment cost nearly $300 million in 2006-2008 is being used to scale-up these fast-growing businesses through improvements in delivery efficiency, online site functionality and customer service. To enhance the shopping experience at Macy’s 100 stores in 2007 experienced remodeling and began introducing the most advanced POS registers and systems to the sales floors nationwide. Macy’s passion is product and people. There continuing pursuit is to have unique fashionable merchandise ready for customer satisfaction. Macy’s promise is to always carry the best brands and the most-wanted items. They also believe in hiring the right employees. With the right employees, there will be a sense of motivation and helpfulness. The American Customer Satisfaction Index covers 200 companies’ products and
Before analyzing those motivational practices, it is essential to understand the core to the Nordstrom’s business - the customer service, known as the Nordstrom Way. As stated in the case, it is “the customer service like no one else offers, service above and beyond the call of duty.” In order to achieve the Nordstrom Way, the stores request their salespersons to be “upbeat, ambitious but, at the same time, selfless.” They keep personal books listing each of their customers and record every activity and correspondence; they send out thank you letters to customers for purchases regardless of how small the transactions are; they personally deliver purchases outside of work time and even on holidays. The approach has proven to be successful, as it cultivates the loyalty within the customers and generates glowing sales records. On the other hand, because the Nordstrom Way is result orientated, extra works are justifiable as long as they lead to the successful sales. Salespersons have to sacrifice their off duty time as these are often considered “extra” and “non-selling” activity.
A well-articulated compensation philosophy drives organizational success by aligning pay and other rewards with business strategy. It provides the foundation for plan design and administration and anchors current and future plans to the company's culture and values (Kaplan, 2006, p.32). Recognizing and rewarding achievement is the cornerstone of the company A’s compensation philosophy. The mission of the company is to attract, select, place and promote all individuals based on their qualifications. The company believes that performance-based compensation helps attract, develop and retain talented professionals. In addition to base pay which based upon local market conditions and targeted to be above market, the company provides the following types of potential compensation to reward performance:
Nordstrom’s employees and management are the company’s most valuable resource. An article written in the Seattle PI describes exactly why this is true. It states that, “Nordstrom salespeople make decisions as if managing their own business; they are trusted to do what is right. Everyone else in the company is there to help the sales staff make the sale and please the customer” (Mulady, 2009). The way the employees are treated and valued is a perfect portrayal of the company’s mission of providing the best possible customer service and value to the customer.
Customer satisfaction and service quality are the two important components that direct anyone’s attention in every concept related to marketing, services, etc. (Spreng and Mackoy, 2006). In today’s competitive era, the success lies in
Anderson, an Associate Professor of History at Ohio State University, presents a historical approach to the rise of Athens as a revolutionary experiment that came out of the historical context of Athens. He argues that Attica remodeled the way Athens governed which included a change to the political institutions and the thought of the civic environment. Anderson takes a heavily historical approach to the Rise of Athens, but still makes an important distinction that Athenian collective identity would still be important and that a social organization can still be effective even if it is created by a legal environment. The chapters in which he focuses on Athenian expression of collective identity will play a role in my analysis of a legal framework
O’Neil (1998) suggests six minimal criteria for the design of a performance based pay system. The first of these criteria is that the reward system should be self-funding, that is, the performance increases should as a minimum offset the cost of the rewards provided. The second criterion is that the distribution of the rewards must be consistent, fair and justifiable. In addition reward plans must be transparent and clearly communicated. The third criterion
In the play “Macbeth”, William Shakespeare uses belief in the existence and power of witches to create and influence the audience’s understanding of the play. Our initial impression of Macbeth is one of a brave and capable warrior, however once we see his interaction with the three “evil sisters” (Shakespeare, 1996) we realises that his physical audacity is coupled by an intense amount of ambition and self doubt. It is believed that the witches are the motive behind this ambition which eventually leads to his tragedy, however strong diverging arguments are in existence. The intensity of Macbeth’s tragedy is dependent on whether or not the witches are “professed to be able to control the naïve, innocent Macbeth” or whether he is to blame
One could say they set the mark for everyone to target in customer service. And they make it the core of their marketing strategy. (Schoultz, 2013)
The most important component of Nordstrom's retail mix is its customer service. The retail environment is completely customer driven and giving the customer satisfaction in every possible manner is very important. The point of view that ‘Service Pays’ is accepted by the retailer today
Recognizing and rewarding high-performance is a key recommendation for any approach when managing any merit pay program (HRIS 2012). Merit pay is a compensation system where base pay increases and is determined by an individual’s performance. Using a merit pay plan is a good way for an organization to reward high performance is one benefit when using merit pay programs. The first step in implementing or improving a merit pay program is to have a solid performance management program, and this is another way a merit pay program is beneficial. Merit pay is a way to be successful and effectively implement merit pay with a uplift in salaries, and this is a third way using a merit pay program is beneficial to an organization. There are some drawbacks when using merit pay programs, such as paying some employees more than others. If you pay high-performing workers more than low- performing employees, the high- performers may stay, causing the low- performers to complain or leave the organization. A second drawback in using merit pay program is that employees become less motivated if not paid to their satisfaction. For example, if employees feel they should be making more money for their performance, this causes them to have low self esteem, and want to find employment at other organization. The last drawback associated with
Organizations like Amazon store realized that attaining long-term customer value through delivery of quality services is the key to their existence. Also, be alert to the customer’s needs and wants, because having a loyal base of satisfied customer brings relevant performance indicators. For example, increase in sales improved profits, and possible higher market share (Shamma & Hassan, 2013).
Nordstrom Inc., started as a small shoe store in Seattle, Washington in 1901. Since that time it has become one of the leading and successful shoe and apparel retailers in operation today. After reviewing different information regarding Nordstrom Inc. espoused values and enacted values, it is apparent that they are in alignment. Espoused values are the core values of the company. The history and organizational beliefs, developed into policy for the company. The goal of the espoused values is to create standard of behavior for the company. The enacted values are norms exhibited by employees (Answers, 2013). If the espoused and enacted values are misaligned problems could occur within the
Creating and implementing of incentive pay system supports to solve organizational problems to align the preferences of business and employees. In addition, the system serves as an organizing tool to identify and attract the most capable employees since companies need to deliver the product or
At the beginning the company was considered leader of its industry due to its capacity to customize a store to its neighborhood,