Chapter 9
Touchpoints
Multichannel Customer Service
When a customer shops with us, they don’t see a difference between a Nordstrom store or Nordstrom.com. To them, it’s just Nordstrom, and they want a service experience that lives up to their expectations. We have been working to make shopping easier for our customers by breaking down the barriers between our stores, our website, and our catalogs.
—Blake and Jamie Nordstrom
In 2002, after the first Internet bubble had burst, Robert Spector’s book, entitled Anytime, Anywhere: How the Best Bricks-and-Clicks Businesses Deliver Seamless Service to Their Customers, was published.
The premise of the book was that proven brick-and-mortar companies boasted some significant advantages over pure-play Internet competitors—with one major exception (see Spector’s book, Amazon.com: Get Big Fast). Those advantages included a mature infrastructure, established customer base, and access to capital.
Nordstrom was one of the companies profiled in Anytime, Anywhere, along with fellow Seattle retailer Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI), Wells Fargo, FedEx, and Geek Squad, which at the time was still a small, independent company before it was acquired by Best Buy.
Back then the Nordstrom Website and Direct Sales division (including mail order catalogs) was under the direction of Dan Nordstrom, second cousin of Blake, Peter, and Erik. (Today, Dan is president and owner of Outdoor Research, a Seattle-based company that makes outdoor gear and equipment.) ...
