The Nordstrom Way to Customer Experience Excellence, 3rd Edition

Give Back and Have Fun

Winning and success are fun and profitable, so why not devote that little extra effort?

—Everett Nordstrom

The happiest customers leave with Nordstrom bags in their hands.

—Bruce Nordstrom

In its messages to new employees, Nordstrom encourages them to have fun, adding, “Fashion is one of the truest forms of self‐expression. It's creative and colorful and totally limitless. If you're passionate about fashion, this is the place for you.”

As one new employee told us, “All the people who work for Nordstrom have passion about the business. You feel that they believe in what they are saying. That's inspiring. When you are sitting there listening to them, you get excited because they are so excited.”

“The organization is, above all, social. It is people,” wrote Peter Drucker, the management consultant. Drucker's observation is supported by the work of professor Paul J. Zak at Claremont Graduate University, who wrote in an article in Harvard Business Review, “When people intentionally build social ties at work, their performance improves.”

A Google study found that managers who, “express interest in and concern for team members' success and personal well‐being” produce higher quality performance and a greater quantity of work than managers who don't display such interest and concern. When people care about one another, they perform better because they don't ...