By Allwell Nwankwo

Nordstrom. That name definitely rings a bell. It could aptly serve as a synonym for service. Nordstrom – the US-based speciality retailer – has carved a comfortable niche for itself as a paragon of service in the minds of its teeming customers – and even non-customers. Its legendary service is such that competitors seek to emulate it, while organisations in different industries hold it up as a standard for excellence in customer service. It’s not unusual for organisations in different sectors to aspire to be the “Nordstrom” of their industry. That’s the enchanting mystique of being an icon for service excellence. (You may wonder: which companies are service icons in Nigeria?)

Whatever Nordstrom has achieved wouldn’t have been possible without its extraordinary – you might even say, wacky – employees. Stories abound on what nordies (that’s the pet name for Nordstrom employees) do or can do.
It takes a Nordstrom employee to replace $2000 worth of clothes that shrank when a customer washed them in hot water. It definitely takes a Nordie to take back a pair of shoes purchased three years earlier and make a full refund.

And I bet that only a Nordstrom employee will send a “Thank You” note to a customer who returned merchandise! For more of such stories, please read The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence by Robert Spector and Patrick McCarthy. You’ll most likely be “wowed” by the heroics (that’s what they call stories of extraordinary service at Nordstrom). Or you may scour the Internet. Google search for “Nordstrom” returns over 32 million results.

In very simple terms, Nordstrom employees are spectacular people. And this is not a coincidence. Nordstrom started it all. As a company, it believes in hiring people with the right attitude – those who are willing to help, those who enjoy serving others, those who are willing to do what it takes to make someone happy. Nice people, in short.

To Nordstrom, degrees and experience are not the critical factors.
Company executives spill it all in the book mentioned earlier. One of them, Bruce Nordstrom, says: “we can hire nice people and teach them to sell, but we can’t hire sales people and teach them to be nice.”

True words. Some people are simply nice; others aren’t. And you don’t blame them. We all differ in our temperament, background, education, life experiences and even preferences – all of which may affect our attitude to people. That’s why a curious interviewer once asked Bruce Nordstrom: “Who trains your sales people?” And the answer: “Their parents”! It seems nice people are nice because they were brought up that way.

Now, before you hire people to serve customers, you need to study them closely. Are they nice or grouchy? Do they like people? Or would they rather be dealing with “things?” Do they smile or frown often? Do they sound haughty or polite? What extraordinary things have they done to help someone? To what extent would they go to assist someone? Do they sound like extra-mile people? If they don’t make a good impression on you, they’re not likely to impress your customers either?

Borrow a leaf from Nordstrom and hire the smile. You can teach skills, not smiles.

In summary:
Degrees and experience are useful. But they don’t guarantee success on the frontline. In fact, the more experienced some people are, the more likely it is that they have picked up some bad behaviour that you will find difficult to wean them from.

As the Chinese say, an unsmiling man should not open a shop. Have you met some people who approach service as if it were punishment? They have no business in business!

Employees who are not very nice (as individuals) cannot be nice to customers. Spend just 30 minutes interviewing them and their rudeness will show.

Why bother about changing attitudes? Hire those with the right attitude. Nice people without selling/service skills can be trained.

So am I suggesting that you should fire your not-so-nice people? Not exactly. You may want to give them less visible roles. Stop inflicting them on your customers!