Yes, I missed a week of writing The Financial Olympian™.
One of the top questions I get is, “Do you write all the blogs?”.
I started writing my blog in June 2010. Since then, I have written weekly except for a few weeks off from time to time. Christmas and other holidays are usually my off weeks and there have been a few repeats of blogs.
Last week I took a week off. It was a combination of the crush of the Spring tax season ending and then my getting the sinus cold from hell. Those coupled together means last week just passed me by.
One of my favorite phrases is “when you are up to your armpits in alligators it can be difficult to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp”.
Alligators for the retail industry is the ongoing battle of bricks and mortar stores versus the online retailers. How does a company combat this?
It is simple – focus on service. As a native Texan and having lived nearly all my life in Dallas, Neiman Marcus was the flagship store for incredible service. Today if I go to a store besides Apple for shopping it is Nordstrom. Time and time again their service outshines all others. Here are a couple of examples:
The Dog and the Shoe
Most of us know that puppies will chew on anything soft including your new black To Boots from Nordstrom. Will McDonald had elevated his wardrobe with these upscale shoes on the advice of a friend. What Will failed to explain to his then eight-month-old golden retriever Gus, was that they were not chew toys.
One morning Will arrives at work despondent about his new week old shoes that had now been reduced to one shoe and one chew toy. Not knowing what to do and having heard all about Nordstrom’s service he took them back after work hoping to get a credit towards a new pair.
Arriving at Nordstrom’s Will presented them to the salesperson. The salesperson opened the box, looked at the shoes and walked to the back. He returned with a new pair for Will. Nordstrom took care of its customer, no questions asked.
The Dress and the Box
Last night I received a call from LynAlise Tannery (daughter #2). She said, “I may have shopped at Neiman’s but I am now a Nordstrom shopper for life.”
She then told me the story about the dress and the box. She had ordered a dress online for a Kentucky Derby party next weekend. She had it shipped to her residence (yes, we will talk about that choice later). She received an email yesterday afternoon that said her package had been delivered at 2:30 pm and was left on the front porch.
Arriving home at 5:30 pm there was no box on the porch. LynAlise began looking around and found the box, without the dress, on top of the neighborhood’s recycling bin. Extremely frustrated, she called and reported the theft to both FedEx and the Dallas Police.
She also called Nordstrom to determine if they would be able to help correct the situation created by this unknown assailant. The customer service associate listened to what happened, was equally as appalled as she was that the thief had the audacity to steal the dress and then recycle the box in her own recycling bin, and began searching for a solution.
After being on hold for a few minutes, the associate located the dress (same color and size) and had it shipped via expedited shipping to her office, so as to avoid an outfit catastrophe for next weekend.
Nordstrom takes care of their customers.
What would your business do?
Enjoy the last weekend of April.
Michael
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Michael Tannery CPA CDFA® AIF® ● CEO
Registered Principal
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