Since day one, US department store, Nordstrom, has put customer service at the forefront of its business.

First opening as a single store shoe retailer in Seattle in 1901, Nordstrom found its niche selling boots to workers heading for Alaska to mine gold.

More than 100 years on, and not so much changed.

“We’re still to this day getting down on one knee to put the shoe on the customer’s foot. That culture and that core of customer service is still here,” Ryan Rosensweig, program manager, design and discovery, Nordstrom Labs, told this year’s Westfield Retail Study Tour.

Nordstrom, which today rounds out the top five leading department stores in the US in terms of total retail sales, has 117 full line department stores and 151 of outlet offering, Nordstrom Rack.

The upscale department store also operates online, Nordstrom.com, and launched NordstromRack.com this year.

In 2011 it acquired online pureplay HauteLook.com, which offers flash sales on designer goods, and in July snapped up online subscription menswear business, Trunk Club.

Creating the right formula

In 2011, Nordstrom launched an Innovation Lab. The Lab is headed by a small team of futurists, and creates one week experiments to be trialled in stores.

“There is no perfection for us in customer service. We can always find a way to be better and we can always learn from our mistakes.”

The department store has now taken this one step further with the opening of the Nordstrom
Customer Experience Centre.

The 10,000sqft warehouse, located south of Seattle, is a replica of a typical Nordstrom store. The prototype space is subdivided into 10 areas, including fitting rooms, and brings together vendors, employees, and customers to trial new concepts before introducing them to stores.

There are 100 full time dedicated staff working across the Innovation Lab and Customer Experience Centre.

Around a dozen staff work on design and discovery in the Centre, primarily focused on the rollout of store concepts.

“When you try and test something instore you have to stop the flow of the store. We had no place to stimulate that experience and bring customers through.

“We’re now able to very quickly test entire store concepts, small concepts, or new technologies, and we’re constantly bringing the customer through to understand,” Rosensweig said.

Everything from full remodels of a specific department to an entire flagship remodel has been tested, along with pop ups and simulated store fronts.

“We’re able bring in any technology we need work with our partners before it’s commercialised. For example, we can test RFID technology. We can learn together, but we can also anticipate the changes that are going to happen.”

Nordstrom not only tests positive experiences, it can also test typical frustrations felt instore by customers, such as weak wi-fi.

“Mobile is huge for our customers. We can simulate in certain corners of the store losing connectivity – and what that experience is like for our customers. What you see is important, but what you don’t see is also important for testing.”

While known for its shoes, Nordstrom has given its beauty department a makeover using the Customer Experience Centre.

“We were hearing from our customers that they loved our brands and products, but it was really intimidating to shop in our beauty environment. They wanted a difference experience in beauty.”

The department store rolled out an entire new beauty concept at the centre.
The rollout was a compilation of concepts created from customer feedback and workshops.

The beauty concept included a Play Bar, to trial and ‘play’ with new beauty products; a ‘Trending Now’ station, which showcased a range of the latest products; and a beauty help desk, known as the Beauty Concierge.

“When you hear things like the Play Bar, or Beauty Concierge, those are meant to be more playful moments of delight for our customer, but without being able to prove or validate them they likely wouldn’t be able to make it to the end.

“The Play Bar was an idea that first came out of the Innovation Lab when we were trying to understand what was a desirable beauty experience.

“The one thing we learnt from our customers was the one place they loved to share advice was at a bar. You didn’t necessarily need to know the person next to you, but the best conversations they had were over a drink, so we thought, let’s create the same experience but in beauty.

“We set up two experiments to test the concept. We had a table of product and on the other side we set up this high tech mirror that had built in LED lighting to simulate lighting of different environments, we thought it was a brilliant idea but it failed terribly.

“It was so feature-focused that customers didn’t experience it the same way. What the women did do, however, was self assemble around the table. We had our beauty stylist there to support it and answer questions. In the end we couldn’t get the women to leave.

“They had so much fun in that environment, it then made its way into our Customer Experience Centre and we built an entire instore concept with a bar in the centre.”

The beauty concept has since been rolled out to stores across the US.

“We’ve now heard from customers that the beauty area feels really light, it feels really clean, and it feels a lot more manageable to shop. They were all the things we wanted to provide the customer.”

Nordstrom has now extended the spaces in its Centre to test environments outside of the retail store such as the home.

One of these is a living room prototype known as ‘The Lobby’ to gain better insight into customers’ behaviors at home, such as using an iPad while watching TV. It is designed to also help understand the reasons customers come to the store and what the experience is like when they leave.

While its Lab and Experience Centre are focused on the instore experience, Nordstrom is still testing how to improve its online offering.

“Online is a different thing. It’s harder to notice the customer service.

“When you buy something at Nordstrom we walk your bag around the counter, we never hand it over. We could, but we want to go that extra step and hand it to you. The most that we can do online is to offer shipping and free returns.

“Creating a more personalised experience is a challenge for us and I’m not sure we’re great at it yet. I think there’s lot of room for us to grow.”