SPOTLIGHT ON CUSTOMER CENTRICITY: HUMAN LANGUAGE AND CUSTOMER STORIES
We believe that successful companies are close to their customers. We love commercial and we love customer but most of all we love the sweet spot where value for both lies.
Our Customer-Centric Ecosystem ™ draws on strategic organisational, cultural and customer insights to help businesses identify the many elements required for a company to become truly customer-centric and create significant value.
We believe that one element of customer-centricity that can bring your desired customer experience to life internally in powerful ways is using Human Language and Customer Stories.
Here’s a great example of a customer story:
NORDSTROM’S LEGENDARY CUSTOMER SERVICE
Have you heard the story about the guy who walked into a Nordstrom store to return four snow tires? In 1975 a man returned to a store with four snow tires in the bed of his truck. He bought the tires at a tire shop several weeks before, and he needed to return them. But as he pulled up to the supposed-to-be tire shop where he purchased his tires, he discovered the tire shop was closed, and a Nordstrom was in its place. Most of us would assume the guy chucked his tires into the back of his truck and sped off into the distance. He probably drove away disappointed and frustrated about losing his money on a set of faulty tires. But, nope. That’s not what happened. We’ll cut to the chase: after explaining his situation to a sales clerk, Nordstrom (a store that doesn’t sell tires, mind you) allowed him to return the tires, AND they refunded his money.
3 years later, people are STILL telling this story. If you Google ‘Nordstrom tires’ you get over 2,000,000 results. There are blog posts, forum threads, and news articles dedicated to the story. That single, phenomenal customer service experience gave Nordstrom decades of free publicity and word-of-mouth advertising. It’s a legendary customer service story, and it’s Nordstrom’s to tell. But most importantly staff do not have to remember complex rules and the stories to know what is expected of them.
What stories could you tell to inspire and direct your customer service experience?
As always we are happy to talk about how we might help you.
![endif]--
