The Corporate Storyteller

At Nordstrom's recent annual meeting, President Blake Nordstorm shared a new, shall we say shining, example of Nordstrom's legendary service. As reported in The Seattle Times, a woman in North Carolina was trying on clothes in a Nordstrom store when she noticed that the diamond had fallen out of her wedding ring. A store security staffer noticed the woman crawling under the racks on the sales floor, asked what had happened and then started helping her search.

When they didn't find the stone, he requested help from two building-services workers. They decided to check the store's vacuum cleaner bags and--voila!--there was the sparkling diamond. Noting that he's "never been through a vacuum-cleaner bag, President of Stores Erik Nordstrom said, "It's kind of disgusting." As he introduced the three employees who helped to find the customer's diamond, he told shareholders, "This (story) raises the bar."

It was a fitting tale at a meeting that focused on Nordstrom's efforts to cater to customers, both in the store and online. How does your company emphasize its core values?