Designing Elevation Church’s Volunteer Culture with the Excellence of Nordstrom’s – Team Members

Reaction and comments from yesterday’s post and the correlation to the Ritz Carlton brings to mind another iconic retail establishment known for its customer service: Nordstrom’s.

Last fall, I was privileged to speak at the Worship Facility Conference and Expo on the topic of “Servant Leadership.” I had been doing research on Nordstrom’s customer service principles for several months, and found that they were easy to translate into the volunteer culture of churches. As a Guest Services Coordinator at Elevation Church’s Uptown Campus, it was easy for me to make some applications.

Taking the same 3-tier approach at Nordstrom’s, here’s a quick outline summary of the first tier and the second tier. Here’s a brief outline of Tier Three.

Part Three: What eTeams Can Do to Create a Culture of Servants

Create the Relationship: How Frontline Team Members Create Return Guests

1. Listen to the Guest
2. Understand the Guest’s needs
3. Be honest and sincere
4. Know the Elevation WE from top to bottom
5. Understand the foundation of the “One Day” principle
6. Take responsibility

The Experience Never Ends: There are 168 Hours in Your Week

1. Be a team player
2. GS excellence comes from practice, experience, observation, and personal commitment
3. Positive thinking comes from following simple steps that produce a WOW! environment for our Guests
4. Listen to the Guest

Play to Win: Encourage Teamwork at Every Level of Your Organization

1. Find ways to balance individual achievement and teamwork
2. Honor team achievements
3. Demonstrate the importance of the whole team
4. Encourage the team to take ownership of GS issues
5. Encourage the team to cite the teamwork examples of others
6. Publicize “heroic” stories of teamwork throughout the organization

Team members must buy into the culture and understand their role in maintaining and supporting the culture through their actions.

Team members are the ones who come closest into contact with your Guests, and therefore are crucial to your organization’s ability to serve them well. Team members must be empowered to establish relationships with Guests and find ways to take care of them. They must listen, understand the Guest’s needs, and follow-through with whatever needs to be done.

The front line is where the action’s at!