Robert Spector

Bestselling Author & International Speaker

Robert Spector offers inspirational keynote presentations and customized customer-service workshops for audiences throughout the world. Spector's national bestseller, The Nordstrom Way: The Inside Story of America's #1 Customer Service Company, is the first and only up-close and personal look at how this company became the national standard of customer service. His talks break down the elements of the Nordstrom philosophy and explain how they can be adapted for virtually every kind of organization. Spector is the author of number books including his latest, The Mom & Pop Store. Spector guides audiences through an analysis of modern retail's most influential players and down the aisles of retailing history and reveals what's in store for us as the future unfolds.

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Spector's other books include: Amazon.com: Get Big Fast: Inside The Revolutionary Business Model That Changed The World, Anytime, Anywhere: How the Best Bricks-and-Clicks Businesses Deliver Seamless Service to Their Customers, and Category Killers: The Retail Revolution and Its Impact on Consumer Culture. His latest book, The Mom & Pop Store, was published in August 2010.

Spector is the author of corporate histories of an eclectic array of companies, including Pizza Hut, Eddie Bauer, Kimberly-Clark, and the Space Needle. He has written on business for The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, NASDAQ Magazine, and Customer Service Management; fashion for Women's Wear Daily and Details; and civil liberties for Parade. His humor writing has appeared in The New York Times, Sports Illustrated and National Lampoon.

Additionally, he has been a television guest on the National Business Report, CNN, CNBC, Fox News, Bloomberg Business, CNET News.com and numerous radio interview shows across the United States.

Spector offers inspirational keynote presentations and customized customer-service workshops for audiences throughout the world. His talks break down the elements of the Nordstrom philosophy and explain how they can be adapted for virtually every kind of organization.

Category Killers: The Retail Revolution and Its Impact on Consumer Culture
Anytime, Anywhere: How the Best Bricks-and-Clicks Businesses Are Delivering Seamless Service To Their Customers
How to Become the Nordstrom of Your Industry: The Nine Management Principles of America 's #1 Customer Service Company.

Robert's presentation, "How to Become The Nordstrom of Your Industry," details the management principles that have made Nordstrom the gold standard for customer service, and a company that has inspired companies and organizations in every walk of life.

Robert shows your audience how Nordstrom: ·Creates, maintains, encourages, and nurtures a 45,000-employee culture that is 100 percent committed to serving the customer.
·Empowers its entrepreneurial employees to take customer service to new heights.
·Gives frontline people the freedom to make decisions-and then supports those decisions.
·Values the nobility of customer service and encourages employees to become 'othercentered' rather than self-centered.
·Transfers this culture as it expands throughout the U.S.
·Has created name-brand recognition of what the company represents.
·Serves as a model of employee empowerment that can be emulated by your organization.

The Nine Management Principles of America 's #1 Customer Service Company: ·Provide your customers with choices—of products, services and service channels.
·Create an inviting place for your customers—in person, online and on the phone.
·Sell the relationship: Service your clients through the products and services you offer.
·Hire nice, motivated people.
·Empower employees to take ownership...by minimizing the rules.
·Sustain the people on the frontlines through a culture of support and mentorship.
·Nurture a service culture through recognition and praise.
·Advocate teamwork through internal customer service.
·Commit 100% to customer service.

August 2010
The Mom & Pop Store: True Stories from the Heart of America
The buying and selling of wares goes back as far as 7500 B.C, and the first retail shops (stalls operated by artisans) were created around 650 B.C. in Turkey. Business journalist Robert Spector, who grew up working in his family's butcher shop in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, set out to discover the current state of independent retailing in America. Spector found that despite a depressed economy, many mom & pop stores have been launched or successfully reinvented by responding to the changing tastes of their patrons, offering good customer service, and fostering a sense of neighborhood identity and camaraderie. The Mom & Pop Store reflects the story of this country, for it embraces and cross-references every ethnic group, and virtually every element of our society.
March 2005
The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence
First published in 1995, The Nordstrom Way is a classic guide to great customer service. This new book replaces The Nordstrom Way with an even more practical guide to becoming the “Nordstrom” of your industry. Designed for customer service managers and trainers, as well as business owners, it’s an invaluable resource for designing your own programs and initiatives. The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence will help your business make customers its number one concern, and help make your business number one in your industry.
February 2005
Category Killers: The Retail Revolution And Its Impact On Consumer Culture
Retail is a dog-eat-dog world—and nobody has cannibalized market share more ruthlessly or influenced consumers, communities and competition around the world more profoundly than “category killers” like Wal-Mart, Toys R Us, and Costco. Category Killers explores how they did it, what other companies can glean from their killer strategies, and what’s next in retail’s future.
January 2002
Amazon.com: Get Big Fast
In Amazon.com Jeff Bezos built something the world had never seen. He created the most recognized brand name on the Internet, became for a time one of the richest men in the world, and was crowned "the king of cyber-commerce." Yet for all the media exposure, the inside story of Amazon.com has never really been told. In this revealing, unauthorized account, Robert Spector, journalist and best-selling author, gives us this up-to-date, fast-paced, behind-the-scenes story of the company's creation and rise, its tumultuous present, and its uncertain future.

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Robert Spector

Bestselling Author & International Speaker

Category Killers: The Retail Revolution and Its Impact on Consumer Culture

Anytime, Anywhere: How the Best Bricks-and-Clicks Businesses Are Delivering Seamless Service To Their Customers

How to Become the Nordstrom of Your Industry: The Nine Management Principles of America 's #1 Customer Service Company.

The Mom & Pop Store: True Stories from the Heart of America

The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence