Nebraska Furniture Mart Case Study

Nebraska Furniture Mart (NFM) is the single largest home furnishings store in America. Founded in 1937 by Rose Blumkin, NFM operates with this very simple motto: sell cheap and tell the truth to customers. This commitment to honesty and accountability is woven deeply into the very fabric of the company. When Warren Buffett purchased a majority interest in NFM from Mrs. Blumkin in 1983, a simple handshake was all that was necessary to seal the deal. Mrs. Blumkin’s word was as good as gold, both to her investment partners and to her customers.

Challenge

NFM's biggest challenge was to ensure that all sales employees were staying true to the promises that the company and brand were built on. NFM implemented Agility Metrics’ retail Customer Experience Management solution, which allowed customers to provide detailed feedback about their store experiences via web, IVR, or mobile device. The long-desired insight into sales rep performance was achieved using POS integration technology. Each receipt contained a unique survey access code, which linked customer feedback records with transactional metadata pulled in real-time from NFM’s POS system.

Agility Metrics constructed an entire reporting hierarchy to match NFM's internal organizational structure. This allowed for reporting roll-ups by overall brand, store, division, department and individual employee. With the point-of-sale integration and reporting hierarchy in place, NFM was able to track individual sales rep and cashier performance and furnish managers at all levels with instant visibility into the performance of their staff.

Outcome

The Customer Experience Management program has had a tremendous impact on NFM’s employee culture. NFM has been able to gain unprecedented visibility into individual sales representative and cashier performance, while customer service metrics have become universally accepted as important indicators of company and brand health. This shift towards unprecedented employee accountability will create more productive and more efficient staff members, which will lead in turn to huge cost savings down the road.

Agility Metrics has also helped NFM brand itself as a retailer that is passionate about customer service. Shoppers who pass through NFM’s doors instantly recognize just how deeply respect and empathy for the customer are woven into the company’s DNA.

“When it comes to helping us fulfil our fundamental brand promise, the Agility Metrics program has been a complete game-changer,” said Scott Grimm. “The move towards greater employee accountability has made us a more customer-centric company, and it has helped us honour Mrs. Blumkin’s famous legacy of selling cheap and telling the truth to customers.”