Nordstrom reviews

3.6

57% would recommend to a friend

(25,059 total reviews)

Erik B. Nordstrom and Peter E. Nordstrom

71% approve of CEO

47% positive business outlook

Nordstrom has an employee rating of 3.6 out of 5 stars, based on 25,059 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Nordstrom employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Retail & Wholesale industry (3.4 stars).

Reviews by job title

25K reviews
2.0
Nov 16, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

(If you can afford the clothes in the store)- 20% discount at Nordstrom, Nordstrom Rack and Hautelook. Cafeteria on site. Gym (free for employees) on site. Building is decorated beautifully for the holiday season. To their credit, Nordstrom is friendly to all walks of life, supportive of LGPT. The workforce is very diverse and open to all. (The best quality of the company, IMO)

Cons

Call center work is tedious. Building is over crowded, attempts to implement work from home process due to over-crowding/need for bodies to answer the phone is painfully slow. There are not enough desks so you may share your desk with another employee who works an alternate shift. Hard to personalize your work space. Hourly pay for the job is less than comparable jobs, hyped up offer of incentive/additional pay is dishonest since evaluation standards are impossible to meet. Evaluations (monitored calls and system review of actions taken/work flows utilized) has created a culture of fear based on evaluation results. Not only is pay effected, scheduling is based on evaluation results. Call monitors/Coaches have often never performed the actual job for which they evaluate. Supervisors are rarely available for help and attempts to reach senior level associates for help are monitored/tracked, used against you. The online 'quickbook'/instruction manual is a comedy of errors, slow to navigate, so badly organized it is easier to guess or estimate and hope the answer you just gave the card member was acceptable/close to correct. Pressure to never put the card member on hold and complete the call in a timely manner prevents accuracy, answers to card member questions, processing of their requests. Employee turn over is insanely high for a reason. It is not unusual for a newbie class of 25 to result in less than 10 employees within 90 days. I have been an employee there for 5+ years and there isn't a single person left from my new hire class. Actually, the last person from my class left/disappeared over 2 years ago. Fired or quit, who knows? This is a 'bank' but exists solely to support the retail stores so plan to work 365 days of the year, including holidays. Time off is close to impossible to obtain between October and January, for ANY reason. This (Colorado) location is open 24 hours a day but night shift gets paid more and takes less calls= less customer abuse. If you don't have a family/children, this shift is desirable. Nordstrom's reputation for excellent customer service is well earned but it has led to a card member base of entitled and abusive people who will threaten you, abuse and curse at you and demand a manager. Good luck finding one to take that call. But if they do, expect to be humiliated. You are trained and evaluated to do certain tasks but once it reaches a supervisor they will do the opposite and make you feel like crap. For example, only 2 late fees removed in 12 months. You tell the card member that unfortunately you aren't able to exceed this. They scream at you, tell you that they are going to close their account and post negative reviews online and tell all of their 'very rich' friends to never shop at Nordstrom again, UNLESS YOU REMOVE THE FEE. You, as trained, politely decline the request and offer payment options. It escalates to a supervisor. Supervisor writes off the fee and schedules a 'touch base' meeting with you to 'train' you that even though 2 fees a year is the maximum, you should 'use good judgement'. This is back speak for 'just ignore your training if they are going to escalate and waste my time'. But, call monitor/coach will mark it as an 'opportunity' if you agree to write off the fee before it escalates. Management is unsupportive, HR is non-existant and questions result in a referral to navigate the almost impossible online system. Health insurance benefits are average and if you want to obtain a discount on the fee you must subject yourself to blood work and (if blood work results do not meet a certain standard) 'coaching' with a health care professional by phone. Don't even think of doing this from work though. Personal calls are not allowed. Understandable to a degree. But not even on your own phone since cell phones are not allowed. EVER. You cant be trusted you see. You might steal information. For this reason there are also cameras in the ceilings, the clocks, the computers, It is easier to distrust all of the employees than it is to make sure that the people/bodies hired are honest.

1.0
Mar 11, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

It's a work-from-home position, as of March 2021. The company supplies you with equipment (two monitors, a thin client, cables, etc). Fellow trainees are great people. Employee discount.

Cons

The pay seems high, but is woefully counter-attacked by the immense amount of curriculum you have to learn, combined with the ongoing stress of metrics. ACW is frowned upon as soon as you go into that mode, because calls are back-to-back. Several software programs (7+) must be brought up before each shift without fail. My trainer is completely and utterly oblivious of time, resulting in late breaks and us not being told to prep for clock out until a minute before. Plus, they're strangely bent on going through presentations as much as they can before break, lunch and even the end of day. Company must not be friendly to those that need a little more time to absorb information. No dummy environments to play around in. Employees are not allowed to use Nordstrom card rewards and are therefore ineligible for the program. Must have your webcam on at all times, unless you are not at your desk. You can be muted, but not invisible. Basic customization of your computer is not allowed. I understand they don't want you to use graphic or offensive wallpapers, but other WFH employers allow customization and good judgement. Not recommended for call center beginners, those with low tolerance for high stress environments, and/or those that need extra time to become comfortable with material.

1.0
Sep 3, 2016

Inverted success

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Inverted pyramid (but that isn't a thing anymore) The culture (pre-TOM)

Cons

New "leader" whose resume is mostly failed startups drove out just about everyone who was worth anything in leadership. Pretty much any VP, Director, Manager or Engineer he spoke to sent out their resume and there is a good reason for that. He's toxic.

avatar
Nordstrom Response
7y
Hello, Thank you for your candid feedback. My name is Patrick Welch, and I’m the Vice President of Technology at Nordstrom. I appreciate your sharing this issue with us, especially as we continue our work streamlining our processes across teams. This begins with the way our managers uphold Nordstrom’s commitment to giving employees ownership over their work, and I apologize if we missed the mark during your time with us. As we work to improve, it would be very helpful to hear more details about your experience so that we can resolve this issue and learn where we can go from here. If you have the time, please send me a personal message at NordTechFeedback@nordstrom.com with any further input you can provide. Sincerely, Patrick Welch VP Technology Nordstrom
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