The Nordstrom Experience

February 19 ~ 7pm ~ Cleveland, OH

Hello Everyone

We have scheduled our tour of the Beachwood, OH Nordstrom for February 19, 2008 at 7:00pm. We will have the opportunity to learn firsthand about how things work at the company, how they consistently delight their customers, and about coming trends for the spring.

We will have the store manager, Fran Broda, facilitating this event.

This event is free to AICI members and $15 for non-members. Everyone must pre-register. Please click here for registration.

This is a one-of-a-kind opportunity – not only if you are in the image industry, but if you are in any type of customer-oriented field. Nordstrom literally wrote the book on customer satisfaction.

The Nordstrom Customer Service Experience

A Cleveland-Area Event

Ladies & Gentlemen –

If someone asked us who has a challenge with working one-on-one with clients, I would be the first to raise my hand. It’s just not my favorite part of what I do. I bet that a couple of you feel that way too. Sometimes I don’t feel like I give a 100% customer-centric experience and that bothers me.

But every time I go shopping on my own or take a client to one particular store, I have an amazing experience. It’s probably no surprise that it’s Nordstrom. They go above and beyond to accommodate my clients and me each and every time.

I have asked the store manager of the only Cleveland-area location if they would be willing to have a group of us come in to tour the store and learn about how they impart top-notch customer service skills to their employees and how that leads to greater sales and return customers.

Hey, we may not all own retail establishments, but isn’t that what we want too??

We are planning this event for early-to-mid February on a Mon, Tues, Weds or Thurs evening. It would be free to AICI members and $15 for non-members.

If it’s a success, then we could coordinate the same sort of mini-events for Cincinnati, Philadelphia and Columbus.

If you are in Cleveland, please let me know which of the aforementioned days works for you.

Warmest regards -

(literally! It's freezing here!!)

Kristen Kaleal
President
AICI OH/PA Chapter
kkaleal@aol.com
(440) 742-0385

Minutes from the Board Meeting 11/4/07

Board Meeting Minutes
AICI OH/PA Chapter
November 4th, 2007
Columbus, Ohio 1:00 to 4:00

Board Members:
Kristen Kaleal (President) LisaMarie Luccioni (Treasurer/Past-President)
Erica Torres-Dudziak (Vice-President) Jill Haney (Secretary)

Proceedings

President's Report:

- Update on the Delaware Valley Satellite Meetings.

- The goal is to grow the chapter and have more Eastern Pennsylvania involvement, including leaders with board positions.

- Conference call to be held with current board members and interested OH/PA members from the Delaware Valley area – most likely in January. Will put out an open call shortly.

- The 2008 OH/PA AICI meetings will be held as follows: March 2nd, June 15th, September 7th, and November 9th. All meetings will be held on Sundays in Columbus, Ohio**.

- Discussed possibility of holding next meeting at Macy’s at Easton or Polaris (since we now have a PR contact) for a tour of the store, preview of spring trends, and secrets of department store shopping.

**Other locations to be determined. We are looking for a meeting space that has a meeting room but will not pay for use of room above lunch price (hotels are currently charging $150-$250 setup fee, which as a small chapter, we will not incur). We are also losing $60 or more at each hotel meeting per meeting due to guaranteed counts. A possible option is Panera Bread, which typically has meeting space. If anyone in the Columbus area has any suggestions, please let us know.

Vice-President's Report:

- Discussed the AICI Leadership & VP Marketing conference calls.

- The AICI Publicity Handbook, which can be downloaded on the website, can be used to market our chapter and our own businesses.

- Anytime any of us is in the news, please send the information to AICI headquarters.

Treasurer's Report:

- Our chapter is fiscally sound! The Chapter Financial report was submitted and approved by HQ.

- This report must be submitted to HQ two times a year in order to get chapter rebate of $60 per member.

- Chapter checking account has a balance of $951.43 with additional rebates pending.

Other business:

- Board members discussed the idea of having a chapter retreat in 2009. Pittsburgh is a possibility as it would encompass both the PA members and OH members.

- Members discussed the option of getting CEU's for the retreat as this would help draw more members and possibly members from outside of our chapter, as there was an interest in the 2007 retreat from outside the chapter IF there were CEU credits offered.

- Submitted by Jill Haney, Secretary

2008 Meeting Schedule for Columbus, OH

Greetings!

We had a very productive board meeting yesterday, and before the official meeting minutes are sent out, I wanted to let you know our meeting schedule for next year.

For those of you who have wanted to attend a Columbus-area meeting and it hasn’t coincided with your schedule, I’m hoping this will be enough advance warning for you :)

Don’t forget that you can always use the chapter blog as your resource for current information. The top section lists our coming meetings and other necessary info. We will also have this list posted on the official AICI chapter site very soon.

As soon as we know the Delaware Valley’s meeting schedule, we will put that on the blog and AICI site as well.

Columbus, OH Meeting Dates for 2008

March 2
June 15
September 7
November 9
(As always, these are all on Sundays)

**If any of the dates change, we will let you know as soon as possible**

We will have reports from yesterday’s board meeting and the first Delaware Valley Satellite Meeting (happening right now!) posted soon.

Here’s a picture of us from the meeting yesterday –

(L-R - me, LisaMarie Luccioni, Erica Torres-Dudziak, Jill Haney)

Kristen Kaleal

President

AICI OH/PA Chapter

kkaleal@aol.com

(440) 742-0385