Triangle Model

The standard principal agent model often takes on a triangle shape when one member must answer to both a superior as well as a client.  This can produce a series of issues and challenges.  From differing in opinions, to conflicting viewpoints, it can be difficult to please everyone involved in a triangle relationship.  Coming from several service related jobs, I know firsthand the struggles of a triangle principal agent model.  Below I will analyze and discuss some personal experiences with this version of the principal agent model.

To begin, I will again discuss my job at Nordstrom because in the retail setting, one is constantly trying to please not only their managers, but especially the customer they are helping.  The department that I was working in was the most expensive and exclusive in the store.  Because of this, we had several sales people who were considered personal shoppers.  A personal shopper was a sales employee who had been working within the Nordstrom store for long enough to have developed a list of clientele who shopped exclusively through this employee.  They differ from regular sales in that they are not so much on the floor trying to push merchandise to those just browsing.  Rather, they are taking phone calls from and meeting with repeat customers they have worked with for sometimes years.  These personal shoppers know when their customers are coming in and have pieces picked out and waiting for them when they arrive.  There are a series of benefits that come with the personal shopper title, including the ability to be more flexible with setting their own hours and a slight raise in commission.  One requirement of being a personal shopper was to meet a yearly financial selling quota.  If one could not meet this quota, they would lose their shopper tittle and go back to normal sales.  Another requirement of personal shoppers is that in addition to helping their typical clients, any customer can call Nordstrom customer service and schedule an appointment with a personal shopper at random.   This is where conflict would often arise from a triangle situation.  

Nordstom as a brand prides itself on its commitment to giving any and all customers a luxury shopping experience.  Because of this, they want shoppers of all budgets to be able to utilize the personal shoppers.  When a personal shopper gets assigned to a first time client through a customer service call, they often do not know much about that customer.  In my department, where sales employees and personal shoppers are used to customers spending several hundreds of dollars on their purchases, this lack of information became a problem when the customer had a smaller budget than my department coworkers were used to.  Everyone understood that most people could not afford to buy our specific product, but when the personal shoppers had a strict quota to meet, they are expected to maximize their sales as much as possible.  Personal shoppers were feeling pressure because what the customer needed and what managers expect from the employee were often different.  Managers would push personal shoppers to upsell, or get the customers to buy from the more expensive department, while the personal shoppers were trying to please the customers who wanted to stick to the less expensive sections.  This conflict left the personal shoppers in a position in the middle of trying to please two groups with differing viewpoints.  I feel that the biggest contributor to this conflict was the lack of communication.  The best way to resolve this would have been for customer service to gather information about the customer prior to assigning personal shoppers.  If they asked the customers what type of budget and experience they want from their appointment, they could better schedule the shoppers with those whose budgets aligned, satisfying the customer and the managers.  Simply spreading information could have reduced ambiguity and this cause of conflict between managers and employees.  This clarification would better give the customers a good experience  becuase they are dealing with a personal shopper who knows the merchandise they are trying to sell, rather than one who is not inspired or enthused about the product.