Investing in Service Leaders: Do They Out-Perform The Market?
After almost 10 years I want to share the financial results of 9 Service Leaders I invested $9,000 in May 2003 which is now worth $20,820.53. The results are from December 5, 2012.
| AMZN | Amazon | 32 shares | $8,133.76 |
| COST | Costco | 31.858 shares | $3,357.80 |
| DELL | Dell | 32.274 shares | $338.07 |
| GE | General Electric | 48.232 shares | $1,026.38 |
| HD | Home Depot | 41.906 shares | $2,693.30 |
| JBLU | Jet Blue | 72 shares | $377.28 |
| LUV | Southwest Airlines | 62.958 shares | $615.41 |
| TD | TD Bank | 25.686 shares | $2,138.62 + $614.33 |
| WMT | Walmart | 21.221 shares | $1,525.58 |
| Value | $20,820.53 |
Lessons to Be Learned:
“If you lose sight of your brand the value goes down.”
Dell and Jet Blue – Both took their eye off the customer experience and never recovered.
Southwest Airlines – I am not sure why this stock has never gone up. I think the airline industry might be a rough market for stocks.
Walmart’s growth has primarily been over the last 12 months. In 2000, they dropped their focus on customer service and focused on solely on price. The marketplace puts a higher premium on companies who build a brand around customer service. It would be interesting to compare this with their rival. Target customer service seems to be coming from a different perspective all together.
Amazon walks the talk on price, customer service, and speed. I wish I had bought a ton of their stock just for an investment.
Costco does double the sales of Sam Stores which is owned by Walmart. They have a much better grasp of customer service.
General Electric has not done very well. Maybe the compensation of their CEO should be related to stock values.
Here is a previous post on the impact of losing sight of customer service when you want your company to grow.
