Furniture retailers spend a great deal of time thinking about products.
New ranges. New materials. New designs.
The customer, however, is often evaluating more than the furniture itself.
They are evaluating the retailer. Whether they enjoy the experience, whether they would buy again, and whether they would recommend the business to family and friends.
Those decisions are not always influenced by one major moment. They are shaped by a collection of smaller interactions that take place throughout the buying experience.
Here are five ways furniture retailers can improve customer satisfaction on that journey:
- Customers See The Outcome
A customer does not see the stock allocation.
They do not see the warehouse. They do not see the transport planning.
What they see is whether the furniture arrived when expected and whether the experience matches what they were promised.
That is often where opinions are formed.
- Small Problems Feel Bigger To Customers
A retailer may see an inventory discrepancy.
The customer sees a delayed order. A retailer sees a stock allocation problem.
The customer sees a delivery date changing.
By the time a customer becomes aware that something is wrong, the cause is often sitting somewhere else entirely – like a stock issue, a fulfillment problem, or a breakdown in planning or operational efficiency that can eventually find its way to the customer, even if they never see what happened behind the scenes.
- Customers Remember The End Of The Experience
A lot happens before furniture reaches a customer’s home.
There are products to compare, decisions to make, measurements to check, and orders to place. Customers rarely judge the experience solely on the beginning; they usually judge it once everything is finished.
A beautiful showroom experience can quickly be overshadowed by a frustrating delivery experience. That is why many retailers choose a 3PL that offers white glove shipping.
Services such as appointment scheduling, room-of-choice delivery, assembly, installation, and packaging removal help create a smoother final experience for the customer.
- Good Communication Creates Patience
Customers are often willing to wait longer than you might expect.
What tests that patience is silence.
A delayed order with a clear explanation from the 3PL or retailer is usually easier to accept than an on-time order that nobody communicated about properly until the last minute.
Furniture purchases often involve weeks rather than days. That leaves plenty of time for customers to start wondering where things stand.
A lack of information creates far more questions than the wait itself.
- A Great Product Does Not Guarantee A Great Experience
Most furniture retailers have seen this happen.
The customer loves the furniture. The customer is less enthusiastic about everything else that happened around it. A delayed update, confusing communication, and a frustrating delivery experience.
Customers rarely separate those things from the purchase itself. Then often become parts of the story people tell when somebody asks where they bought their furniture.
To End
A customer may only buy furniture a handful of times over several years.
That tends to make each purchase a little more memorable.
Follow these five tips above to become one of the retailers that people speak positively about afterwards.
It is almost always these smaller details that retailers need to get right along the way.