How to elevate your brand promise with better customer experience

Will Dance, Head of Marketing at Fantastic Furniture joined Qualtrics’ Lisa Khatri, Head of Customer, Brand & Design Experience - Asia Pacific & Japan to discuss brand experience in retail. We’ve gathered the highlights of their conversation on consumer and market trends as it relates to Australia’s best value furniture and bedding retailer.

The past few years have presented brands with a variety of challenges, requiring quick formulation of new strategies to adapt to the changing expectations of consumers and challenges in the supply chain. Will shared a few key areas of focus for Fantastic Furniture with us and also how he leveraged insights to improve the customer experience and ultimately the overall brand experience.

Strategically aligning on the brand promise and customer experience

Like most retailers during the pandemic, Fantastic Furniture was impacted by supply chain challenges for a few items in their product offering in stores. Through their in-store experience feedback, they identified a decline in customer satisfaction. After leveraging the analytics and insights provided in their real-time dashboards with Qualtrics, the team identified an ‘experience gap.’ A key brand promise customers valued was an expectation of being able to ‘take it home today’ however with the supply chain issues this was not possible with some items. The team was able to pivot quickly in their marketing and in-store communications to address products that would be delayed and close this expectation gap.

Targeting communications by consumer segments to drive growth

Qualtrics BrandXM™ allowed Fantastic Furniture to easily analyze multiple ads by segments across both existing and potential customers and helped guide the media laydown to more effectively target each audience segment. This data precision provided confidence in the brand’s efforts to message and position every communication most appropriately for each of their key  segments. By developing a better understanding of their customers’ needs and desires, the brand is now marketing and selling more effectively.

Qualtrics has been paramount to our business’s ability to capture insights and have data points on hand so we can understand what is really important to our customers. - Will Dance, Head of Marketing, Fantastic Furniture

Incorporating sustainability and environmental impact aligned with brand importance drivers

According to a study commissioned by SmartestEnergy, 4 in 5 consumers say they are more likely to choose a brand with a positive approach to environmental sustainability. Like so many organizations, Fantastic Furniture is keen to understand how to communicate this to customers, as well as to the market. The brand is committed to continual improvement in the way they design, manufacture, source and deliver their furniture by supporting local manufacturing, sourcing renewably sourced solid pine timber, and minimizing waste. Will and the marketing team needed to understand how important this was for acquiring new customers, but also align this with their brand values for existing customers. They found that one of the key drivers for brand preference was being ‘Australian Made’ which was more important than sustainability alone. Taking that insight, Fantastic Furniture incorporated ‘local’ manufacturing and sourcing messaging into their overall brand promise and marketing communications efforts, demonstrating how they take sustainability seriously in a way that aligns with the brand.

We empower organizations with the confidence to act with precision versus a gut feel. Our customers are able to transform what were once rumors into facts, and then show they’ve listened through their actions. - Lisa Khatri, Head of Customer, Brand & Design Experience - Asia Pacific & Japan, Qualtrics