Love Furniture Profits Tip: Do You Provide A “Wow!” Experience For Your Guests?

Furniture World News Desk on 8/30/2014

By David Love
 Love Furniture Profits

Over the past few days, I’ve finally gotten around to reading the July/August print issue of Furniture World. I'm not much for reading on line. I don’t own one of those little electronic book thingies. Whether it’s a good book or a magazine, I love curling up or stretching out in my favorite chair to read with a cup of coffee or glass of iced tea.

Anyway, one of the articles that really got my attention was the one about Art Van Furniture. If you’ve been around this business for even a week or two, you’ve at least heard of Art Van.

I was really taken by this quote. “Here at Art Van we go beyond welcoming guests to provide them with an experience that is so positive, so memorable, that they become clients for life and ultimately advocates for Art Van Furniture.”

It was Walt Disney who said, “Do what you do so well, people can’t help telling everyone else about you.” This may not be exact, but you get the idea.

Two more things jumped out at me from the Art Van quote. He uses the words Guest and Client, not Customer. My definition of Customer is someone who buys from you. Guest is a more welcoming way of saying Customer. My definition of Client is someone with whom you have an ongoing relationship.
Designers, attorneys and countless other professions have clients. Why not furniture and mattress stores?

So what do you do so well . . . . ?

When I had my store, it was small and we were up against much larger stores in Sacramento. But we were family in a small town and that gave us tremendous advantages. We weren’t pressured by UP systems, quotas and the like. We took the time to get to know people, their families, their hobbies and so on. We could deliver off the floor within the hour. My wife sent handwritten thank you cards to everyone who purchased. We always had something going on. Drawings. Contests. Free lunch with purchase. Christmas Money Tree. Even though we had a relatively small client list, we real mailed 6 – 8 times a year. We emailed as well. And the emails were not just sales. They were newsy. We also had a print newsletter.

Here’s just one of the dozens of testimonials we got. “I love everything. Everything is so much better than I ever expected. You guys have been awesome. I can’t wait to tell my friends about you.”

If you were to look at our operation you might say, “No wonder they’re successful. Look at everything they do.” I think the same thing when I see everything Art Van is doing.

Make this the topic of your next staff meeting. Get ideas from everyone as to what you can do to create the “Wow!” experience. Don’t forget the office staff and warehouse and delivery guys either. Good ideas sometimes come from unexpected sources.

These little weekly articles can only scratch the surface. To find out more, get your free copy ($97, but free to any furniture or mattress store) of my breakthrough Special Report, “5 Long Lost Secrets of Scientific Furniture and Mattress Advertising that work like magic in today’s economy for any furniture or mattress store to get you more customers, more sales, more profits.” Go right now to www.lovefurnitureprofits.com. David can be reached at david@lovefurnitureprofits.com. Phone: 803.764.3977.

Do you have an marketing frustration you’d like me to address? Shoot me an email and I’ll talk about it in a future article. 

About David Love and Love Furniture Profits. Love Furniture Profits is an advertising consulting and coaching firm that shows retailers how to get more traffic, more and higher ticket sales and more profits using long-lost scientific advertising secrets unknown by about 99% of all of today’s retailers. 
David is a 41 year furniture/mattress, in the trenches, industry veteran. His background includes retail furniture sales. Manager of a retail furniture store. 22 years on the road making money for companies like Sealy Mattress and Best Chairs. His territory and his retailers achieved sometimes remarkable sales increases due to the expert advertising and sales advice he gave. He has also owned and sold his own profitable store and was a highly regarded sales manager of a top 100 furniture store.

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