Retail guru shares 10 ideas to energize mattress stores
David Perry, Bedding Editor -- Furniture Today, May 10, 2010
MARIETTA, Ga. —
Customer experience guru Mike Wittenstein visited Commodityville when he shopped mattress stores recently. He found retailers talking more about low prices than about a good night of sleep.
He's seen that kind of problem many times in his retail research, and he's got several ideas on how mattress retailers can break out of their low price rut and give consumers a better shopping experience.
Here are 10 ideas that Wittenstein (www.mikewittenstein.com) says can help mattress retailers stand out from the pack and better connect with their customers. They all stem from the idea that mattress retailing should be a buying experience — not a selling experience.
Wittenstein originally outlined these ideas in a talk at the International Sleep Products Assn. Expo in Charlotte, N.C., earlier this year, and expanded on his points in a follow-up interview with Furniture/Today.
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Pay attention to signage. Tell consumers where the plush, medium and firm beds are located in the store. Consumers see a sea of similar-looking mattresses and need guidance on how to navigate their way through the mattresses on the sales floor.
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Pay attention to the details. Make sure the pillows and foot protectors match the brand on whose beds they are resting. It's confusing to consumers if those display products are mismatched on the sales floor.
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Do more listening. Ask your customers what kind of sleeper they are and what kind of sleep they want. And take the time to ask them what they like — and what they don't like — about your store experience.
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Be more collaborative. Retailers and producers need to do more “co-inventing” by better understanding each other's needs. Producers should spend more time on retail floors, and producers should host retailers at their factories.
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Sell comfort, not coils. Retailers need to move from selling price to selling sleep performance. They should talk about how their beds provide a better night of sleep. The details — coil counts, foam densities — are important only as they relate to better sleep. Explain how the various components in a sleep set provide comfort, which is what consumers really want in their new mattress.
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Define comfort life. Wittenstein saw a number of different product warranties when he shopped mattress stores. But those warranties cover product defects and don't address what consumers really care about: Comfort life. “I didn't see comfort life defined,” Wittenstein said. “How long will the mattress feel good?”
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Give the mattress brands a voice. Information kiosks in mattress stores can give the brands a chance to talk directly to consumers. Retailers and producers can collaborate on the costs of those kiosks, whose messages may be more believable than those delivered by retail sales associates. Consumers may think the RSAs will say anything to make the sale, while the kiosks tend to be seen as offering more credible information.
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Create programs to energize retail employees. “What can you do to excite your employees?” Wittenstein asked. “I didn't hear about employee sleep programs during my store visits. Get your employees, including your RSAs, to sleep on your mattresses. They'll appreciate your brand more and their sincerity will carry through when they are talking with customers.”
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Take customers where they want to go. Unfortunately, some incentive programs in place on retail floors do just the opposite — “they take customers where they don't want to go,” with RSAs pushing beds that bring them extra dollars, but aren't necessarily the best beds for the customer, Wittenstein said. Make sure that your customers always buy the right mattress, he said. Match their needs to the products you are selling. Customer satisfaction scores will go up and costly returns will go down.
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Give customers a private place to try out the mattresses. While not singling them out by name, Wittenstein showed pictures of retail selling displays developed by Tempur-Pedic and Sleep to Live that give consumers more privacy for their test rests. “To really stretch out and try a mattress, I would like more privacy. It will help make me make a more comfortable and informed decision,” Wittenstein said.
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