New kitchens are a huge investment, and the purchase journey can be confusing and convoluted for many consumers. A customer will choose to work with a kitchen studio to ensure that it is designed by someone with the know-how that they don’t have, thus alleviating the pain of having to research and design everything themselves with little to zero starting knowledge.
It is therefore vital that this expertise is evident when dealing with consumers, who are looking for a critical guidance and consultation with their designer. When the consumer trusts the expert, the project goes ahead. Everyone is happy. When there is doubt, projects are delayed, and questions asked. Too many of these and the consumer walks away and goes elsewhere. Seemingly, this is happening increasingly with kitchen surfaces, particularly engineered surfaces, with kitchen studios losing this element of their design due to lack of knowledge.
A beautiful, high-quality worktop is a central element of any good kitchen. It has significant visual impact on the space and is guaranteed to be up close and personal with the customer on a daily basis, in their eyeline every time they stand at the countertop and in their hands with every food stuff prepped on it. But engineered surfaces are often sold as ‘all the same’. The customer sifts through a bunch of samples with little expert commentary and goes away more confused than they were at the start.
Listed below are three mistakes every studio should avoid when talking worktops. Get these right and you’ll keep the worktop in the design and may even improve the margin.
1. Too much choice
For consumers who are likely to have undertaken very few previous kitchen projects, the number of choices they need to make for their new kitchen can be overwhelming. As the kitchen studio of choice, it is your job to guide them through this process, but too often, when it comes to the worktop, the consumer is presented with hundreds of samples. Not only does this make the customer’s choice extremely difficult, but it also doesn’t allow you to show off your design expertise and alleviate the customer pain points. Presenting a small, curated range of the best, most aesthetically pleasing quartz and porcelain surfaces will allow you to evidence your design expertise and instil consumer confidence. Our Caesarstone sales team are more than happy to work with you on what this bespoke collection should look like for your studio, ensuring that the worktop samples on offer meet the needs of you and your customers in terms of price, style, and current consumer aspirations.
2. Lack of product knowledge
Once the customer has been presented with a myriad of choices, there is often little guidance given in terms of which surface they should choose and why. With nothing else to offer, it then just comes down to price. And that makes it easy to shop around. One quick Google search later and the studio has lost the worktop from the project, because its ‘all the same’, right, and they found something cheaper.
Just like good kitchen design, great appliances and the best hardware, a really nice engineered stone worktop, well fabricated and installed, comes at a price. Caesarstone surfaces are years in the making and designed by our in-house team alongside leading trend authorities. They are manufactured with sustainability in mind, by our Caesarstone experts using processes honed over the 35 years in which we’ve been designing and making surfaces. From there, they are rigorously tested to ensure they are robust, reliable and safe for consumer use. Being able to communicate the advantages of any kitchen brand that you are selling is necessary for the consumer to put their trust in your business and believe in your design expertise. Caesarstone makes it easy to tell a brand story and our sales team are delighted to deliver it too.
3. Indifference to low quality
Most consumers will buy two of three kitchens across their entire lives, meaning repeat custom isn’t your most likely source of customers. However, what happy customers do is tell their family and friends all about their new kitchens and recommend your business to others. However, should they be displeased with the finished project then you can guarantee that bad review will spread further than any glowing report.
The worktop plays such a significant part in the overall kitchen aesthetic, as well as being one of the most heavily used elements of the space. This means the design, quality and durability are incredibly important attributes when recommending a worktop brand for your customers. Most consumers want to invest in something that looks beautiful on installation and still will in years to come.
As well as leading design, Caesarstone worktops come with a Lifetime Warranty and are designed with longevity in mind, giving you peace of mind that your customer will still be happy with your recommendation for years to come.
Avoiding these three mistakes will ensure the consumer feels confident in following your recommendations and will end up with a worktop they will love for years to come, in turn it will help your kitchen business retain the worktop, potentially make better margins and reap the benefits of a happy customer base and all their ongoing recommendations.
