LA Furniture’s new approach to engaging customers

“We have to be enthusiastic about customers of the longer term,” Madeline Sweeten of LA Furniture advised us in our current interview. “They are the younger individuals who grew up with cell telephones and computer systems… they’re very environment friendly with their time, and we want to concentrate on that.”
LA Furniture is a family-run furnishings retailer primarily based in Los Angeles, California. With two retail places and two warehouses, they ship their merchandise nationwide.
“I feel our largest triumph is that we’re ordering these high-end gadgets at prices which are extra reasonably priced for simply anyone, Madeline advised us. “You’re not going to pay $1,200 for a eating chair if you happen to don’t need to. You can, however we provide choices, and I feel that’s what makes us so particular.”
Madeline is liable for merchandise advertising at LA Furniture, which entails sustaining product strains, making certain every part is precisely depicted on the web site, and overseeing their small Marketing staff.
Madeline and her staff had traditionally relied on e mail to talk with customers, leading to low response charges and a few buyer dissatisfaction.
“Far too typically, our emails would go to a spam folder, and customers would by no means learn the e-mail,” Madeline advised us. “And they wouldn’t know that they wanted to agree to the supply phrases or wouldn’t get the memo that their merchandise was out of inventory. This led to plenty of buyer dissatisfaction.”
Some of these customers would then depart opinions reflecting that dissatisfaction. And as a result of LA Furniture had solely a handful of opinions on the time, the destructive ones carried extra weight. Their common star score wasn’t dangerous, however Madeline knew they’d want much more opinions in the event that they wished their rankings to mirror actuality.
 
Transforming LA Furniture’s on-line repute.
At the time, Madeline and her staff have been counting on e mail to ship assessment invites to customers, so most of them have been going to spam or getting misplaced in customers’ inboxes. They began trying to find a greater manner to acquire and reply to opinions. They shopped round and finally determined to go together with Podium.
“We went from a 4.2 common star score to now we’re at a 4.8,” Madeline advised us. “And that’s often because we’re ready to simply ship assessment requests by way of Podium.”
Madeline had remodeled LA Furniture’s on-line repute, however she nonetheless wanted to discover a higher manner to deal with basic buyer communications.
 
Connecting immediately with internet buyers.
Since texting labored so nicely for amassing buyer opinions, she figured it was price attempting for different buyer interactions. That’s when she realized that Podium had options for just about each a part of the shopper journey. Her staff began utilizing Podium’s Inbox and Webchat to carry in additional leads and immediately join with them by way of textual content messaging. They generated greater than 5,000 new leads within the first 9 months by way of Webchat.
“I take into consideration how lengthy it takes to make a telephone name,” Madeline advised us. “You’re not going to get out of a telephone name with a buyer in beneath 5, six minutes, at greatest. With Podium, our response time is lower than a minute. That’s 5 instances much less, if no more. That’s loopy time financial savings.”
Since Madeline’s staff was utilizing textual content messaging to collect extra opinions, join immediately with internet buyers, and talk with customers, she instantly considered Podium to clear up her subsequent problem. She had realized that LA Furniture may do a greater job of selling to and re-engaging previous customers or those that had deserted their carts.
“Before Podium, we used a mixture of social media and web site,” Madeline advised us. “And we have been discovering that this approach wasn’t reaching previous customers.”
 
Re-engaging previous customers with SMS advertising.
When Madeline heard in regards to the launch of Podium Campaigns, she thought it seemed like a promising various—and even addition to—social media and e mail advertising. The first promotion she ran with Campaigns was a two-day flash sale providing customers a ten% low cost on gadgets in considered one of their warehouses that had been overstocked with considered one of their bestselling sofas. Thanks to Podium Campaigns, her opt-in record was already constructed—and rising. In slightly below two months, LA Furtniture’s opt-in record included 1,547 potential consumers, making an SMS promotion a no brainer.
“So we created a PDF of the low cost pricing, created a hyperlink on our web site, and used that hyperlink to connect to our Podium marketing campaign,” Madeline advised us. “And we despatched it to all of our subscribers.”
That two-day flash sale promotion ended up being simpler than LA Furniture’s previous efforts in e mail and social media advertising. The SMS promotion had an 8.4% click on price, considerably larger than the common e mail click on price of two.6%. They additionally received responses a lot sooner, which helped them make room of their overstocked warehouse for new stock. Plus, they saved their staff a big period of time and sources.
“If we have been in an identical scenario with an excessive amount of stock previously, we’d ship that out to our e mail record,” Madeline advised us. “And we’d in all probability put one thing up on social media saying, ‘We have these things if you happen to’d like to buy them.’ And we wouldn’t have any possible way of measuring how many individuals that reached, how many individuals engaged with it, and the way many individuals bought from it. That would have taken 4 hours, perhaps 5. And with Podium, we will in a short time ship that message out, know who it went to, who responded to it, who engaged with it, and if it led to a sale. And constructing it took quarter-hour.”
Now, LA Furniture permits customers to decide into SMS promotions after they depart a assessment or attain out through Webchat on their web site. Madeline and her staff proceed constructing their SMS subscriber record and look ahead to utilizing Campaigns within the upcoming summer season gross sales season.
“Before Podium, we have been slowed down with the shortcoming to talk with our customers effectively and successfully,” Madeline advised us. “Now that we’re utilizing Podium, we’re ready to successfully talk with our customers in a manner that’s private and saves the corporate and our buyer time. We couldn’t do what we do with out Podium.”

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