„It‘s all about understanding customer needs“

You are an expert in retail design, acting as an academic, a designer and a consultant. In your foreword to Hammertime², you address the academic perspective. What are the most significant current academic findings in this field?

Elisa Servais: In my experience, countless academic findings are published each year. Sadly, they too rarely make their way to practice. This is in part due to the journals they are published in and their academic tone. There is also the matter of academic research requiring a very pointed view, meaning it most often investigates individual aspects of a problem statement. For instance, in retail design academia, it's very common to find research on specific atmospheric factors: music tempo, specific color applications, etc.

That being said, what I appreciate in these findings is the constant focus on the lived experiences of customers. The accepted academic value chain is that value for the customer leads to value for the retailer and in turn all its partners. The customer is therefore always placed at the core of any problem statement and the research for solutions to it. This is an approach I personally implement in my design consultancy and which I would like to see more retailers also apply.

What does the concept of Convergion mean for your field of expertise, and specifically for your work – both academic and practical?

The Convergion model calls for a more holistic approach to the DIY and home improvement retail sector. At the core, it points out that value (for all stakeholders: customer, retailer, partners) is best achieved when the entire eco-system of factors leading to the delivery of a physical store experience are considered together.

The reason it resonates so much with me is that the need for this holistic approach to experience design was also a key result of my PhD research on "valuable in store experiences". If, as mentioned in the previous question, we place customers at the center of our considerations, we realize that today these consider all their interactions with a single retailer as one whole. They expect seamless transitions between communication and delivery. In practical terms: the products, the app, the website, the advertising campaigns, the in-store experience, the after-sales service must all operate as one.

This requires a shift in our industry's ways of working. We can no longer operate the various customer touchpoints in silos. In my day-to-day practice, I have been calling for this shift in operations since the end of my PhD. It isn't easy, however, to change processes which have been in place for so long. Though stakeholders understand the need, they are often at a loss as to how to implement it in practice.

Hammertime² offers a clear solution to this. It strategically supports my own research results and further complements them, bringing the "theory" to a more applied sphere by placing it in the context of a specific sector. In doing so, it makes it much more practical and relatable. The paper even offers easy to follow tips for on-the-ground retail managers.

This leads me to feel that the Convergion model offers a unique opportunity to finally reposition the physical point of sale as an operational touchpoint where the human dimension lacking online is optimised to build loyalty. In its omnichannel ecosystem approach, the online and offline channels not only collaborate but support each other. A great example, already put in place by some, is to use the click and collect counter of the physical store not only to finalise an online customer journey but to complement it by offering here carefully crafted value-added impulse products to further support customers in their DIY journeys.

What are the most common mistakes DIY stores make in store design?

As in all other retail sectors, for me the most common and biggest mistake is an increasing lack of customer understanding and empathy. There truly is a growing gap across the retail industry between what customers expect when they shop and how retailers operate.

As mentioned above, the smarter retailers are aware of this but struggle to change their ways of working. And I fear this is even more true in the DIY sector where the number and variety of partners and factors a retailer is dealing with is so wide.

In this context, Hammertime² represents an invaluable tool since it 1. answers customer expectations by strategizing a comprehensive sector specific ecosystem with customer value creation at the core and 2. offers tangible hands-on tips for retailers to implement the necessary changes to their current operating systems.

To put it positively: which improvements would have the greatest potential for boosting sales?

Building on the previous question, I would say that it's all about understanding customer needs and answering them. Practically speaking and as Thierry Coeman mentions in the paper, whereas in the past customers came to DIY stores purely for "do-it-yourself" missions, now their expectations have become more variable, also requiring retailers to offer more solutions. Yes, there is still the "do-it-yourself", but then there are now also the "do-it-together" and the serviced "do-it-for-me". This means rethinking the aforementioned range of partners and factors to create an eco-system which delivers these three core customer shopping missions.

From a retail design perspective, which is my own expertise, it also means rethinking how the physical store is conceptualized: re-strategizing how the store is organized of course but also which information is key to communicate, when in the three types of customer journeys and how. It might at first be challenging, but this is where Hammertime² and the tips it provides prove again to be a great tool to start on this journey.

I also highly suggest calling on external consultants to provide expert support. In my experience, these bring a necessary fresh perspective to the mix, often offering easy solutions where retailers only see roadblocks. In fact, this is something I particularly appreciate in the Convergion model: its invitation to not only reframe objectives but also rethink partnerships accordingly.

From the perspective of the Convergion model: to what extent does this affect not only retailers but also suppliers?

As just mentioned, in the Convergion model's new ecosystem approach, suppliers and retailers will need to strengthen their partnerships. It will become essential to not only discuss financial and logistical aspects of their collaboration but rather to already initiate team work at the strategizing phase.

Practically speaking, I suggest a collaborative brainstorm session to answer the questions: what do our shared end user customers want and how can we together deliver this in a way which is also beneficial to us both?

The key is to shift the mindset from thinking about value creation solely for themselves individually to considering value creation as it is presented in academia and explained above: first we must (together) create value for the customer; this will create value for the retailer; which will create value for all its partners and suppliers.

So yes, it will affect all those collaborating to the ecosystem, however as the paper clearly illustrates, this shift from a price focused paradigm to a holistic value creation ecosystem is essential to guarantee added value for all stakeholders is maintained.