New ways of working make happier customers

We identify several trends which open up news ways of working:

Trend 1 - the cut and edge service

In the last fifteen years there has been a proliferation of "cut and edge / cut to size" services for wooden panels.

Rather than a carpenter cutting boards such as MDF to make fitted furniture they can instead make a cutting list, give it to the cut and edge service and get back a pallet load of cut to size panels.

The advantages are significant:

• the quality and the accuracy of the cutting is far superior
• the cut edges can have edgebanding applied to give a high quality finished appearance
• high end and luxury materials such as high gloss or super matt can be processed, something that would be impossible outside of a factory environment.

Trend 2 - Social media highlights high quality work from individuals

While national fitted furniture companies such as Sharps have been advertising nationally for years, now individual craftsman can reach an audience in a more engaged way using social media such as Instagram.

What this means

Customers seeking fitted furniture can now source high quality solutions from businesses at the individual level. Rather than going through multiple levels of a company customers can engage with the expert straightaway.

The advantages

A good way of considering the advantages is to examine a not unusual way of how things can go wrong.

Say a customer sources a Howdens kitchen through their builder. The kitchen is delivered and a cabinet door is ether missing or damaged, what happens next?

The builder will contact Howdens, probably a customer service representative. The details of the original order will need to be retrieved and the door found - could be dispatch, manufacturing, order generation department etc etc.

Several people will be involved and resolution could take several days - or much longer.

Compare this to the individual craftsman working with a cut and edge service. They could go straight to the workshop and get a new door made while they wait (of course they will need to have credibility with the cut and edge provider and may be calling in a favour but technically this is all possible)