DesignCliq Unveils Website, Expands Team Of Industry Veterans And Customer Base

Furniture World News Desk on 10/18/2014

DesignCliq, the internet marketing company founded by home furnishings industry veteran Fred Starr, is kicking off the High Point Market with a new website geared toward retail executives, an expanded content team and a growing customer base of Top 100 retailers.

DesignCliq’s suite of consumer-centric services focus on increasing traffic in stores, shopper confidence, purchasing and developing a long-term relationship between shoppers and stores. The company’s Style Preference Quiz currently featured on retailer websites like Slumberland, Havertys, Star Furniture, Nebraska Furniture Mart, R.C. Willey and La-Z-Boy Galleries, invites site visitors to discover the relationship between their personality, their lifestyle and the home furnishings designs that please them most.

According to Fred Starr, chief executive officer, the Style Preference Quiz enables retailers to capitalize on existing website investments by capturing visitors who typically navigate through a store’s site and depart without leaving a calling card. “Site visitors have a pleasant experience that keeps them on the retailer’s site longer,” he relates. “More importantly, we’ve found that taking the Quiz and receiving post-quiz Personalized Product Recommendations from the retailer helps consumers overcome the most significant obstacle in home furnishings purchases—their fear of making costly decorating mistakes.”

Indeed, the executive reports, “We’ve talked for years in the home furnishings business about the disconnect between consumers and our industry, yet research has consistently shown that increasing percentages of home furnishings customers have little knowledge of interior design. My goal in launching DesignCliq was to connect the dots for consumers, to help them understand the language of home furnishings fashion and build their confidence in the shopping and decorating process. Additionally, I believed we needed a way to shift the focus away from price. The good news is that the experiences of the retailers we work with prove that understanding style preference helps remove shoppers’ anxiety and builds their interest in the store’s brand as a voice of authority in the marketplace. Retailers using our quizzes find that one in three quiz registrants purchase within 12 months, and average tickets are 30 percent higher.”

“Over the past five years, the DesignCliq Style Preference Quiz has been a value-added service on our website that helps customers easily identify the look they are trying to achieve in their space,” says Mike Huber, chief executive of Belfort Furniture. “There’s a consistent link between customers who have taken the Quiz and a higher average ticket. The two just go hand-in-hand.”

Huber believes taking the Style Preference Quiz not only benefits the customer, “but also helps our sales staff to create the room the customer desires very efficiently. Once the style preference is identified, the salesperson can easily engage the customer in a dialog about the overall room design, building trust. The salesperson is presenting real options, not trying to guess what the customer is looking for. In the end, it saves both the customer and salesperson valuable time.”

Retailers also find that 78 percent of site visitors who take the Quiz are new customers with a younger profile, and overwhelmingly female. The majority also provide valuable contact information, effectively growing each dealer’s email database, enabling them to optimize targeted marketing campaigns.

“We support our quizzes with a full complement of customer engagement solutions, including an information-laden Follow-Up program that provides ongoing design tips, decorating ideas and inspiration via email campaigns that set the standard in open rates,” Starr explains. “This rich, ongoing dialog creates a lasting relationship, with customers expressing deep appreciation and loyalty to the retailer.”

Designer Lynn Courtade is DesignCliq’s director of creative content. “An accomplished interior designer and former retailer, Lynn brings a trend-forecaster’s eye for style to our team, along with a designer’s unique ability to develop and promote each of our customers’ unique brand images,” Starr says.

Business writer and marketing strategist Kimberley Wray is the most recent addition to the DesignCliq team. “An experienced wordsmith, Kim couples her in-depth understanding of the needs of consumers, retailers and manufacturers with a passion to see our industry innovate and adapt,” Starr notes. “She specializes in producing persuasive messaging that inspires, and we’re very pleased to have her collaborating with us on our portfolio of content solutions.”

ABOUT DESIGNCLIQ: Founded by home furnishings industry veteran Fred Starr to help high-performance furniture retailers realize the potential of internet marketing, the DesignCliq family of applications captures and engages consumers through a series of Style Preference Quizzes tested and proven to increase ROI with Top 100 retailers across the country. For more information, or to take the Style Preference Quiz, visit www.designcliq.com.