Best Practices - June 2008

By Sonya Jennings

The staff at Johnston Paint and Decorating has created an operation designed to pull the customer into the store over and over again. And it works incredibly well. This family-owned business has been serving customers in Columbia, Missouri for 83 years. The business recently relocated into a 23,000 square foot facility with an open house that attracted between 700 and 800 people. The new space includes a beautiful 9,500 square foot showroom to showcase the company’s diverse product line.

The varied product line at Johnston’s gives customers many reasons to shop and later return. The store offers paint, wallpaper, blinds, fabric window treatments, carpet, tile, hardwood, laminate, vinyl, cork, and bamboo. According to Melissa Murphy, Design Center manager, “Our diverse product line gives the customer many more reasons to come into our store.” If a customer buys flooring today, she may need window treatments down the road. The relationship has already been established, so the customer is likely to return.

The Johnston staff recognizes and understands that they are in the fashion business. They have done a great job of choosing to carry products that allow a consumer to make a fashion statement in her home. The store has a visual display, called a vision wall, where many different products are put together in a creative and design-forward way, allowing the customer to imagine the blending of textures, materials, and paint. To add credibility to its design focus, the store has taken the time to align with some key manufacturers in interior furnishings by becoming a Benjamin Moore signature store, a Shaw Design Center, and a Hunter Douglas Design Concept store.

Not only does the wide-ranging product line and fashion focus attract the walk-in consumer, the store organizes both informational and hands-on interactive classes to attract designers and contractors as well. The goal is to give these influencers an in-store experience that they will remember when working on future projects. Whether it’s a class on hot new color trends, adhesion for flooring products, or how to apply a faux finish to a wall, the store offers many learning opportunities for the local design and contract professional community. Writers for local lifestyle publications are invited to attend the classes as well, which has resulted in a three-page feature spread about the store and the material covered in the course.

Realtors are another group that is important to the store, and Johnston is planning an ice cream social for them. They will be brought into the store for an opportunity to browse through the showroom and given a stainless steel ice-cream scoop with an etched Johnston Paint and Decorating logo as a take-away to remember the experience. Hopefully this will translate into referrals to their clients.

Included in the new facility are two conference rooms. One of the rooms is larger and used by the store staff, and the other is smaller and located near the showroom. Johnston allows local designers to use the conference room to meet with their clients. Local designers can set up shop in the conference room, giving them a professional space to work with clients. Because the designer is already in the store, it is likely that he or she will recommend products from Johnston.

Another goal of Johnston Paint and Decorating is to make the customer feel special. This helps to create an emotional tie to the store, making it more likely that the customer will return. When an installer shows up to begin installation, the homeowner is greeted at her door with a homemade apple pie baked in a pie plate with the Johnston logo lightly etched on the inside. After a project is complete, customers are sent stainless steel measuring spoons with a little note that reads, “Hope we measured up to your expectations.” These touches have a cost to the store of only $7 to $22 per item, but the impression lasts a long time. In addition, the Johnston logo is in the home as a subtle reminder for future needs. According to Melissa Murphy, “If you send a client a bouquet of roses after installation, she will be thinking ‘I wish they would have just given me $50 bucks off of my bill.’ But a homemade apple pie causes the client to think not of the cost involved, which is minimal, but the gesture.”

Making customers feel valued is also achieved with the inclusion of a mini paint store located in a highly visible area of the showroom. This provides shoppers with an interactive and creative distraction for their children. The mini store includes mini paint cans, wooden cash registers, a chalkboard, play money, carpet samples, and a table with coloring books and children’s books. Children have been known to play for a long time in their own imaginary paint store.

Johnston Paint and Decorating is heavily involved in the community. Its staff members serve on boards for local non-profits, and the store gives donations to local little leagues, PTA organizations, local schools, church groups, the local food bank, children’s shelters and Habitat for Humanity. The Columbia, Missouri community can see that the company is supporting the things it cares about.

Creating many reasons for customers to enter and return to the store has translated into success for Johnston Paint and Decorating.

Related Topics:Shaw Industries Group, Inc.

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