Customer Interaction

Furniture Industry Trend Forecast

Behind the term customer interaction, there are various driving mega trends.

One is the growing request for transparent, authentic and trustworthy brands, with one way to achieve this being proactive and allowing an interaction with the customers. Examples for how to put this into action are social media live-streams of production processes, as well as open doors to facilities to engage customers (Mintel, 2018).

Also, a rise in the demand for personalisation to express individual attention and value of the customers is a factette of customer interaction. Ways to incorporate this range from personalised address in marketing to individualised offers (ServiceFutures, n.d.).

In addition, brand interaction creates an experience for the customer, which bears a sales potential as ‘richness of experience […is] a key motivational driver’ (Kjaer, 2014, p. 135) for purchasing decisions. The desire for experiences is supported by the fact that 75% of millennials have been found to prefer experiences over purely buying things.

In addition, experiences create content that can be shared on social media, which has become an important way to project a personal image (Eventbrite, 2017).

Furthermore, customers are increasingly driven by the ‘mission to build meaningful and self-empowered lives’ (Kjaer, 2014, p. 135). This indicates that clients see the buying of products and services more and more as a way to express themselves which can be catered to by engaging them in the design and development process. Listening to the customer and adapting offers to their requirements has become a powerful way to involve them in the organisation loyally (Crandell, 2016).

The following overview depicts exemplary trends in the furniture branch, with a detailed focus on

• Customisation of furniture