Henning Eriksen, CEO of the Norwegian furniture chain Møbelringen, was once told that “those who use customer analysis to make decisions are of weak character and have no gut feeling to speak of”. 

Henning disagrees! He feels sure that direct feedback from the customer has tremendous importance for the furniture chain. 

“It is better to rely on the feedback of the customer’s own experience”, says Henning Eriksson. “Gut feelings often amount to guesswork, which can sometimes be useful, although the results will be out of your control. By using the Maze app, we now have the information necessary to better understand the experiences and attitudes of our customers. In other words, we no longer have to guess”.

Möbelringen was founded as a furniture chain in 1985 and has stores all over Norway. Beyond offering high-quality furniture, they refer to themselves as furniture specialists who will guide the customer through every and all interior design decisions. Therefore, it is extra crucial for Möbelringen to keep customer service in focus. 

Customer interaction is everything!

“Customer interaction is everything! The rest of it has to do with support functions”, says Henning Eriksen. “If you are looking to buy great products, you also have a right to great service. Meeting the customer thus becomes the core operation, and the salesperson must practice for greatness – practice everything that will happen from the time when the customer enters the store until they leave again”. 

“Everyone who enters the store is a potential customer. Retailers who choose to invest in the development and training of their employees will outperform their competitors in the future, says Eriksen with confidence.”

Möbelringen started using Maze to get daily feedback from customers. This data has in turn been used to improve the way their employees meet with the customers.

“Our store employees and sales managers are delighted with the Maze tool”, Henning Eriksen continues. “The salespeople get together with other salespeople, and managers with other managers. Now they can assess the performance of their store and their efforts against what customers are experiencing in other stores.”

“Moreover, the salespeople will now be grumbling if the customer feedback is not brought up during the Monday meeting!”

Anders Kristensen, head of the Tønsberg store, is also satisfied with the Maze tool.

“Before we started using Maze, we were working with Mystery Shoppers. It did get the job done, but the information came late, and in the end, we started to recognize the Mystery Shopper people.”

“Now we get systematic feedback directly from customers, and that makes it easier to keep focused on what’s important”, says Kristensen. 

Feedback from Maze will be a trigger and a form of incentive for the employees. By using Maze, they will find out what works and what doesn’t and how they can improve. 

Maze encourages the sales team to go the extra mile

“Maze encourages the sales team to go the extra mile”, says Anders. “Our goal is to have the best customer service in the Tønsberg furniture industry, and our feedback does, in fact, indicate that we do. We get the impression that customers feel welcome in our store and that our service is great!”

Maze has also contributed to an increase in the number of members in the customer club. 

Linda Sørebø is the store manager at Möbelringen’s store in Tønsberg. She and her colleagues receive, on average, between five and ten instances of feedback through the Maze app every morning. 

“Maze makes us sharper, she says. We become completely engrossed, and especially if we look at the yellow and red parts, that is, from customers who have been dissatisfied in some way. We keep that feedback in the back of our heads constantly, which has made it possible to raise the ambassador rank higher and higher.”

“Actually, we had a gut feeling that it was right to go with Maze”, Linda Sørebø concludes, but now we know that facts are usually better than faith.