Customer Experiences

To begin to describe my ultimate consumer experience, it would be helpful to reflect on what I have read and learned in class. From Schmitt’s article, “A Framework for Managing Customer Experiences,” he describes the five basic senses (sense, feel, think, act, and relate) that experiential marketing should appeal to. Wall’s in class lecture sums up these five senses in a way that makes more sense from a first glance. He describes those senses with relations to sensory, emotional, intellectual, behavioral, and relational elements. The author also goes on to mention ExPros which are experience providers that are implementation components at the disposal of the marketer for creating a sense, feel, think, act, or relate campaign. That means people, logos, advertising, etc. all add to this experience.

My best consumer experience is not related to one shopping experience but to everyone I have when I am at IKEA. If I really think about, why do I even need furniture? I have never stayed in one apartment for more than a year. As a nomad, furniture would actually cause me a great inconvenience every time I move. Not to mention it takes 40 minutes to even get there. However when I do arrive, I am always excited when I see the huge IKEA flags flowing through the air like I am their selected royalty but not really because almost everyone on I-35 suddenly starts to exit towards 1 IKEA Way. The congestion in the IKEA parking lot is not like at Wal-Mart where I waste all my time looking for the closest parking space and give up in frustration. At the IKEA lot, I am happy to just be there and to get a spot even though it is the farthest from the store.

When I shop at IKEA, I feel like I am in a giant maze. However, the placement of various designed rooms provides a sense of random coziness in the middle of cluttered furniture and people. It is also a nice aid for decoration tips at home. As I feel like I am nearing the end, it turns out I have been walking in circles. I swear the signs that claim you are approaching the check-out lie so that consumers end up lingering longer and purchasing more. Yet I have to admit sometimes I do not tell my friends when I find the exit because I want to wander around a bit longer, oops. When I do manage to get to the check-out area, I pass the children’s section. Even the kids are happy to be at IKEA. Heck if they can run around the store and have fun than taking another round through the store wouldn’t hurt. Watching those kids made me realize that IKEA was like a playground for adults. With a more mature sense of enjoyment, adults begin to derive a satisfaction when purchasing products to improve their home whether for purposes just as simple as utility or to impress guests with their designing skills they secretly stole from IKEA.

To further break down this experience I consistently have with IKEA, I will use the categories described by Walls and Schmidt.

Sensory- The greatest sensory experience that I think is most worthy of noting is the restaurant at the end of the store. It is a clever location to stick a restaurant because it stops consumers from immediately leaving the store by attracting them with the aromas of their cooking.

Emotional- With IKEA’s limited commercials in the U.S., I feel they actually cheapen the brand for me. The “twice a year sale” shows me that for price, their products lack in quality. The Spike Jonze lamp commercial shown in class seems to portray furniture is just furniture. There is no emotional attachment. You just keep moving on to better furniture which is exactly what I feel I will do in the future but only with products that I really want to last for a long time like a leather coach. However, assuming I would abandon IKEA would be underestimating the power of consumer experiences. I am loyal to the brand and would still do a majority of my shopping there.

Intellectual- In my opinion, the designed rooms were not meant to be emulated but to spark innovation and ideas as to how I can mesh different products together to create a room that I like with the right nudge from the IKEA designers.

Behavioral- IKEA is progressively pushing their economical friendliness into their product designs. It was the first store that I know of to publicize a solar powered lamp. I think that many of their consumers would really enjoy these green products. IKEA places an emphasis on these products in their catalogue which finally allow consumers who have been riding the “going green wave” to so to speak “walk the talk,” by slowly converting their house into more energy efficient units.

Relational- When I look at the products IKEA sells, I usually think, “man when I finally settle down somewhere I want my apartment to have all these cool things.” I want to be perceived as stylish in a modern sense and be able to hang my kitchen knives on walls with magnets and have weird funky chairs everywhere.

ExPros- The website is an important ExPro because it allows me to create a shopping list. They do not ship items online which might be because they are trying to stay consistent with their cheap prices and the fact that this forces consumers to go to the store where the biggest customer experience lies. Another ExPro are the people who work there. To not overwhelm customers with all the clutter of products, they have store assistants there to search for items that customers are looking for. The staff is always friendly, and they always go out of their way to help you. When I went there, one of the employees was literally sweating from running around trying to find an item for me.

Overall going back to what we learned in class, I have to say that focusing on creating customer experiences can turn what seems trivial like shopping for kitchen utensils into something that can make a consumer loyal to a brand. These experiences can help differentiate a brand in a congested market which I believe IKEA has done very well.