Two months ago, I received a custom-ordered Knoll couch from Design Within Reach (DWR). Now I know that store is poorly named. Furniture purchases there are at the outer limits of my very occasional reach, but I loved what I bought, and it pairs well with the other couple of DWR items I purchased eight years ago. Super.
Two weeks ago, I received a generic-seeming email from MillerKnoll/DWR asking if I would do a 45-minute video interview about my experience with the MillerKnoll team in exchange for a gift card. Now, I do not normally choose to trade my time for gift cards, but I respected the unusually hefty size of the offer, and I considered it a signal of their intent to get genuine information. This is a set of brands I love. I had one major complaint about this last buying experience I wanted to share. I figured I’d learn something. And the gift card amount seemed reasonable. I said yes.
Yesterday, I did a Zoom with UX Researcher Satenik Rostomyan. She showed up stellar from the jump. Professional, well-paced, patient, clear about her intent for the call. She obviously didn’t know in advance that she was going to be talking to an ex-marketer with decent customer journey experience, but that just proved a plus as the call unfolded.
She asked great questions about how I felt emotionally about my furniture. She asked how these purchases (which I told her were reaches for me) blended with other things in my home. She asked me a wonderful customer persona question, having figured out that I’m what she called a brand “fan.” “Can you tell me about a MillerKnoll fan? What are they like? How do they think?” This question helped me appreciate why I have chosen these brands when I extended myself. I like the artistic aspect along with the stellar quality. I like being in the “club” of deep appreciators of mid-century designs. I prefer, when I can, to acquire the real thing versus a copy, although I have copies of some of their designs in my home too. I don’t put a lot of “things” around these items so they can be seen. I told her the story that led to my original purchase of a Cómo couch, a night with friends cozied into a friend’s 30-year-old version of this couch, having deep conversation, and celebrating what we named “soft-leather life.”
My affection was deep.
At times, she asked me about my understanding of how the three brands (Herman Miller, Knoll, and Design Within Reach) related to each other. I had no idea. She educated me. I shared that knowing that backstory made me even more connected. We talked about sustainability and how I occasionally buy great stuff in the secondary market (a good and bad thing for them) for reasons tied to price and the environment. She dug in there with great interest.
At the end of an action-packed 45 minutes, I asked if I could write about this incredible experience. It was so great that, in hindsight, I realized I would have done the interview for nothing, just to be a small tiny atom in the story of this company. She was delighted, cleared it with her supervisors, sent me the gift card, and we were set.
I reported to Satenik that the best brand experience I have had with MillerKnoll was this conversation. I don’t think MillerKnoll offered these conversations as a sales and loyalty technique, but that’s what happened. And that is something.
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As a side note, some of you know that my new book, Never Ask For The Sale: Supercharge Your Business With the Power of Passionate Ambivalence, will be published on September 9th. I am opening up a cohort of people who are interested in leaving full-time roles (because they want to or because an unexpected termination makes it essential) to go out on their own. All of the tools in my book will be built into this four-week coaching journey as part of a cohort. You can see the full post explaining my rationale for the program, and please feel free to let me know if you or anyone you know would like to join the beta for this effort.
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