Playbook, furniture retailer
It fits the wall and still does not work in the room
Access gets asked first and it is the loud question. The one that produces the regret is quieter: a sofa that fits the measured wall and then blocks a radiator, a seat too deep for a short person to sit back in, a corner that arrived facing the wrong way because two people described it from opposite sides of the room. None of that is answerable from a photograph, and all of it is published somewhere as a number.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for sizing and fit holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The measurement that decides comfort is not the footprint. Seat depth, seat height and back height are what somebody sits in, and they are published far less often than width and length.
- Handedness is a fitting question here rather than a style one. A chaise on the wrong end of a room is a piece that goes back, and the two ways of describing it are exactly opposite.
- The piece has to be lived around and not just placed: a door that swings, a drawer that pulls out, a recliner that needs room behind it, a sofa bed that needs floor in front of it.
- Cloth can be tested before committing in a way size cannot, because a swatch is posted out free, and somebody with one on their own floor in their own light asks a much better question afterwards.
How it arrives
- how deep is the seat on this one
- is the corner unit left hand or right hand facing
- how high is the seat off the floor
- will it block the radiator on that wall
- how much room do i need to open the sofa bed
- can i get a swatch before i decide
What has to be indexed for this to work
| The sitting measurements, published per model | Seat depth, seat height from the floor, back height and arm height, alongside the overall size. These are the figures a buyer cannot get anywhere else and the ones that decide whether a piece suits the person buying it. |
|---|---|
| The clearances a piece needs around it | How far a recliner comes off a wall, the floor a sofa bed takes when open, the swing on a wardrobe door and the pull on a drawer. A measurement of the object alone produces somebody who fitted the number and not the use. |
| Your handedness convention, in one sentence | Which way a corner or a chaise is described, and the position it is described from. Publish the sentence and the diagram, because this is the most expensive misunderstanding available in a furniture order. |
| How swatches are requested and what arrives | Whether they are free, how many, how large and how long they take. A swatch is the cheapest thing a shop can post and the likeliest to prevent a return, and a surprising number of customers do not know they are on offer. |
The reply
The measurements that decide this are published, and the useful ones are not the overall size. Seat depth and seat height are what you sit in, and a deep seat that suits one person leaves another perched on the edge of it [1]. If there is a corner or a chaise, check the handedness against our convention rather than against the photograph, because ours is described as you look at the piece from the room [2]. Also worth measuring is what has to keep working around it: a door that swings into the space, a drawer that pulls out, the floor a sofa bed needs when it is open. I cannot tell you whether a piece will suit your room, but I can read out every measurement we publish, and a free swatch will tell you more about the cloth than any screen.
Redirecting from footprint to seat depth is the useful move, because the wall has already been measured and nobody has told this buyer what else matters. The handedness sentence goes in whether or not it was asked, since it is the mistake with the highest cost. Ending on the swatch means a refusal is not the last thing the visitor reads.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor asks whether a particular piece will suit their room or a particular person, or wants a measurement the published material does not carry.
I can read out anything we publish, but whether it works in your room is a judgement I should not be making from a description. Leave your name, an email and the measurements you have taken, and say if you would like swatches sent at the same time, and somebody will go through it with you.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never conclude that a piece will suit a room, a person or a use described in a message.
- Never infer the handedness of a corner from a customer's wording without the convention being confirmed, since the two conventions are opposites.
- Never quote a seat depth or a clearance that is not published, because an approximate figure here becomes the number somebody buys against.
- Never say a cloth will wear well in a particular household, which depends on children, pets and light the assistant knows nothing about.
Questions
- Can it recommend a sofa for somebody with a bad back?
- No, and it should not go near it. That is a question about a person's body, and something reading a product page has nothing to offer it. It can give seat height and firmness where they are published, then take the details for somebody in the showroom.
- Is the swatch offer worth putting in the material?
- It is one of the highest yield sentences available. Swatches cost very little, they prevent the returns caused by colour on a screen, and plenty of customers have no idea they can ask for one.
- Why keep pushing handedness?
- Because it is the mistake nobody catches until delivery day, by which point a piece has been built to it. One published sentence saying which side the convention is stated from removes almost all of it.
Keep reading
- Everything for a furniture retailerLead times, delivery access and assembly dominate furniture enquiries. What an assistant answers well, and where it must take a name.
- Handling sizing and fit in generalThe highest volume pre-purchase question in clothing and the biggest driver of returns. Quote the chart, never guess a size for a person.
- Getting into the showroom, and getting out of the sofaTwo unrelated requests arrive as one: getting into the building, and getting out of the chair. Neither is answered with a recommendation.
- The satnav takes them to the front of a unit with no doorThe clearance floor is not the showroom and the goods door is not the front door. Say which before somebody drives to the wrong one.
- The showroom is open. That does not mean anyone can load a wardrobeThe showroom, the collection bay and the delivery crews run on different clocks, and the busiest selling days are the ones nothing moves.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.