We are being told that in today’s consumer lead society that customer satisfaction is key, we have to consider the requirements of the consumer before anything else and ensure we evolve to meet those needs.
Meadow View Stone, quality suppliers to the UK’s Garden Centres for over 20 years, have sent out a survey to their customer base to ascertain what was needed in order to progress sales of Decorative Aggregates, Paving and associated products within Garden Centres.
Sarah Hill Marketing Director for Meadow View Stone said: “We really wanted to re-engage with garden centres to better understand what was and wasn’t working, and more importantly how we could improve in these areas to generate further sales of our products in store.”
The survey they produced covered all elements of their service. “It was important for us to get a good overview of how the business was performing as a whole,” Simon Routeledge Meadow View Sales Director commented. “We felt this survey was vital for relations, as it allows the Customer a voice and an avenue to speak directly to us about products and the performance of Meadow View’s Sales force.”
As an added incentive Meadow View offered a 10% discount from their next order to customers for their returned surveys, along with the chance to win an iPad mini chosen at random from a hat, for one winning entrant. The survey produced a good response with some interesting reading and the winning survey chosen at random was from ‘Almondsbury Garden Centre’ based in Bristol.
Simon Routelege and South West Regional Sales Agent Gary Pearce presented the iPad to Leister Simpson the owner of the centre, who remarked: "I am absolutely delighted to be successful in winning the draw for the IPad…. as will be my Wife!" He added, "I am always glad to offer feedback to our suppliers with surveys like the one Meadow View requested, and pleased my opinions count.”
Meadow View have been supplying Almondsbury for over 6 years and Leicester is happy with the product choice on offer, with the Flamingo and Sea Shore aggregates being firm favourites amongst his customers. Additionally he feels the product support on offer is very effective “The consumer friendly POS really helps to drive sales, especially on the display crates."
Having spent the morning at Almondsbury with Leister, Gary remarked: "it’s always good to receive confirmation that customers like our premium products and delivery times whilst receiving first-hand confirmation that we offer a great service".
Finally when asked what the future holds for himself and Meadowview, Leister said: "Almondsbury continue to list new products from the ever expanding Meadow View range, we like their new Water features, planters and Birdbaths range we saw launched at Glee this year, and these will soon be in our store ready for the Spring."
Some very encouraging statistics from the recent survey were
- Quality of Products received an average of 9.5 out of 10
- Extent of Range on average scored 8 out of 10
- Effectiveness of POS and Packaging received an average of 7.5 out of 10.
Sarah Hill stated: ”Listening and learning from our retailers, with good or bad criticism provides vital first-hand experience of how our products and marketing support are perceived by customers. This enables us to shape and tailor it to appeal to a diverse and competitive customer base."
The results of the survey were incredibly beneficial to Meadow View, who are re-designing their POS. They have taken into account some of the recommendations from customers, with a view to launching in March 2016.
Pictured: Gary Pearce presents Almondsbury's Leister Simpson with his iPad.
