A premium hybrid sales experience
Royal Botania designs iconic, luxury outdoor furniture and holds a leading position in the world within its segment. By only using materials of the highest quality, combined with top craftsmanship, Royal Botania produces striking and top-quality furniture collections. In doing so, the outdoor furniture designer prioritizes the needs of its individual customers, an impeccable service and a unique experience.
The challenge
Creating a seamless and effective sales journey
Like many other industries, the COVID-19 crisis also impacted the garden and outdoor furniture industry. For Royal Botania, this meant both opportunities and challenges. On the one hand, there was a significant boost in demand, but on the other hand, the temporary closure of their points of sale made it a lot harder to offer the personalized and premium service the brand is known for.
Therefore, Royal Botania approached us with the question of creating a seamless and effective hybrid sales journey for end-consumers and architects by integrating a sample experience, so they can confidently choose their outdoor furniture.
Our solution
Premium and personalized E2E service
We started off the project with in-depth client and desk research. This research revealed that customers needed to be emotionally inspired as well as rationally reassured during the purchase process. To meet those needs, we proposed a phygital experience that brings together the best of the digital and physical world. This resulted in a premium and personalized E2E service with a terrace planner app and a dealer portal.
The result
Inspire and orientate with augmented reality
To guide customers in their exploration of the product that suits their desires, we developed a mobile app that includes a terrace planner. By integrating augmented reality, we created a premium and tangible customer experience that matches Royal Botania’s high-end market positioning.
With the camera on their phone, customers can create a digital visualization in the app of what Royal Botania’s furniture would look like in their own garden. Additionally, we complemented this feature with style and collection sheets as well as the option to save configurations and compile a wishlist. Finally, the app allows customers to contact a local dealer who'll provide them with further advice, taking the client into the next stage of the customer journey.
Online dealer portal to complement offline premium advice
After customers have explored Royal Botania’s product range and the different options, they need guidance and assurance in making the most suitable choice. This is when the local dealer comes into the picture, guiding the customers with personal advice. To offer tailored advice, we have developed a dealer portal. This digital solution complements the personal guidance and support of Royal Botania dealers during their conversations with clients. The dealer portal offers the possibility of downloading 3D images, collection sheets and catalogs, capturing customer data and generating configurations.
Our approach
Identifying user needs with in-depth research
We managed the project from A to Z. Our service designers started with an extensive customer and stakeholder survey, including in-depth interviews and observation in the showrooms. Based on this extensive preliminary research, we identified customer needs, sharpened the customer journey and defined the concept.
Design and development integrating AR and 3D
After the technical and business validation of the concept, our design and development team proceeded with the execution. Especially the integration of augmented reality, the elaboration of the 3D visualizations and the large amounts of data from the product catalog proved to be a challenging task that we were able to tackle by bringing together the right areas of expertise.
Thanks to a seamless interaction between the various experts within the design and development team and regular stand-ups with Royal Botania, we were able to launch an MVP of the app and dealer portal after just 6 months. Further into the collaboration, we extended the existing tools with additional features like a wishlist, storing configurations in augmented reality but also deep linking that redirects the user from the mobile website to the app. By doing so, we wanted to encourage the use of the app as much as possible.
Services offered
- Service design
- Product design
- Development
Our impact
We continue to act as both a strategic and a design and development partner for Royal Botania. Together, we're thinking about ways to further improve the digital products of the company and the user experience of customers and dealers, always taking into account Royal Botania's business goals.
We’ve been working with Craftzing for almost 3 years and we will continue to do so. Due to our long-term collaboration, they know exactly what we want, and how we want it to be done. There is no way around it, the future is digital and Craftzing knows all the ins and outs.
3D visuals by Fat Tony studio
