Fiskars

Practical solutions to multi-channel through customer understanding

The customer knowledge gained through our effective consumer research helped in developing a winning customer experience strategy.

The results from this project help us in all our customer strategy work, and also on the tactical level from here on. We know where we have succeeded and where we can do even better. Thanks to Shirute Ltd, we now have a solid base to work from!
Lea Aarinen-Koski
Global Retail Experience Director, Fiskars

Challenge

Fiskars’s Home business area offers a wide range of design products for the kitchen, the table, and the home. Fiskars is the market leader in this sector in the Nordic region, with a number of prestigious brands in its portfolio: Arabia, Hackman, Iittala, Fiskars, BodaNova, Höganäs-Keramik, Rörstrand, Raadvad and Høyang-Polaris.

Internationally, the focus is on driving growth through the Iittala brand and the Iittala store concept. Iittala is an internationally renowned design brand, with a range that includes numerous Scandinavian design icons. Iittala brand products are sold in over 60 countries.

The most important goal for the company is that its customers experience one Iittala and one customership, regardless of where they interact with the brand. The MyIittala loyalty programme is the main driver for these aspirations in all Fiskars’s own sales channels. It is also important that customers may always select the sales channel that suits them best.

For Fiskars, it is very clear that a customer-driven, multi-channel operational model increases sales and improves the effect of marketing activities, as well as introduces cost savings. The company also wanted to ideate new ways of developing customer experiences in various customer situations. In order to meet these challenging goals, the key issue was to understand the everyday buying and information search paths. Utilizing the gathered consumer insight, the company can best help and guide its shoppers, and create engaging customer experiences for increased sales.

Solution

Fiskars is renowned as the number one design brand in the Nordic region. Today, it wants to put customers’ needs first and provide great customer experiences. That is why Fiskars uses rigorous customer experience design based on solid consumer insight.

Fiskars Home was able to conduct a very practical consumer research with expert help from Shirute Ltd. The customer experience audit phase included e.g. themed interviews for understanding consumers’ buying habits, and a survey on consumers’ habits in Iittala’s own stores all over Europe.

The everyday shopping practices were analysed to identify gaps, pain points and development opportunities. Using this information, Fiskars Home can respond to customers’ situations and needs better than any of its rivals.

The project was very practically-oriented. The findings could be translated directly into activities on the sales floors and the online shop. It also helped in disseminating a common understanding of the importance of customer experience. In the next phases of Fiskars’s Customer Experience Path®, the target state of the company’s customer experience will be defined, along with the means to achieve it.

  • Consumer insight regarding cooking, table setting and home decoration related buying models and factors affecting these
  • Full visibility to current customer dialogue and customer situations
  • A customer-driven, multi-channel operational model that increases sales, improves the effect of marketing activities and introduces cost savings
  • Ideating new ways to develop customer experiences in various customer situations