Parla Overview Furniture Industry

About Nebraska Furniture Mart (NFM)

Based in Omaha, Nebraska, NFM is a premier big box furniture retailer selling home goods ranging from appliances and furniture to electronics and flooring. Customers can shop online through NFM.com and in-store. The company ships all over the United States, but their local customer base spans a radius of 150 miles from each store location. The company operates massive superstores at multiple store locations, averaging over 1 million square feet of retail space per store.

The Challenge:

The Online/In-store Sales Gap

To achieve a competitive edge in their market and continue driving top line sales, NFM embraces a robust omnichannel sales and fulfillment strategy, with the goal of making it as easy as possible for customers to shop for and receive their purchases through a combination of in-store and online purchase and delivery options. This approach is especially important since the brand’s customer base extends 150 miles from each store location, so for more distant customers, visiting a store can be costly and involve a considerable time commitment. For this reason, NFM shoppers frequently begin their shopping journey online, as evidenced by their website traffic which totals approximately 2M monthly visits [1]. After visiting the NFM site, customers often narrow their product selection to a small number of items, but they lack the confidence needed to make a purchase decision.

NFM observed that when customers visited their stores, they converted at a much higher rate than those who purchased online. Unlike their online experience, NFM's in-store customers were served by expert sales agents who recommended, demonstrated, and explained products to customers in detail. This led to increased customer confidence and much higher conversion. In the absence of visiting an NFM store, shoppers continued their shopping journey elsewhere or converted online at a lower rate and with a higher instance of product returns.

The Opportunity:

Introduce an in-store experience online

NFM recognized the disparity between their in-store and online customer experience and understood that if they could provide a means for their high volume of online shoppers to make more confident purchase decisions, NFM could increase sales, Average Order Value (AOV), and reduce the instance of returns. To do so, NFM determined that they needed to extend all the benefits of their in-store shopping experience to online shoppers by connecting them 1-to-1 with their sales agents.

Before Parla:

What NFM learned from their first steps in live selling

Prior to introducing Parla, NFM first offered online customers a means of scheduling virtual 1-to-1 appointments with their sales agents using Microsoft Bookings and conducting video calls using Microsoft Teams. Although this approach showed promise toward boosting customer purchase confidence, the experience was unnecessarily difficult and time consuming. It was commonly cited by shoppers and sales agents alike as being “clunky” and NFM acknowledged it was inconsistent with their goal of building a delightful experience that anyone could use the first time without friction. Fulfilling this goal was essential, because NFM’s customer included many people who were unfamiliar with using business video conferencing tools.

What NFM required from a 1-to-1 live selling solution

As a result of the obstacles encountered after first implementing a standalone 1-to-1 live video selling solution, NFM’s team determined that they needed to make live selling a turnkey sales channel that would:

Enable customers to schedule appointments with sales agents in-store and online, the latter which could also influence more subsequent in-store visits to complete a purchase;
Qualify customers before calls with sales agents and manage the appointment schedules of their entire sales team;
Create a visual selling experience by transforming customer phone calls into a video calls that would allow sales agents working from home, at call centers, and in-stores to showcase products from NFM’s catalog and demonstrate them from in-store showrooms;
Create a single "discovery to deal" selling system by integrating live selling with their tech stack including e-commerce, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and checkout systems to track customer engagement, sales conversion, and automate customer follow-up; and
Make it easy for everyone to use, by allowing any customer to instantly schedule and join calls directly from NFM emails and their website, without any prior video conferencing call experience.

NFM chose Parla's All-in-one Live Commerce solution to take customers from scheduling appointments to checkout, and the sales associate from appointment confirmation to completing a sale using a single system. Implementation was planned to occur in two phases:

Phase 1 is addressed in this case study and includes Parla's Appointments & Video Calls.
Phase 2 will expand the capabilities available in Phase 1 by implementing Parla's All-in-one Live Commerce solution. Phase 2 is in process and will feature integration with NFM's product catalog, CRM, and provide automatic customer follow-up.

Appointments

Key features

Parla's customizable solution allowed NFM to:

Create multiple appointment types based on location and duration (e.g. 40-minute virtual furniture appointment);
Design custom appointment questionnaires (per store, department and appointment type) to pre-qualify customers before appointments;
Automatically assign or hand-select the right salesperson to each customer and share customer notes ahead of their appointments;
View and edit appointment assignments on a dashboard; and
Mirror the look and feel of NFM's website using customizable Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).

Implementation

To implement Parla's Appointments & Video Calls, NFM embedded one line of Parla code into their NFM.com website that provided access to Parla's an entire appointment scheduling experience, complete with accessibility features that made it easy for anyone to use. To invite customers to schedule appointments, NFM added a “Virtual Shopping” call-to-action in their website banner. When clicked, it displayed an NFM-branded version of Parla’s booking page, that instructed customers to select a department, appointment duration, and answer a few brief qualifying questions to help sales associates prepare for their appointments.

Appointment confirmations & MS Outlook Integration

How it worked

Once a booking was made, customers and sales associates received automatic email appointment confirmations with links to join either a virtual call or meet at a store address for an in-person appointment.

For customers, the email confirmation included a cancellation link and a calendar invitation so appointments could be added to personal calendars.
For NFM staff, sales associates received email appointment confirmations along with customer responses to pre-appointment questionnaires, and customer appointments were automatically added to their Outlook calendars. Before each appointment, sales associates reviewed the responses to the customer’s questionnaire.

Video Calls

Key features

A 2-way camera view allowed:

Sales agents to show and demonstrate products in-store and
Customers to share views from inside their homes to help sales agents better understand their needs.
The ability for customers to include/exclude themselves from view while speaking with a sales agent.

How it worked

Customers and sales teams used any Internet-connected device and browser to access the call.
Customers joined calls with an assigned salesperson by clicking the “Join video call” button from their email confirmation.
Sales associates joined calls directly from Parla’s admin screen, from their Outlook calendar, or from their email appointment confirmation.

Sales results & shopper insights:

Sales results

Average sales conversion increased to 58% with higher AOV.
Sales staff productivity improved and salespeople were better prepared for customer calls. Sales agents saved time because they could plan what products to show and map out their route in-store. This was a great benefit considering that each store comprised over one million square feet of showroom space.

Shopper insights

Customers who booked appointments were often nearing the end of their shopping journey and had narrowed down their selection to a short list of product alternatives.
Customers’ responses to pre-appointment questionnaires helped sales associates personalize recommendations, identify the most suitable products, and suggest companion product add-ons, all of which contributed to achieving a higher AOV.
Live shopping helped customers make confident purchase decisions, especially involving higher ticket and more sophisticated items, or to choose from among a short list of candidate items they had selected.
Some customers used virtual appointments to help identify a short list of product choices, then visited stores to make a final selection.
1-to-1 appointments have become the launching point of ongoing relationships. Unlike one-time online chat conversations, customers developed a rapport with sales associates and routinely reached out to continue their conversation by SMS, email, or in-person. Not surprisingly, customers preferred connecting with the same salesperson to whom they had already explained their needs.

Implementation status

NFM Phase 1 is live in Kansas City, Kansas and Omaha, Nebraska. NFM's three remaining stores will be introducing Parla in 2023, and all stores will be implementing the expanded features of Parla's All-in-one Live Commerce solution.

[1] Similarweb.com

CASE STUDY:

Nebraska Furniture Mart

Nebraska Furniture Mart used Parla to schedule in-store and online video appointments with sales agents. On average, 58% of customer interactions converted into sales, with a higher AOV.