Top Showrooms: Building with style
The recently reinvented design showroom inside the well-established Builders store in Kearney, Nebraska, was created with a focus on customer feedback. It’s all about making the selection process convenient and comfortable for contractors and homeowners alike, while also providing a comprehensive arrangement of the vast array of options for exteriors and interiors.
A team effort from its inception, Stacy Andersen Bivona, Chief Culture Officer at Builders, says the process began with input from focus groups that included representatives from all of their different customer segments.
“We sought input from our pro customers, the contractors; we had third-party interior designers in Nebraska who chimed in; we had our own sales team weigh in on what was being shown and the sales process; and, of course, we got input from our vendors, what they’re seeing in sales from the Midwest and from different areas around the nation,” she says.
The Builders team assessed the feedback from focus groups to help identify trends on the rise and which ones might be losing steam or dying off, all with the intention of creating a design center that fully aligned with their strategy: “This is 100 percent designed to elevate the customer’s experience,” Bivona emphasizes.
The Kearney showroom was completed in November and is catering to building projects of all sizes, from remodels of kitchens and baths that easily run $8,000 to $10,000, to new home construction that can top $1.5 million.
She tapped Adam Goodwin, who works in marketing and advertising at Builders and has a strong background in design, to oversee the layout of the project and assimilate the various ideas and brainstorming sessions into a functional and inviting design that “made sense” within their selling process.
Builders businesses
Builders Warehouse
Builderscorp.com
Founder: Myron Andersen
Started: 1977
Employees: 400
Builders Kearney
4600 2nd Avenue
Kearney, Nebraska
Builders Grand Island
824 South Webb Road
Grand Island, Nebraska
Builders Colorado
17600 East Smith Road
Aurora, Colorado
Wholesale Manufacturing Operations:
Spelts Schultz – Countertops
Spelts Schultz – Trusses
“Selecting things for big projects is very overwhelming, so we wanted to find ways to minimize that and make it approachable and more user friendly,” Goodwin says.
It starts from the moment customers arrive at the dedicated entrance of the Design Center, which encompasses a third of the footprint in the 67,000-sq.-ft. Builders Kearney store. On entering the showroom space, customers are greeted by the Design Center coordinator who welcomes them into the space, offering refreshments for what often turns into lengthy visits with the Design Center professionals. The Design Center draws from a wide swathe of Nebraska, from Ogallala in the west, as far east as York, and even some from Northern Kansas and South Dakota. While locals may come more frequently for 30-minute or one-hour visits, others are known to spend three and four hours at a time, depending on what they want to accomplish that day.
“One of the things that’s unique to our showroom is a pull-out system that my father and another gentleman designed for our selection of windows and doors,” says Bivona, who — along with her brother — are now the second-generation owners of the business their father launched in 1977. “I’m in the Nebraska market and my brother is in the Colorado market.”
The efficient pull-out system makes the selection process much easier and more accessible for customers, as well as cuts down dramatically on the footprint necessary to showcase the products.
“With our unique pullout system, customers can view three styles of the Shaker or Mission door at one time, and know which one they want. Not only is it quick and easy for the customer, it’s also wildly more efficient for our sales team and we’re able to move through the process quickly,” Bivona says.
In a similarly unique innovation, the Kearney Design Center also features a long wall of large-scale slabs of quartz countertops.
“Because we also own the wholesale countertop division, Spelts Schultz, we’re able to display a third of a slab for each of the countertops — we ended up with around 25 samples on the quartz wall — and that has been a huge element for customers,” she says. “It’s a game-changer, because instead of making countertop decisions from a 12-inch by 12-inch sample, they see nearly the full slab.”
In addition to doors and windows, on the exteriors side of the showroom customers also find millwork, siding, stone, decking, fireplace, shingles, samples for every component of the home’s exterior. The interiors section is similarly outfitted but with fully outfitted kitchen displays, cabinetry and other elements important to today’s homeowners per the focus group studies: “We have a mud room, laundry room, and pet-friendly stations like a dog-washing element in some of those displays,” Bivona says.
While kitchen and bath remodels are always trending hot, Goodwin says, “Something we’re seeing that’s a new trend is an uptick in custom closets, homeowners are elevating those spaces with custom lighting, islands, and cabinetry. If you don’t show it, people may not think of it, so we’re showing more organizational options, like for pantries, and we’ve featured displays with good, better, best closet options.”
Large tables in the Design Center selection area provide ample space for house plans as well as samples. The end result is clean and clutter-free, helping to take the anxiety out of a situation that often produces sensory overload from the breadth of options available.
“For all of our selection areas within the design center it was important to have a single vantage point so you could be standing anywhere within a particular selection area and see all of your options without having to walk all over. Again, it’s all about convenience for our customers,” Bivona says.
Builders Kearney has everything needed for home construction from the basement to the roof, including all the finishing touches like hardware, light fixtures, window coverings, decorative plumbing, and a full Benjamin Moore paint center. “From the center of the design area our customers can see a majority of cabinetry, door styles and colors, and they can pivot slightly to see countertop selections, and backsplash options,” Bivona concludes. And from that centralized vantage point, customers easily narrow the options to their preferred choices.
