Hobson's Choice Client Journey – explained by Richard Carter, Managing Director

The client journey Hobsons Choice is pretty straightforward; it all starts with a client either phoning us or popping into the showroom. They meet one of us, either myself or one of the design team, and spend some time looking around the showroom. We explore the product displays, discuss your project and begin to understand what you’re after in terms of service and product.

The next step is to either come and see you, look at your property in more detail, and carry out a full survey. Or, if it’s a new build we’re talking about, we would sit down and look at plans or work with your architect to review the drawings.

There’s a lot of early discussions, learning about the project’s real nature. If it’s a renovation, if it’s changing an old kitchen into a new one, then critical for us that we delve into what you liked and didn’t like about your previous kitchen. But it’s also an opportunity to embrace new things. Technologies move on, so we would spend some time introducing clients to the latest technologies or items that are not so new, but they’re new to them – for example, steam cooking.

And once we’ve learned a lot about the client, we were then able to start helping them develop or create the brief and then work on that brief to come up with an initial proposal. Although we hope to get pretty close on that first proposal, it’s quite unlikely that we hit it ‘bob-on’ first time. It is a working document, and we work in collaboration to make sure that we’re getting everything absolutely right.

By the time that we’re moving forward on a project, when we do finally get to the point of progressing to order, then the process is that we ask a client for a 50% deposit of the order value. We then place all products on order, secure delivery dates from the factory, and book our installation team slots.

Those dates are fixed, and we’re very good at holding them. Sometimes if we’re working for clients on building projects, we find that their building projects can slip a little bit. And if that happens, it’s no problem. The more we communicate, the better. We can then try and accommodate new timings.

When it comes to the project installation, if we’re not carrying out all of the work, the plumbing preparation, the electrical preparation, the plastering, we would be working in conjunction with the clients own building trades. Be the main contractor or individual tradesmen.

We would provide complete mechanical and electrical drawings and all the information they need to ensure that that room is prepared, precisely as it has to be, ready for the new kitchen.

As we get close to the installation date, we would be in a lot more contact to make sure that everything is as we require it to be. We then invoice another interim payment which is 45% of the value, and that’s just prior to delivery. We then arrive on-site with our installation teams to carry out the installation. Your designer will still be very present through installation and your one point of contact.

Whilst our installers are very educated, very skilled Craftsman, who will very happily reassure you, your designer is still your first point of contact. You’ve not been moved onto an installation team; your designer is still your project manager and is the person to call with even the tiniest concern. Go to your designer, and they will make sure that it’s conveyed and sorted.

It’s the designer who will be with you at the end of the project to make sure that we’re all thrilled with the quality of the installation. It’s not uncommon for a designer or myself to pick up on a minute detail that we think could be marginally improved – a detail that could have escaped your attention but one we consider critical. That’s important to us.

And at that stage, when everybody is happy with everything, and you’ve had the chance to try all your appliances and understand how everything works, we would be issuing the final invoice to sign and close the project off.

But that’s kind of the start of the new part of the journey together, which is where you’re frequently invited to cooking demos and showroom events that we hold for new and existing customers – an excellent opportunity to get to know the appliances you have had installed.

And we remain entirely on-call, so if there is a problem with the kitchen, let us know. But more than that, if you are trying to use an appliance and can’t quite get out of it what you were hoping to, or it’s not doing what you thought it might do, then keep in touch because we’re always here to support you.