The spring of 2015 brought about some exciting changes at kitchenCRATE, among them the launch of our franchising entity, a website redesign, and an all-new tagline.
As we worked through the process of franchising, we realize how critical it is that our processes, marketing, and mission can scale. It does us no good to have a piece of our business process that can’t be replicated, tested and measured across an infinite number of locations. We realized our tagline no longer passes this test.
Since we launched kitchenCRATE we’ve had a single, simple tagline as part of our marketing process: “Kitchen remodel. 7 days. Less than $15k.” And it’s worked well. Concise. To the point. Buzz-worthy.
But over the past year, we’ve noticed a recurring phenomenon in your customer testimonial responses. We collect testimonials from 95% of customers and publish them, in all their glory, on our project blogs. And we’ve noticed, time and time again, that the things you love most about our brands are not in alignment with our tagline.
What do you, our valued customers, love?
- The speed and efficiency of the kitchenCRATE system, and the fact that we’re not disrupting critical parts of your home for more than a few days at a time.
- The quality of our team members; the workers in the field that make it all happen.
- The simple, step-by-step process that takes you from “I need a remodel” to “I love my remodel” in just a few weeks.
- The quality of the finished product, and the ability to use an endless possibility of selected finishes.
- The CRATE, and the fact that we literally deliver a mobile job-site hub the night before the project starts, stocked with all the items needed for that particular project. This eliminates the mess in your home of tools, appliances and the like being stored in adjacent rooms, and also reduces the time it takes to accomplish your project.
Quite simply, our tagline was not 100% aligned with what you love about us. And that’s “bad branding” 101.
In addition, the tagline proved to have some serious drawbacks, both short term, and long term:
- It implies lesser quality – We’ve heard it from you before; you almost didn’t call because you assumed a low price point was achieved by compromising quality. We wonder how many have actually not called because of this…
- It attracts unreasonable bargain-hunters – We often get calls from folks wanting to know if they can “do theirs for, like, $5,000?” While this is understandable, it’s not feasible. And our tagline is to blame for attracting a lead with this particular mindset.
- Most of you want add-ons – One of the biggest surprises of our kitchenCRATE and bathCRATE products is how frequently you want add-ons (items above and beyond our standard package of services). This is understandable; why not add a few things that you’ve always wanted while the remodel is in progress. But the result is a final project price and timeline that exceed our tagline statement, and while this is completely understandable when explained, it feels a bit inauthentic.
- We can’t scale it – As we head towards the creation of our Franchise Disclosure Documents we are getting a big lesson in what we can and can’t require our future franchisees to do. And when it comes to fixed pricing, we get into some tricky situations with franchise law (governed both federally and on the state level in many states). Trying to force a franchise to comply with a fixed price structure would be nearly impossible. Additionally, each region would need to have it’s own price structure, requiring a separate tagline for each region, which becomes a marketing nightmare and incredibly confusing to customers. (“Wait, why is my Orange County kitchen more than a Central Valley kitchen…”)
- Does not allow for a three-tier price structure – A huge milestone we achieved this spring was developing a three-tier price structure for kitchens (two-tier for bathrooms). This allows us to offer three different products to meet three different customer needs: kitchenCRATE Refinish, kitchenCRATE Classic, and kitchenCRATE Premium. Each product has its own time and cost parameters, and of course, each product has different features. Obviously, this would not work with our current taglines, causing much confusion as to which product we are referring to.
And like any significant decision that impacts our business, with this process comes fear and apprehension. But after much thought, we realize these fears are unfounded. The phone will keep ringing because we have a great product that customers LOVE at the end of the job, and that’s what you care about most.
Scott Monday is co-founder and CEO of kitchen & bath CRATE. Follow him on Facebook or Linked-In.
