Hi Peeps,
We recently had a customer come into our showroom to purchase a fireplace.
Nothing unusual..
We spent some time with her, as she required us to go through a number of package deals and non-package deals to see which one was most appropriate for her needs.
After looking at the fireplaces, we moved onto stone – this particular lady was interested in tumbled travertine.
It’s interesting how Travertine is becoming more and more popular with our customers, especially those Travertine stones with gold colours within..
The golden blend does tend to up the price; but still, as with all stones, there can be less expensive options too..
As a designer of stone fireplaces, I like most forms of Travertine! There are many variations to choose from… For example; Travertine is naturally a holey stone. Travertine can be left in its natural form – it can also be filled and honed, or, as previously mentioned, it can be tumbled..
Some of the travertine stones have clear golden patches, whereas others have none or almost no gold at all!
Heck it’s a matter of choice I suppose..
Anyway!
The Lady..
Having chosen the fireplace and the stone she wanted, (of course, with the kind assistance of one of our skilled sales team), she left the store and bought the fireplace from one of our online competitors! (A competitor who does not have a tangible showroom and customer service facility and probably, the years of experience I will hasten to add)
I know all of this, because the Lady, after purchasing it from our competitor, came back to us to fix the problems with their installation.
The rest is history really.. The Lady ended up paying way more than she would have paid, not to us specifically, but for the whole job!
My advice in this case, is that if you get advice from one fireplace showroom, don’t expect the same level of service from another company in the same industry, just because they are in the same line of work – everyone is different after all!
Ciao for now, Buck!
