John Lewis & Partners talks Marxent 3D visualisation tech roll-out

Karen Reeves, Customer Experience & Retail Transformation Manager, John Lewis & Partners, tells RTIH about the retailer’s 3D commerce journey and its trial and roll-out of Marxent technology.

RTIH: Tell us about your role within John Lewis 

KR: My role at John Lewis & Partners is to lead the end-to-end customer experience in our expert led services.  

One of these is the Home Design Service, which connects 150 qualified interior designers with customers in free virtual and in-store appointments. 

Over the past 18 months, we have trialled 3D/2D visualisation tools and AR/VR technology as an enhancement to this service, recognising the customer need for visual inspiration and an understanding of fit, shape, and colour of our products in their homes. 

RTIH: How did you come to invest in Marxent’s 3D Cloud technology?

KR: We first trialled Marxent’s technology 18 months ago in Horsham, Cambridge, and Kingston stores. 

We focused on supporting a customer's sofa or furniture purchases with in-store VR headsets and the ability to bring their products to life with interactive 3D on television screens. 

This had a positive impact on both conversion and return rate, as customers had more confidence in their choices. 

The most successful part of the trial was the ability to email an accurate 2D floor plan and 3D visualised image of a customer's room, which is the main part of the technology that we have carried forward into the Home Design Service and which is now on offer across our estate.

RTIH: What were the key takeaways from the trial? 

KR: From our previous trials, it is clear that customers gain greater levels of confidence in their purchase when they are able to visualise the products in their home. 

By supporting customers in their decision making, giving them inspiration and advice via our Home Design Stylists, we saw a positive impact on both sales and conversion rates from interactions. 

Customer feedback was that designs were professional, inspiring and made them feel excited and engaged in their projects.

RTIH: You are now bringing the experience to high street customers as part of free home design appointments. How is that going?

KR: Initial feedback from the Marxent experience being rolled out to all Home Design customers is really positive. 

Our designers love the tool because it is easy to use and saves them time, being able to generate realistic plans for customers in a few clicks. 

Customers have commented that receiving a moodboard with visualised images of ideas is amazing and helps a lot in understanding what furniture is needed and how it will look in a room.

RTIH: Has the pandemic accelerated the business case for technology like this?

KR: During the Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020, we migrated all of our expert led services online, offering one-to-one free video appointments. 

This has meant the acceleration of virtual services as we saw a huge demand from our customers to be connected with experts, seeing 5,000 video consultation bookings in the first 12 weeks. 

Virtual interactions have become part of our standard advice services and to complement this offer accelerated the case for visualisation tools to be available to our stylists. 

It ensures that customers are able to see products in a more realistic setting without needing to go to a physical store, and makes us more operationally efficient. 

We expect this to accelerate the use of visualisation tools on our website and across the home assortment. 

RTIH: Being an early technology adopter brings benefits but also challenges. What have been the main ones in your experience?

KR: The biggest challenge in being an early adopter has been ensuring that our staff and customers understand the technology and how it works. 

In our case, we launched our initial trial with a small team of Partners, who have acted as champions for the wider roll-out, they have tested, tweaked and improved the tool so it has been fine-tuned.

The Marxent tool is already really intuitive, so we have found that once customers and partners are introduced to it, they enjoy experimenting with it and learn how to use the best features quickly.  

My key takeaways would be at the outset you have to ensure that both staff and customers understand why technology supports their journey, what value it can add to their purchase, and that the technology is seamlessly integrated across multiple platforms.