From Good Furniture to Great Furniture

How do you make the leap from good to great in furniture designs? One way is to involve your customers in developing new products. That’s what Hooker had in mind when our former CEO Clyde Hooker Jr. and sales executive Bill Slaydon began our Design Meetings in the 1960s. One of the core values of Hooker Furniture is listening.

Velvet Lettner of Selden's in Tacoma

Our semi-annual Design Meetings are a forum created for the purpose of listening to our customers. The Design Meetings provide a tangible way to listen through getting customer input on new product development. We like to call it “collaborative product development.”

Just last week, some 50 sales representatives and retail customers attended our most recent Design Meeting, held in our Sam Moore and Bradington-Young showrooms. With the June heat outside, the cool days of October, when the next High Point Market will be held, seemed far away. But the input given by our customers this June will shape our product introductions at both the October 2010 and April 2011 international High Point Markets.

Retail merchants – buyers and store owners – walked through our showrooms examining product prototypes, with clip boards and evaluation sheets in hand. For a dozen furniture categories ranging from home office desks and credenzas to TV consoles to bedroom, casual dining, living room accents and upholstery, they rated their top choices. In addition to ranking the prototypes, they also provided input on how to make the furniture better, by tweaking the finish, hardware, scale or function. Velvet Lettner, a retail buyer from Seldon’s Home Furnishings in Tacoma, Washington was one of the participants. Over a delicious lunch in our showroom cafeteria, Velvet shared what she enjoys most about design meetings. “When I first started coming, I saw that Hooker really listens to what I have to say and it makes a difference in how they refine the products,” she said. “It is neat to see the results of our input and to watch a product go from infancy here at the Design Meeting to a better product out on the sales floor.”

The Design Meeting is also a forum for building relationships. We had a wonderful dinner at the String & Splinter Country Club on the first night, and many enjoyed a round of golf at Grandover Country Club on Friday afternoon. It just reminds us how great it is to be part of the furniture industry, which is like a big family.