So you've got your customer interested, you've taken some measurements and you've talked it all through. You're on the verge of clinching the sale and the next stage - the presentation - is obviously crucial. So why do kbb showrooms vary so widely in their approach? And more importantly, who's getting it right?

Recently I spoke to kitchen specialist and entrepreneur Trevor Rolls who we featured in the June issue of kbbreview. I'll mention him first because he represents what some would see as the future for kbb stores - the high-tech CAD-based approach to presentation. His business - Aveo in Newbury - is split between Alno kitchen furniture and top-end audio visual equipment. And as you'd expect, he has some interesting and innovative theories on the best way to present his designs.

But at the other end of the scale you have the old school, drawing board approach. Time consuming certainly, but ultimately more satisfying for many customers. Typically, these are specialists who view CAD as something that all too easily converts a shop salesman or a former fitter into a 'designer' in a few simple keystrokes.

In the middle ground come a variety of other approaches to presentation, these largely dependant on available space in the showroom, your client base and your attitude to CAD versus the time-honoured drawing board approach. Do you sacrifice display space and have a dedicated presentation area in your showroom for example? Or do you simply sit your client down next to you at your workstation and present the whole thing on your PC? The choice is yours, but there's no doubt these kind of decisions will have a major impact on your sales. Even making sure a customer's children are kept occupied can be vital.

"There's two schools out there," Rolls tells me. "I visited a showroom recently where they had one guy at the back doing all the drawing work for them because he was the only one who knew how to use a computer. I can't get my head around that."

With a cinema room at his disposal, together with luxurious top-of-the-range sofas and 52in television screens, Rolls is in an enviable position when it comes to presentation. High quality images from a designer's laptop can be hooked up to a screen and shown in impressive scale, allowing clients to best appreciate what they're getting.

Plans are now under way to take this hi-tech approach a step further. "Any imagery we create for a client's kitchen design we'll now post up to a dedicated area on our web page," Rolls explains. "There'll be virtual post-it notes on there that they can write comments on, telling us what they think of the design. They can use this central area on the website, which is private to them, as a work in progress document and even let their friends log in to make comments themselves.

"The idea is that it resolves the problem of sending emails, which is very bitty. Here you have a logical flow. And if we do it cleverly we can restrict a lot of what they can do with the imagery. They can't print it, but they can still get full access to the content. We never want to take away the presentation in the showroom; people buy from people. It's a complement rather than a replacement."

The bigger picture

Joe Johal, owner of Vogue Kitchens in west London, is an admirer of Aveo's approach. "He's a one in a million character," he says. "We're tapping into his side of things so we try to find every avenue we can to present. Doing it in 3D on a laptop is all very well but you're limited. We prefer it on a big screen."

Johal's new Poggenpohl store uses three separate areas for presentation. "It's hugely important," he says. "Clients need to be wooed into buying. Look at when you buy a car, the key is the test drive. You can get the full experience."
But there's also obviously a cost issue here, and Johal admits some stores are unlikely to follow this lead. "We take a view on who we're presenting to, how much value there is in the potential order. We use expensive glossy paper to print the designs out too; the presentation is all very well but you need to back it up with something tangible."

However, the high-tech approach isn't to every retailer's taste. Ray Hudson, md of Potts bathroom showroom in Maidstone (see box-off) also uses three presentation areas, but says whether he uses CAD or hand drawn plans to present is down to the nature and value of the order. "I think too much emphasis is put on CAD," he insists. "I can sit down with a customer and a piece of paper and talk their room through. It's much more advantageous than taking a design, sticking it on a machine and giving the customer a presentation they don't like. Half an hour discussing with them before pen is put to paper saves a lot of time later."

Condescending

Tina Riley of Modern Homes in Leamington Spa goes further, arguing that a showroom presentation area is completely unnecessary. Clients are instead given a folder - a 'presentation package' - including a floorplan, perspective drawings, fitting details and a quotation. "Call me a maverick, but if you've done your job properly there's no reason to do a presentation," she insists. "If you've shown the products in here in the first place, which we do, and you've gone through the site survey process, and if your presentation package is up to scratch, how condescending that you have to drag the customer back in to tell them what you've done. If you've done it properly it should be blatantly obvious."

A range of views then, leading to a range of approaches. "Presentation areas can work well," concludes Dr Tim Denison, director of knowledge management at retail analyst SPSL. "Obviously in affluent areas it does have a role to play because you see something taking shape off a plan. So for people who like to see ideas generated quickly it works. It's a tool, but one of many and it will work for some and not others."

Denison believes Rolls' innovative ideas to provide web-based presentations can work in certain sectors of the market. "There's a role for that in mid to upper levels," he says, "where you've got busy professionals working in households where time is of the essence. They don't have time to go back and forth from architect to designer so having an opportunity to view things in your own environment has some legs, as long as it conveys reality, and can do the job it's designed to do. But you can't beat going into the showroom, physically touching the product and engaging with it."

Dr Tim Denison

The director of knowledge management at retail analyst SPSL, considers the best strategies to lure customers into buying big ticket items

The key thing is to convert as many visits as possible into sales. Clearly big ticket items are the area that's struggling the most at the moment and kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms fall squarely into that.

In the current market, you can't rely on static presentations doing the best job. You have to engage and interact with your customers. By and large it's couples coming in, and men in particular aren't very keen to engage with shop assistants or managers. They prefer to start off with non-human contact experience. So personally I think the best hooks are active displays or something with water flowing, or something a bit unusual that will engage a man in a physical way. If you've got a shower working, something quite engaging that will get that man interested, that's the kind of hook that might prove to be more successful in these difficult times. Gadgets are the things that provide that hook at the moment.

Once that's in place, it's really down to people performance, and the staff have a big job to play. It's about being flexible and working with your budgets. It's understanding who the shopper is and working together to realise the deal. There's a role for more up front honesty rather than dancing around the handbags.

A presentation area can work well, but the retailer needs to think seriously about what they want to use it for and whether it really makes a difference. It's horses for courses. It's a bit like going into a car showroom; you can be shown different models on a screen or you can be taken round. It works equally well for different audiences.

Make it work...

Kbb retailers explain their approach to showroom presentation

Ray Hudson, md, Potts kitchen and bathroom showroom, Maidstone

It's better to have a presentation area, it's much more personal than leaning on a basin with people going backwards and forwards. The CAD drawing can give us a 3D perspective quite easily, but it depends on the type of the project and the nature and value of the order as to what presentation works best. We've just done a £50,000 kitchen and it's all on hand drawing. It's more labour intensive but it gives a better impression. About 75% of presentations are done with hand drawing and 25% will have a full-blown perspective.
Retailers perceive CAD as being easier but it depends on how complex the job is. If there's a lot of design work it's hard to do it in CAD. My old boss used to say, 'if you can draw it you can make it.' If you can't draw it, you can't make it and I think CAD allows you to draw things you can't make. If you're trying to make a full room setting it's very hard on CAD.
In the bathroom side of the store we have three presentation areas, two of those have plasma screens for CAD design or they can also be used for hand drawn. They're still within the showroom because I don't like the idea of hemming people in somewhere else.

Chris Lewis, md, Peter Thompson of York

Our presentation area doubles as a study display. We wanted a salubrious area where we could sit down with a coffee and spread the plans out. We have a Bang and Olufsen moveable plasma screen on the wall. The screen is linked to the internet and to our own computer systems. We have the ability to show aesthetic computer drawings and gain information from our computer system - things like letters, reports and estimates. We use Planit software but they've had an awful struggle creating a system tied to our bespoke products.

Tina Riley of Modern Homes kitchen and bathroom store in Leamington Spa

We don't do presentations. We have a folder with things like quotes, a fully itemised breakdown, a floorplan, perspective drawings and an installation qualification. So how could customers not know what they're getting? If I'm doing my job right I don't have to do this closing deal. 
Why would you have a plasma screen when you have all of this? We send this in the post and they come back clutching the drawings and they've written all over them because they've physically got that document. That's our working presentation, but it's all about giving them time to digest that at home and giving them an option as to when they choose to come back to me. Then I demonstrate with the products, what better way than to physically open a drawer and explain things?
To try to do a big presentation when we know we're not going to be right first time is pointless. If you've got the right information from the customer, you don't spec it until you know it's right for them. What we do is presentation enough. I've been told it's the wrong thing to do at KBSA meetings. I know it's not the perceived way of doing it, but we're still here after 40 years.

Sue Humpries, design manager, Kitchen Consultants, Cambridge

Years ago we did everything by hand, but it took forever. A clever designer will design the all singing, all dancing version. But equally they'll have something else - sometimes we can present two quotes and two designs and say this is what you've asked me to do but this is what will fit the budget. There's nothing worse than over engineering something and the client scuttles away saying it's too much money.
You have to have a presentation area for each designer. We have a separate table and chairs because sometimes people like to sit at a table. If they're coming in with an architect's plans quite often you want to spread out and go through your options. It's very important that your clients feel comfortable.
However, we still produce a complete working plan as a printed A1 drawing. It's unusual these days. A lot of our clients are in the extension and new build market so we produce a full wiring, plumbing and flooring diagram to go with our kitchens. You don't get enough detail for the tradesmen otherwise.
We have a big open plan showroom and each designer has their own workstation with a printer. We present in the showroom and clients like to be able to sit with you; it's a nice ambience. It's bad to have your designers locked away in an office somewhere. A busy environment is more relaxing than a quiet showroom where nothing is happening. There's no problem with confidentiality - our showroom is big enough to ensure we don't get overheard.