December 1, 2017

Path Velocity recently conducted an online survey of 1,125 U.S. homeowners on the impact of customer experience and personalization on overall satisfaction with home improvement products. Homeowner respondents had either purchased a home improvement product in the prior 36 months or planned to purchase one within 18 months from 14 different building product categories.

The survey examined the following:

• The impact of 11 customer experiences on homeowner satisfaction with a home improvement product
• The level of homeowner interest in personalized experiences with home improvement products
• The impact of nine specific personalized experiences on homeowner satisfaction
• The 11 types of consumer data homeowners will share for a personalized experience
• The importance of 13 attributes for a satisfying experience with a home improvement product
• The 10 social platforms and review sites homeowners use to share their satisfaction with home improvement products

Key findings from the survey include:

• The experience of comparing home improvement products and brands and getting their questions answered has greater or equal impact on homeowner satisfaction than product performance, installation or customer support/service.
• Three out of four homeowners are interested in personalized experiences with home improvement products, while one in four are very to extremely interested.
• Personalized offers and product information have greater impact on homeowner satisfaction than personalizing or customizing the product itself.
• Personalized alerts and messages only impact satisfaction with one out of four homeowners.
• Four out of 10 homeowners will share home information and décor preferences for a personalized experience, while only one out of 10 will share their family member or mobile phone Information.
• More than twice as many homeowners are satisfied by effective, convenient, efficient and easy experiences versus those that are proactive, innovative and engaging.
• Homeowners are six times more likely to share their satisfaction with a home improvement product on retailer websites, consumer review sites and Facebook versus sharing it on Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram or Houzz.

The survey was conducted using Survey Monkey’s Audience panel from May 25-29, 2017. 881 of the respondents had purchased home improvement products in the prior 36 months, and 708 of the respondents planned to purchase home improvement products within 18 months. At a 95 percent confidence level, a margin of sample error of +/- 3.2 percent applies. Figures for gender and geography were weighted where necessary to match their actual proportions in the population.