IoT sensors were embedded into a mattress to analyze body contours and pressure points of a consumer and recommend a Best Fit.
American business author and former management professor at the University of New Orleans, USA, had said, “A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.”
It is, indeed, a universal truth. Businesses around the globe treat this as gospel and certainly give lots of impetus on customer satisfaction as one of the key barometers for success. Interestingly, while customer service is the biggest influencing criteria of customer satisfaction, there’s one aspect that comes close second in shaping up customer experience, which in turn impacts the topline and bottom-line of businesses – personalization.
The Genesys Global Survey established this fact a decade ago, stating that almost 40% of customers felt ‘personalization’ went into ensuring happy customer experience. As a noted marketer and speaker, Anne Gherini puts it, “Businesses often make decisions based on big data. Personalization, however, shifts the focus to the human connection.”
The market leader in the home comfort segment, understood this adage clearly and wished to further push the envelope in helping its customers find the perfect match when it came to personalized comfort of their mattresses. As the company’s information technology partner, Staqo was tasked to articulate the right answer to an age-old conundrum of helping customers find the right bed to sleep on that matches their body types.
It was obvious that any error in a recommendation of mattresses may prove disastrous to customer experience and brand loyalty, therefore necessitating the underlying technology to correctly generate and study a multitude of data points on body contours, pressure points, and the corresponding support by the underlying fabric of mattresses. Hence, algorithms running on the Internet of Things (IoT) became the centerpiece of the ingenious technology solution that Staqo devised for the organization to embed in the mattresses they produced, christened as the “Sensobed”. The result? The Sensobed played a significant role in increasing the market leader’s topline by 15% in the last fiscal year.
TAKING THE GUESSWORK OUT OF COMFORT
The organization is one of the leading manufacturers of furniture cushioning and foam-based home comfort products, with its presence in India, Australia, and Spain. With a rich legacy of over 50 years, it enjoys more than 23% share in the organized mattress market.
While mattresses with varying thickness and hardness were being manufactured for long, there was always an inherent lack of awareness among customers and dealers to determine the right match to different body structures. Without any scientific basis, customers made decisions on various mattress types either based on their liking or dealer’s recommendations.
Here, if a customer couldn’t articulate his sleep postures and body pressure points or if a dealer isn’t well-versed with the schematics of which mattress type is better for what body type, guesswork or perceptions prevail in the decision-making. Unfortunately, if the match isn’t perfect, then the customer ends up uncomfortable and antagonized.
To remove the guesswork out of the decision-making, the company worked with Staqo to develop algorithms to calculate even pressure distribution within a mattress by using various scientifically engineered materials, based on large-scale systematic research and customer feedback. Staqo created an IoT based Sensobed system, personalized to individual customers. Here, sensors are embedded into a mattress specifically designed to be placed at various retail outlets, allowing dealers to offer the personalized-mattress-determination service.
The special mattress, Sensobed, is fitted with a whole array of IoT sensors that scan the body structure and weight distribution when a customer lies down on it. The sensors measure these parameters and share them with the backend system hosted on the cloud. The algorithms process the captured parameters analyzing body support and comfort requirements of the customer, self-correcting based on his or her feedback, and recommend a mattress that perfectly matches the customer.
ALL’S WELL THAT SLEEPS WELL
Their IoT-driven personalized sleep solution is one of the pioneering technology-enabled mattress design concepts in the market that have revolutionized the field of ‘sleep technology.’ The solution has not only enhanced customer loyalty quite evidently but has also enabled a paradigm shift for the entire bedding industry. Additionally, the IoT solution has provided a considerable competitive advantage to the organization.
Sensobed has proven to be a major attraction among the prospective buyers of mattresses. The company’s IoT-driven personalized service to find the perfect match for a customer has found many takers as customers are increasingly realizing that a right fit significantly improves their sleep quality with a larger impact on their overall productivity and well-being.
The proof of the pudding lies in eating. The IoT-based sleep solution has catalyzed growth in their topline by 15% while contributing to its bottom line by 5% since the launch of the Sensobed concept. Moreover, it has helped them cement the company’s commitment to providing its customers with a perfect sleep, every time they tuck themselves in.