A young professional, Emily recently moved to a new city and is settling into her position at a tech startup. After visiting a friend’s apartment and being impressed by its stylish palette, sleek cabinetry and graphic wallpaper, Emily realizes that the time has come to feather her own eggshell-colored nest and bring a trendier, more personalized touch to her living space.
At her friend’s urging, Emily begins an online search for a paint color to be the foundation of her design. After hours of clicking through countless blog posts, inspiration boards, videos and Insta feeds, Emily is smitten by her ideal neutral: a glamorous gray called Metropolitan. As she studies the color online, a live chat bubble pops up, offering to help answer her questions. Emily asks how well Metropolitan works in open-concept areas and gets a few tips on playing up its cool undertones with accent colors and décor pieces.
The live expert suggests that before Emily grows too enamored with any shade she sees on screen, she should order paint chips to see how they actually appear in her home. Within 48 hours, the chips arrive along with an offer for a risk-free trial of paint. With every sample pint, the cost comes off the gallon when the customer is ready to do the project.
Emily returns to the website to order a sample of Metropolitan. Figuring she will want to shop for a good paint brush in store, She selects store-pickup and is given the option of the two closest stores to her office. She decides she’ll pop out on her break, so she selects a pickup time two hours from now.
Upon arrival, her sample is ready at the order desk, but she heads over to the color studio to take a closer look at the dramatic navy’s she’s been seeing on Instagram. She pulls out her phone, and scrolls to her saved posts on Instagram. Hale Navy, that’s the one she saw trending.
Alex, a store associate, asks Emily about the project she’s working on. She tells him the story of being inspired by her friend’s fabulous apartment as she scrolls through her phone’s camera roll.
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To get a better handle on what Emily is envisioning, Alex takes her over to a large computer screen in the center of the color studio. With a click of the mouse, they are instantly online and Emily pulls up the Pinterest board she has curated. Being able to view Emily’s pins helps Alex make informed color suggestions, and by sharing ideas, they create a new inspiration board that is saved and sent to her email address.
Returning home with her pint of paint and a handful of sample color cards, Emily notices that there are QR codes on the back of each card. Scanning the code allows her to view the colors online, read real user reviews and admire homeowners’ project photos featuring those hues.
Emily carries the color cards in her tote for several days, collecting the opinions of friends and co-workers and color matching possible home furnishings and accessories. While texting with her mom back home, she shares the link to her inspiration board – after all, it wouldn’t hurt to get her mom’s opinion.
She remains torn between two colors for the accent wall, not to mention which wall should be featured. Feeling uncertain, Emily revisits the paint website’s live chat and books a 30-minute digital color consultation with a professional design consultant who views her living space through live video. By the end of the session…
Emily chooses her color palette, finalizes her design plan – and is ready to begin.
She orders the paint online during her commute home after work, once again relying on the live chat to determine the proper sheen for the trim. The live expert also reminds Emily to choose a fluffy paint roller for the textured ceiling. She adds one to her shopping cart before checking out, choosing pick up over home delivery so that she can review each step of the painting process in person with a member of the design team.
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Emily confidently rolls up her sleeves and gets down to painting. She paints most of the space herself but decides that she’d rather have a professional painter tackle some of the higher-reach areas. Still being fairly new to the city and unfamiliar with local contractors, Emily refers to the paint website’s “Find a Painter” link and fills out a form describing her project. By morning, she has a list of qualified contractors delivered to her inbox, each one with excellent recommendations and confirmed availability within her requested time frame.
*****
Two weekends later, Emily is relaxing at home, sipping a latte and browsing the day’s headlines when a message from Alex pops up on the screen.
“Hey Emily – hope you’re loving the new space. I bet the colors you chose turned out great! When you have a chance, please send us the before and after pics and some feedback about the colors so that we can share your experience with other customers.”
As she uploads a few images to go along with her review, Emily glances around at her surroundings. She smiles with pride, feeling uplifted by her positive buying experience, pleased with her color selection, and most of all, perfectly at home in her gorgeous new space.
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