The challenge

How do you transform a successful product focus into an even more successful customer experience approach? And how do you scale this customer-centric approach to fit the audiences across 13 different markets?

These were the two major challenges facing Kvik – a leading manufacturer of affordable Danish design kitchens, bathrooms, and wardrobe furniture.

Since 2020, Merkle has helped Kvik create a digital presence guided by an overall digital vision that buying a kitchen should be as fun and enjoyable as living in it.
 

The approach

Building Kvik’s new website the goal was not only to provide valuable guidance but also to  offer a genuinely joyful aesthetic experience. And even if Kvik is a design-driven company at heart, the digital channels have been focused more on utility and performance.

Now Kvik is aiming for the best of both worlds, with a completely revamped digital design language drawing directly on Kvik’s rich physical design heritage.

The overarching digital concept finds all of its design principles from Kvik’s iconic logo, font and iconography.

The kitchen cabinet design has inspired the guiding grid and shape of content modules, templates and page layouts.

The new design language system provides structure and consistency across the site, all brought to life by fluid and sophisticated frontend animations. 

Likewise, the familiar features we experience in kitchens – the soft close of a drawer, or a gentle nudge to close a fridge door – have informed the interaction and motion design principles of Kvik’s digital design system. Elements are snapping and sliding gently into place.

The result is a new website that delivers an on-brand design experience to embody Kvik’s renowned promise of  “Danish Design at surprisingly low prices”.

The outcome

The new Kvik website had many success criteria to deliver on.

A major outcome is to finally have a website as beautiful as the products featured on it, while mirroring key product values like ease of use, functionality, and thought-through details.

The unified comprehensive design system allows Kvik to build and iterate digital products much faster, staying flexible and responsive to customer, vendor and market needs – while still controlling a consistent brand experience across markets.

Overall improved customer experience shows up in the new website having delivered an 11% decrease in bounce rates and greater customer satisfaction.

A completely reimagined booking flow is designed to guide the customers through to the right salesperson based on location, interest, and type of meeting, providing a better customer experience in the final meeting.

Ultimately, great digital design is also reflected on the bottom line: Conversion rates (web visits leading to “book a meeting”) are up from 2021 to 2022 across the board: 20% in Denmark, 10% in Norway, 8% in Sweden and almost 60% in Germany.