All part of the service

Expert advice comes free at many of our DIY shops. Alison Cork discovers that among the services being offered are online decorating programs, gift-wrapping, kitchen planning and colour advice

IT IS probably no coincidence that just as we find ourselves in a period of economic slowdown, the homeware market comes up with some novel ways to secure customer loyalty and spending. No longer just about piling the shopping trolley with paint, DIY stores are attempting to seduce us by going glam.

First off the blocks is the West Thurrock branch of B&Q, which has just launched "Pisas" (personal in-store advisors). Pisas are experts in the fields of plumbing, painting and decorating, horticulture, interior design, power tools and electrics, and their sole job is to advise customers. You can either ask for them while you are in the store or make an appointment for an hour's face-to-face "quality time", when they will help you to plan a bathroom, colour scheme or garden, free of charge.

I tried out the service with a fictitious bathroom needing a cosmetic overhaul.

Brett Massey, the resident interior designer, set to work advising me on changing bath panels, painting tiles, altering the floor and transforming the colour scheme.

If you are not the most confident DIYer it is, undoubtedly, a helpful service and highlights products and applications you otherwise wouldn't know about. While there is always a limit to how much time the store can afford to dedicate to any particular customer (in this case an hour), it beats wandering down windswept aisles chasing invisible staff, only to corner a self-conscious youth who knows less about DIY than your kid sister.

Other services that B&Q offers is its price promise: if you find something that the company stocks cheaper elsewhere, B&Q will sell it to you at the same price, plus a further 10 per cent discount. At certain points around the store you can find advice leaflets on everything from fitting a door lock to digging a pond. But as the saying goes, if you ask you will almost certainly receive, and there are some unsung gems.

If you request it, staff will come to your home (again, without charge) to plan your kitchen or conservatory in situ; definitely a step up from the now commonplace instore computer-design systems.

Unofficially, and only at Thurrock, assistants will fill out, submit and nurse through any necessary planning applications; a service which has to be worth its weight in gold.

If you dig really deep, you discover that B&Q operates a Green Grant scheme, whereby each store has four 500 grants to give to schools and other worthy institutions specifically for creating gardens.

And, no doubt encouraged by the plethora of TV makeover shows and homes exhibitions, the company also has mini in-store "amphitheatres" where regular DIY, design and garden demonstrations take place. Add to that a plant hospital and you have the new reconstructed DIY store of the future, along with its own "university" dedicated to training staff. It isn't perfect and there is still an average customer-to- staff ratio of 70:1, but it is clearly a step in the right direction.

OTHER home stores, such as Homebase, Wickes and Focus Do It All, are also offering customer services including helplines and free planning and design services. Where the one-to-one service ends, the websites pick up. The Homebase website has everything from flow charts on how to plan your DIY workload to illustrated project guides. Any power tool purchased online will be gift-wrapped; now there's a thought for Christmas.

All the main DIY store websites are well laid out and packed with information. On B&Q's website there is also an online advice service where an expert answers emailed queries within 24 hours.

But the prize for most fun on a website has to go to Dulux for its mouse-led painting service. You can play for hours, dragging colour swatches onto a picture of a room and see the walls, bed linen and even the lamp shades instantly transformed with your chosen shade. It's a surprisingly effective tool and quite addictive.

You can also call the company's colourdesign studio for advice and, as per the recent advertising campaign, get the people there to match a colour sample by sending in practically anything in that colour.

Dulux even attempts to source reliable decorators for you.

It's not just the big boys courting customers with advice and special treats.

Even medium-sized businesses such as the Wood Floor Studio are joining in.

It has a comprehensive guide on " choosing, buying, maintaining and enjoying your wood floor" for the price of a telephone call. Of course, it's all aimed at bringing people through the door, but it's the customer who wins when business gets competitive.

The bottom line is that buying from DIY stores will never be quite as glamorous as retail therapy at Harvey Nichols. But the combined strengths of Pisas, technical advice lines, fact-filled websites and online painting technology, certainly make it more fun than it used to be. And with everyone so much better informed, buying at these stores is better value, too.

Alison Cork is a writer and broadcaster specialising in lifestyle. Visit her website at www.alisonathome.com.

Copyright 2001
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.