ICI Paint Colour Consultation

It isn’t very often that I have to say good things about products and services.

But when I do get the chance, believe me, it makes me very happy.

Because it does feel good to have a good experience and be treated well. Plus, it’s nice to share good experiences with others, so their lives can also be enhanced.

Today, it’ll be about paint. To be specific, ICI Paint’s customer service and their Colour Consultation service which is free till Dec 2007.

Just how impressed am I with ICI Paints’ customer response? Very impressed. But that’s not to say it wasn’t without hitches.

I visited both Nippon Paint and ICI Paint websites after working hours on a Wednesday night around 11pm or 12 midnight and put in a request for a colour catalogue.

What this means is that both companies have the same opportunity to open mail the following day and act on my request.

Response time? ICI – three days. Nippon – seven days. Yes. I received the ICI catalogue in my mailbox within three days. It was a Saturday.

What this meant was, I got to browsing the catalogue four days before the Nippon Paint catalogue arrived. And because it was a Saturday, I had the weekend to look through the catalogue.

When Nippon Paint sent their catalogue, what happened? I simply flipped through the Nippon Paint catalogue and left it on the shelf. This was because I’d already spent the last 4 days becoming invested in the ICI paint choices. Plus, it was a weekday, I thought, I’d look at it another day. But the other day never came. Sorry Nippon.

If the Nippon Paint catalogue had arrived earlier, closer to when the ICI paint catalogue arrived, it might have had a fighting chance. But no way now.

Furthermore, the ICI catalogue came with an ideas book: Inspirations – a tie up with furniture supplier Barang Barang. It’s not a place I would shop at. My friend even tells me the shop might have already gone out of business. But what it does is it gives you ideas. You may already have existing furniture that looks like the stuff Barang Barang sells. You can start to visualize your room.

And, this works well for the retailer as well. You, like me, may not be a Barang Barang customer, but after looking at the catalogue, you might be one.

The Nippon Paint catalogue had only one thing similar to the ICI Paint packet. It contained a cover letter with details of email addresses and whom to contact if you need more consultations.

Not bad, but not good enough. ICI Paint at this time, seems much more keen on getting my business. And it will.

To add icing on the cake, ICI Paint is having a free colour consultation till Dec 2007. This colour consultation, if memory serves me correctly, wasn’t that expensive in the first place.

How do you use the colour consultation service?

• Take a picture of the room showing at least 3 walls if you desire a two-tone room.
• Label directly on the picture what room it is.
  Naming the file after the room name is not good enough due to some stupid IT system ICI has.
• List any colours you may have considered for that room.
• Take the colour chemistry test that shows your colour personality.
  I did this, but I didn’t like the colours they recommended. Hmm…
• Take photos of your furniture that you have now that you want to move into the new room. State which room you want to put this furniture in. eg master bedroom furniture.
  Again, put this info ON the photo.

You can use their website to upload the pictures and such, but the best way is to email them so that you can put in as much detail as possible.

For this, you’ll need

• A camera with a wide angle lens.
  Or you’ll have to take two or more photos of the same room to get three walls in.
• A photo editing software that allows you to superimpose text on the photo.

Plus, you must provide, even though it doesn’t say specifically on the website, your

• Name.
• Address.
• Telephone number.

After sending in this information, you’ll receive an acknowledgement form, stating that the consultation will take five working days. If there’s missing information, they’ll contact you for it BEFORE proceeding with the consultation.

This is where things got a little dicey.

I sent in my request for a colour consultation with the photos.

It took ICI two days to respond by e-mail that I’d not included my contact information.

This bugged me. Why is it that a catalogue can arrive to me in three days by snail mail and a request for my contact information takes two days. Doesn’t match up.

When I replied it took them another day to respond that their colour consultants would get back to me by e-mail in five working days. That’s a total of three days since I posted my request.

10 days later, no reply.

I sent a query.

I got a reply in a day. They apologised and said they were understaffed at the moment and they’d get back to me in two days.

Not good.

After making a five day response promise and you don’t deliver?

Not good.

It’s okay if ICI had sent a notice apologising for delays and asking for more time BEFORE the five day promise of delivery, it’d be forgivable. But to apologise after your customer sends an email reminder, looks like you’re just inept and making excuses.

Not good.

Did I say that already?

But after that second promise of getting a response in two days, I did get an email from the colour consultant within a few hours.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the answer I was looking for.

I’d made the mistake of labeling my rooms with the file name. So for the master bedroom, I named it MasterBedroom.jpg But I should have typed ON the photo that it was the master bedroom.

Apparently, ICI has some strange e-mail system that somehow strips the names off the file names of the photos I sent.

I think this system is counter-intuitive to what many e-mail users are used to. We don’t expect file names to be stripped off the files we send as attachments to people. I will probably not be the only person who does this. ICI should change this part of their IT system.

So, from the intial colour consult request, it has been a good 14 days. And from the official acknowledgement of receipt, 12 days have passed. Much too many days from five days.

On the thirteenth day, I finally got my answer. Recommended colours from ICI.

I quite liked the colours of my living room but not of the bedroom.

Two days following that, the colour consultant followed up with an e-mail. Did you like the colours? Can I go ahead and send you a colour docket if you haven’t painted your room yet?

I replied that I was happy with the living room colours but not of the bedrooms. But he can go ahead and send me the colour docket.

That was the 25th of October.

31st of October, I receive the colour docket in a folder (first picture above) delivered by courier. In the folder, there’s a list of various ICI paints, the list of paints and code numbers suggested, a list of painters, a list of paint suppliers, all the photos of each room in new colours with the colour references.

The folder with the above mentioned informational leaflets sticking out a little.

The Living Room with our stated preferred colour of Mustard on the left and on the right, views of the Master Bedroom on the top and the other rooms on the bottom.

Colour swatches are referenced at the bottom of each photo.

The living room photo in detail. I took the photo, sent it to ICI, the put in the colours. Pretty good huh?

Okay, that’s all good. Very professional. Liked the courier delivery.

But what I’m not pleased with was this.

My e-mail stated that I didn’t really like the colours of the bedroom.

Yes, the colour consultant followed up by sending the colour docket. BUT, he didn’t ask what I didn’t like about the rooms. He didn’t try to take steps to find me something I did like.

This is a huge gap in their service.

Granted, I’m trying this free. But, one wonders if those who pay will have to suffer these gaps in service?

Still, I think they’re worth a try and if you’re going to pay for it, I guess you can insist on better follow up.

With so many hiccups, why am I still impressed?

Well, no company is perfect.

Initial responsiveness was top notch. Quick. I requested a catalogue, they sent me more than just the catalogue.

Customer follow up too was good. Every e-mail was responded to.

Finally although my colour consultation was free, they sent the final colour docket with all the necessary information – where to get paint, who to paint it for me – by courier, not normal mail. And that makes me feel important.

That being said, however, I am of the opinion that colour consultation should be free.

After all, the aim is to make paint and sell paint. That’s your main focus of business and everything that you do should be to that target.

Colour consulting gets people to see how your colours work, how they can make it work for them. And the more your business is seen as helping your customers get what they want, they will buy their paint from you.