Miele Inspirience Center

The heart of the experience is driven by its personalization. To visit the Inspirience Center in Vianen (The Netherlands) a customer must register including providing demographic information and answering a questionnaire. The visitor is then given an iPod Touch to carry with them throughout the showroom. In addition to providing contextual product information on its screen, the iPod is able to track the visitor’s path through the showroom. This allows Miele to personalize the content on its digital signage to target that visitor’s preferences (as gleaned from the questionnaire) as well as allowing them to gather additional information about the customer’s preferences by evaluating where they lingered and what products they most gravitated towards. 

Also interesting is that scent has been integrated into the experience. Because of the nature of its products, Miele recognized that the smells associated with its products (fresh laundry, for instance, or brewing coffee) are strongly evocative. Because they generally evoke positive emotions, scents can be purchase influencers. And because of the pre-registration of visitors, Miele can customize the aroma experience just as it does the visual experience.

With this experience, Miele is clearly at the cutting edge of high-end, personalized, experiential retail. Obviously this approach would not work for every brand, or even most brands, but there are certainly lessons to be gleaned from what they are doing that are applicable even into more mass market and consumable retailing.

Source: Miele