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User Stories: Winspear Instrumental - helping users find their perfect product fit with an interactive calculator

Winspear Instrumental using an interactive gauge calculator

Challenge: How to help customers choose the right product in the online store?

Solution: Interactive calculator identifying customer needs and suggesting the right product fit for the user.

Result: Increased website sales and external exposure from guitarists that link to the interactive calculator in forum discussions as a helpful tool, not directly advertising the product but often earning a sale in the process.

Did you know that the best instrument parts and their accessories sometimes travel across the whole world until the artist assembles the perfect equipment just for himself?

And the guitar industry is no exception. You probably know that each guitar has a unique sound that has to meet the feel and power of its owner. But how does a business work when your product is not about meeting the standard, but each individual sense and needs?

This post is about a company selling guitar accessories however it’s not for nothing their products travel across the globe!

Background and challenges

Introducing you to a company which mastered the craftsmanship of guitar accessories as well as ecommerce business! So, founded in 2013 in the United Kingdom, a small family operation dedicated to providing thousands of guitarists around the world with highest quality guitar accessories - Winspear Instrumental company, managed by its owner - Tom Winspear.

Don’t get confused by the so-called small family operations - this company provides guitarists with guitar plectrums and other guitar accessories such as cables and strings all around the world with distributors even in Australia! And above that, they’re keeping to operate with the best reviews about their service and products no matter where you look. Now that’s what we call a quality business.

Our plectrums are designed to relieve hand stress and our string sets for a very balanced instrument feel.

Tom Winspear, Director of Winspear Instrumental Company

But can you imagine advising worldwide clients on the “feel” and balance of their strings? It appears different guitar strings have a different feel and different sound, and what’s more, they can be adjusted. So a customer on another side of the world relies only on recommendations and the information on the e-shop. This reveals the importance of reviews, reputation, and the musical community as well as the perfect user experience on the e-commerce website.

Yet the crucial pain point of such an e-shop remains - how to recommend the right product for the potential customer without the need for a huge support team, right?

Tom Winspear, Director of Winspear Instrumental Company

most questions can be answered with math - and I myself was referring to more complicated 3rd party calculators. The only other (and much more common) approach is trial and error purchasing.

Tom Winspear, Director of Winspear Instrumental Company

Interactive calculators - save time for the business, provide an answer to the customer in clicks

If a business is managed well, you have to find ways to grow, handle more customers, and handle them better. With an interactive calculator, Tom Winspear managed to take a huge load of questions related to string gauges off his shoulders.

Years of answering many similar questions about choosing the right product certainly gave the experience to perfectly understand the need of each client. All this knowledge put into an interactive gauge calculator was a brilliant solution from both perspectives. Fast and easy support on product choice as well as saved time for the quality service.

I don't think I ever used customer service - implementation was very straightforward which is great

Tom Winspear, Director of Winspear Instrumental Company

Now the amazing part is the calculator perfectly complements the checkout. It provides recommendations according to customer preferences on the string gauges they should choose and then just below they can order the right guitar string sets and proceed to checkout. The perfect sequence acts as a great funnel that leads a prospect to a smooth conversion. Without any unnecessary information.

Other calculators from competitors tend to involve very specific input of their current instrument setup and deal with translating actual tensions in pounds. I decided to keep that stuff hidden and make it very simple so anyone would understand.

Tom Winspear, Director of Winspear Instrumental Company

Winspear interactive calculator predicts which size strings customers will like the feel of when changing instrument size or instrument tuning, helping them make the right purchase the very first time.

And no matter the niche you only need to figure out what your customers need the most, what are the pain points you have to address and the calculator could be the perfect solution to remove the doubts in a few clicks.

I did have doubts that anything so simple would be possible given the quite specific and niche need - but it was perfect.

Tom Winspear, Director of Winspear Instrumental Company

Interactive gauge calculator Winspear Instrumental

Results: Top quality product + Top UX = Success

The results are obvious - top quality product combined with top user experience and customer support creates a successful business that speaks for itself.

I have had plenty of feedback on how useful it is and plenty of customers prefer it to alternatives. It is also very useful to be able to link to it as one guitarist helping another on forum discussions, not directly advertising my product but often earning me a sale in the process.

Tom Winspear, Director of Winspear Instrumental Company

Conclusion

These users' stories help to present the yet undiscovered ways to use interactive calculators. Every e-shop can find a way to adapt calculators to their business and tackle customer problems or doubts in a few clicks. In this case, once structured right, interactive calculators can help the user choose the right product on your e-commerce store even if it depends on the prospects' feel and many preferences.

Gintė @calconic: Hope you enjoyed Tom's story. If you’d like to share your interactive calculator and become our next User story. Leave a comment below!

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