A show of support

Installers of composite doors look set to enjoy a major boost in sales and margins thanks to Endurance Doors. Scott Foster, sales and marketing director, explains more.

As a business, Endurance Doors has never been the kind of company to do things by halves. In order to create differentiation between ourselves and other composite door manufacturers, we’ve always focused on going that extra mile and on doing things just that little bit better.

You’ll find evidence of this approach across many different areas of our operations.

For example, from a product point of view, our doors are up to 10% thicker than most others on the market, feature an industry leading 17 lamination layers and have a unique moisture barrier strip that helps to prevent warping and swelling.

Similarly, our investment into BigChange job management software is helping us to offer standard setting levels of customer service including delivery updates in real time and via SMS.

And then there’s our commitment to sustainability. This sees us using renewable electricity generated by solar panels on our own factory roof as well as planting two trees for every door we produce, sending zero waste to landfill and offsetting our unavoidable carbon emissions by investing into carbon sequestration.

Doors without the hard sell

More recently, Endurance Doors has turned its focus on going above and beyond to sales support.

Against the backdrop of soaring inflation, rising interest rates and the cost-of-living crisis, we wanted to find new ways to make it easier for our installer partners to sell our doors.

We already offer them access to professionally produced sales literature and digital assets like videos and websites, but we weren’t content to stop there.

That’s why, in Q4 2022, we opened a dedicated, consumer-focused showroom in Brigg, North Lincolnshire. Installers are welcome to bring their own customers into this showroom to view a wide selection of our doors, hardware and accessories.

This allows the homeowner to physically feel and experience the quality, aesthetic appeal, and many other benefits of our products in real life. This is much more powerful and effective than the customer simply viewing the product in a two-dimensional photograph featured in a brochure or online.

Of course, not all installers are natural salespeople, and we can assist these businesses and individuals too. All they need to do is refer the potential customer to us and we will do the selling on the installer’s behalf before passing the sale back to them.

Plus, to help with this, as well as any potentially difficult questions homeowners might have, we have established a special consumer enquiries phoneline and a team to operate it.

To ensure our new showroom can be used by our nationwide network of installer partners, and not just by those within striking distance of its Brigg location, we’ve combined the benefit of a bricks and mortar presence with the latest in video conferencing.

Those installers and consumers who cannot easily visit the showroom in person, can do so virtually instead.

We offer virtual design consultations, which are conducted on a one-to-one basis and that are fully interactive. Potential customers can connect with a specialist within our showroom team who will walk them around the various displays whilst offering expert advice that’s bespoke to the homeowner’s taste, requirements and style of property.

It may be early days but already our new showroom is delivering dividends. It has helped installers to convert more leads into actual sales and also to charge a premium that reflects the enhanced customer experience.

Looking to the future, our plan is to roll out our lead generating showroom concept at additional strategic locations across the UK.

We are also strengthening our ability to help customers remotely with their buying journey by investing into 3D and augmented reality (AR) technology. This will feature both on our website and in our virtual consultations.

Ultimately, our consumer-focused initiatives are creating a win-win situation for everyone involved. For Endurance Doors. For our installer partners. And, perhaps most importantly of all, for the actual homeowner.