Customer Journey Research for Installation
Installation purchase decisions move through consulting engineers, panel builders, installers (HVAC, electrical, plumbing), wholesalers, and increasingly end-customers before a product is installed in a building. Each audience enters the journey at a different stage, uses different information sources, and holds different decision-making power. We map that full decision chain using phone-based interviews with the professionals who actually specify, procure, and install installation products, from heat pumps and switchgear to ventilation systems, sanitary fittings, and smart building components.
4
journey research phases covered: Discover, Explore, Validate, Shape Future
30+
years exclusive focus on construction, installation, and home improvement sectors
6+
distinct installation audiences recruited by phone for journey studies (HVAC installers, electrical installers, plumbers, consulting engineers, panel builders, wholesalers)
20+
countries with harmonized CATI and IDI fieldwork capability
What We Measure
Specification and Compliance Journey
How consulting engineers, M&E specifiers, and technical buyers translate performance requirements, building codes, and energy regulations into product specifications. Which information sources matter at each stage: manufacturer technical libraries, BIM and CAD platforms, compliance databases, trade press, CPD sessions. Where specifications get confirmed or overridden once the project moves to installation. How sustainability requirements (energy labels, ErP, F-gas regulations) shape the shortlist.
Installer Brand Selection
How HVAC installers, electrical installers, and plumbers actually choose between competing brands at the moment of purchase. The relative weight of habit, training received, wholesaler counter advice, perceived ease of installation, technical support reputation, and rebate or loyalty programs. How brand preference forms, hardens, and breaks. Where the installer has discretion and where a specification or a customer request constrains the choice.
Wholesaler Counter and Stock Decisions
How wholesaler purchasing managers decide which brands to list, which to stock deeper, and which to actively recommend at the counter. The role of rebate structures, category exclusivity agreements, training partnerships, and installer pull-through. How the wholesaler influences brand selection at the precise moment the installer is buying, and how that varies by category and country.
Channel and Touchpoint Mapping
Which physical and digital touchpoints installation professionals use at each stage: manufacturer technical hotlines, installer apps, wholesaler counters and showrooms, training centers, trade fairs, BIM and product data platforms, CRM portals. Where touchpoints create friction: long wait times for technical advice, missing or outdated product data, complex spare parts ordering. How digital adoption differs by trade and by generation of installer.
Friction Points and Moments of Truth
Where the journey stalls or breaks. Where the installer abandons a brand, the engineer reverts to a familiar specification, or the wholesaler steers to a competitor. Which friction points have the greatest commercial impact: failed commissioning, missing documentation, slow warranty response. How friction varies by country. For example, in Germany, certified training availability is a make-or-break moment for heat pump installers. In the UK, wholesaler stock depth is a decisive factor at the counter.
Post-Installation Service and Loyalty
What happens after commissioning: warranty claims, technical support quality, parts availability, retraining opportunities. How after-sales experience drives the next specification, the next purchase, and the willingness to recommend. Which service elements (response time on technical hotline, training certification renewal, commissioning support) have the largest impact on loyalty and share of wallet.
Emotional and Rational Triggers
What emotional factors operate alongside rational criteria: trust built through years of reliable technical support, personal relationships with the local sales representative, risk aversion when commissioning unfamiliar technology. How these triggers differ between consulting engineers (professional reputation), installers (time and callback risk), and wholesalers (margin and rebate predictability).
Subsectors Covered
Subsector
HVAC
Heating, ventilation, air conditioning. Long-life-cycle products with strong installer brand loyalty and high dependence on training and technical support. Journey research focuses on how brand preference forms during apprenticeship and gets reinforced or broken at the wholesaler counter.
Subsector
Heat Pumps
A rapidly evolving subsector where regulatory tailwinds, subsidy schemes, and a shortage of certified installers create unique journey dynamics. Now often involves the homeowner as a co-decider alongside the installer, requiring research with both audiences.
Subsector
Plumbing and Sanitary
Pipes, fittings, valves, water heaters, sanitary connections. A wholesaler-driven category where counter dynamics often outweigh upstream marketing. Substitution at the point of purchase is high and the journey must be mapped through to the wholesaler interaction.
Subsector
Electrical Installation
Switchgear, wiring accessories, cable management, control systems, lighting. Specifier and consulting engineer influence increases with project complexity. For residential, the installer’s habitual brand preference dominates the journey.
Subsector
Panel Building and Switchgear
Lower-volume but high-value category with engineer-led specification and panel builder execution. Journey research must cover both the design office (where components are specified) and the panel shop (where they are actually fitted).
Subsector
Smart Building and Building Automation
KNX, smart thermostats, building management systems, IoT controls. The journey involves systems integrators and consulting engineers alongside traditional installers, introducing extra decision points and longer evaluation cycles.
Subsector
Sewer and Waste Water
Drainage, waste systems, pumping stations. Often a wholesaler-driven category with secondary brand visibility, where listing depth and counter recommendation outweigh end-user pull.
Subsector
Solar PV and Energy Storage
A cross-trade category combining HVAC, electrical, and roofing installers. Journey research helps clarify which trade controls brand selection on a given project and where the customer enters the decision.
Subsector
Tools and Test Equipment for Installers
Repeat-purchase category with on-site brand exposure as a key touchpoint. Journey research here focuses on trial, peer recommendation, and wholesaler stock depth.
Note: This is a portion of the subsectors and product categories we cover within installation journey research.
How Customer Journey Research Works in Installation - Example Project
Scenario: A heat pump manufacturer wants to understand why their heat pumps are recommended by consulting engineers and homeowners but installers default to a competitor at the wholesaler counter and during commissioning in Germany and the Netherlands. Phase 1 (Explore): We run 15 qualitative IDIs per country, split across HVAC installers, consulting engineers, and wholesaler counter staff. Each interview is 45 to 60 minutes, by phone with a sector-specialist interviewer. The goal is to map the AS-IS journey from specification through wholesaler counter to commissioning, identify where substitution happens, and understand the triggers. Phase 2 (Validate): Based on qualitative findings, we design a CATI survey with 150 HVAC installers and 75 consulting engineers per country. The survey quantifies substitution frequency, ranks the reasons behind it (price, training availability, perceived commissioning ease, wholesaler relationship, rebate), and sizes each friction point by commercial impact. Phase 3 (Shape Future): We run a co-creation workshop with 8 participants per country, mixing installers, engineers, and the client’s sales and training teams. The workshop produces a TO-BE journey map with prioritized interventions: which training programs to expand, which technical support channels to strengthen, which wholesaler relationships to deepen first. Output: A validated AS-IS journey map per country, a quantified friction-point matrix with impact scores, a co-created TO-BE journey with a prioritized action plan, and an executive summary deck for the board. Note: This is an example of a typical project design. Every study is tailored to the specific product category, audience mix, and geographic scope.
Target Audiences
Note: Audience mix is tailored to each project based on product category and distribution structure.
HVAC Installers [CATI]
The heart of the installation journey for heating, ventilation, AC, and plumbing categories. Strong brand habits shaped by apprenticeship and on-the-job training. Reached exclusively by phone with trade-specific screeners.
Electrical Installers [CATI]
Cover wiring, switchgear, lighting, and increasingly building automation. Strong wholesaler counter relationships. Phone recruitment with screeners on company size and product category involvement.
Plumbers [CATI]
Sanitary, drainage, and water systems. Often overlap with HVAC work in smaller installer companies. Wholesaler counter dynamics dominate the brand selection moment.
Consulting Engineers and M&E Specifiers [CATI / IDI]
Specify systems on larger commercial and public-sector projects. Drive performance, compliance, and lifecycle requirements. IDIs are particularly effective because they can walk through a specific recent project.
Panel Builders [CATI / IDI]
Build electrical control panels and switchgear assemblies. Influence component-brand selection at the build stage even when the upstream specification names a different brand.
Wholesalers and Distributors [CATI / IDI]
The critical link between manufacturer and installer. Influence brand selection through listing decisions, stock depth, counter advice, and rebate programs. IDIs with purchasing managers reveal how listing decisions actually get made.
Facility Managers and Building Operators [CATI]
Drive replacement and maintenance decisions, particularly relevant for service-led businesses, commercial HVAC, and energy management categories.
End-Customers (Homeowners and Facility Managers) [CAWI / CATI]
Increasingly involved in product brand selection in high-involvement categories like heat pumps, smart thermostats, and energy storage. For these categories, the journey must be mapped with both installer and end-customer perspectives.
Our Advantage
Installation customer journeys do not follow a clean linear path. A heat pump might be recommended by a consulting engineer, requested by the homeowner, ordered by the installer at the wholesaler, swapped at the counter for a brand the wholesaler stocks deeper, and then commissioned by an installer trained on yet a different brand. Each of those handoffs is a potential point of failure. We know where they happen because we have mapped them across hundreds of studies over three decades.
We do not use installer panels. Every installation professional in our studies is recruited directly by phone, verified against company size, product category use, and decision-making role, and interviewed by a specialist. Wrong respondents produce structurally wrong journey maps. A generalist agency using online panels will tell you the journey has five stages. We will tell you which stage loses you the most installer preference and why.
Our European Mechanical Installation Monitor and European Electrical Installation Monitor give us standing benchmark data on how installers operate across the major European markets. When we run a custom journey study for your category, we can contextualize your findings within broader sector patterns: where the wholesaler is gaining or losing influence, where digital tools are being adopted, where training gaps are widening. That context is not available from any generalist research provider.
Project Examples
A major electrical products manufacturer needed to understand purchasing decisions among electricians across Switzerland’s three language regions. We combined 10 qualitative IDIs with 100 quantitative interviews to map the full electrician journey, identify digital friction points, and inform go-to-market design.
DE, FR, IT
An electrical products manufacturer ran a journey study across installers, engineers, and wholesalers to understand the buying decision chain for selected product groups. Output included an integrated journey map showing where influence concentrates and where decisions are handed off between audiences.
NL
A global electrical manufacturer ran an eight-country qualitative journey study of electricians from discovery through maintenance. Output: market-by-market journey maps showing differences in digital adoption, wholesaler relationships, and the precise moments at which brand decisions are made.
DE, MA, BE, AR, IN, VN, MX, ES
An electrical manufacturer mapped the buying journey for electrical products, including digital opportunities, in two emerging markets. Mixed-method design produced an actionable journey map and a roadmap of digital touchpoint priorities.
SA, TR
A premium HVAC manufacturer ran NPS and Customer Effort Score tracking across five European countries focused on the post-installation phase of the journey, identifying where service failures eroded loyalty and quantifying their impact on share of wallet.
DE, CH, UK, BE, NL
Deliverables
- Validated AS-IS journey map per audience and per country, showing every stage from need recognition to post-installation
- Friction-point matrix with quantified commercial impact scores, ranked by priority
- Touchpoint inventory: which touchpoints are used at each journey stage, how they perform, and where gaps exist
- TO-BE journey map (when co-creation phase is included) with prioritized interventions and assigned ownership
- Country comparison report showing where journey dynamics converge and where they diverge
- Verbatim quote bank organized by audience type, journey stage, and country
- Raw data file (SPSS or Excel cross-tabs) for further internal analysis
- Executive summary deck (5 to 8 slides) for board or management committee presentation
-
How do you map the full specification-to-installation journey when consulting engineers, installers, and wholesalers all play a role?
We interview each audience separately and then overlay the findings to produce an integrated journey map. Each audience sees the process from their perspective. The integrated map shows where influence concentrates, where handoffs occur between trades, and where the original specification gets overridden at the wholesaler counter or in the panel shop.
-
What sample sizes do you need for an installation journey study?
For qualitative exploration: 8 to 15 IDIs per country per audience type. For quantitative validation: 75 to 200 CATI interviews per audience per country. The exact numbers depend on how many subsegments you need to analyze (e.g., residential vs. commercial, replacement vs. new build, certified-trained vs. general installers).
-
Can you run installation journey studies across multiple European countries simultaneously?
Yes. We routinely run harmonized multi-country installation studies across 3 to 10+ markets in a single project. Questionnaires are translated and adapted for local trade terminology. All data is collected and analyzed centrally so country comparisons are directly possible.
-
How long does an installation customer journey study take?
A typical three-phase study (qualitative IDIs, quantitative CATI, co-creation workshop) takes 10 to 14 weeks from briefing to final delivery. A single-phase qualitative study can be completed in 6 to 8 weeks. Timelines depend on country count, audience mix, and whether wholesaler counter audits are included.
-
How do you reach installation professionals like heat pump installers or panel builders?
We recruit directly by phone using trade-specific screeners. We verify active project involvement, product category usage, and decision-making role. Online panels are not viable for these audiences. Phone recruitment is the only method that consistently delivers verified, qualified respondents at the sample sizes journey research requires.
-
Can journey research be combined with satisfaction or brand studies?
Yes. Many of our installation projects combine journey mapping with NPS measurement, satisfaction scoring, or brand funnel analysis. The journey framework provides the structure; satisfaction and brand metrics are layered onto specific stages. This gives you both the “what happens” and the “how well it works” in a single integrated study.
-
At what stage should we commission installation customer journey research?
When you are losing share at the wholesaler counter, seeing high substitution rates, or watching specifications not convert into installed brand presence and you do not know which stage is failing. Also before launching a new product, entering a new country, or revising your training program, when you need to understand the installer decision process before designing your go-to-market.
Related Reports
Contact us
Send us a message
Please contact our office or fill in the contact form and our specialists will contact you.
PHONE
+31 10 2066900ADDRESS
Max Euwelaan 51
3062 MA Rotterdam