Customer Satisfaction Research for Home Improvement
We measure how DIY consumers and home improvement trades rate your paint, bathroom fittings, kitchen products, flooring, decorative sundries, hand and power tools, and garden products. Home improvement satisfaction usually requires two audiences in one study: end consumers reached online, and trade professionals like painters, fitters, and handymen mainly reached by phone.
All
home improvement subsectors covered, F.E.: bathroom, paint, kitchen, flooring, garden, tools, decorative sundries
Mixed-method capability: CAWI for DIY consumers, CATI for trade professionals, in a single coordinated study
Verified trade fieldwork by phone (painters, fitters, handymen) plus consumer fieldwork by online panel, across 56 countries
What We Measure
Product satisfaction by audience
DIY consumers rate ease of use, finish quality, instructions clarity, tool requirements, and value for money. Professional painters rate coverage, drying time, spatter, recoatability, and clean-up. Kitchen fitters rate cabinet adjustment range, hinge quality, and assembly time. Tool users rate runtime, ergonomics, battery ecosystem, and durability.
Purchase and channel satisfaction
Retail experience in DIY sheds, builders merchants, and specialist showrooms. Online ordering experience for consumers and click-and-collect for trade. Returns process. Stock availability. Sales staff knowledge. In home improvement, retail satisfaction and product satisfaction are tightly linked and need to be measured together.
After-sales and warranty satisfaction
Warranty claim handling, replacement part availability, customer service responsiveness, and complaint resolution time. For premium price points (kitchens, bathrooms, power tools), after-sales experience drives repeat purchase and word of mouth.
Brand and emotional satisfaction
Pride of ownership for kitchens and bathrooms. Confidence in finish for paint. Recommendation likelihood. Repurchase intent. For consumer-facing home improvement categories, emotional satisfaction matters as much as functional satisfaction.
Information and decision-support satisfaction
Quality of in-store color matching, online configurators, design visualization tools, installation videos, and how-to content. Many home improvement decisions are deferred or abandoned because of poor decision support, not poor products.
Installation and service satisfaction (where relevant)
For installed categories (kitchens, bathrooms, flooring), we measure satisfaction with the installation experience separately from product satisfaction. Fitter conduct, schedule adherence, site protection, and finishing quality each get their own attribute.
NPS and loyalty metrics
NPS segmented by consumer vs trade, channel (DIY shed, builders merchant, specialist retailer, online), price tier, and project type (refresh, full renovation). Customer Effort Score for ordering, returns, and support interactions.
Competitive benchmarking
Your satisfaction scores against named competitors on every attribute. Derived importance analysis identifies which gaps actually drive switching or recommendation, distinct from which gaps respondents mention.
Subsectors Covered
Subsector
Bathroom Products
Sanitaryware, taps, showers, bathroom furniture. Consumer satisfaction is driven by design and feel, installation quality (where fitted by a professional), and long-term finish durability. Fitter satisfaction is driven by adjustment tolerances, fixing kit quality, and installation guide clarity.
Subsector
Paint
Decorative and trim paint for both DIY and trade. Consumer satisfaction is driven by color accuracy, coverage perception, smell, and ease of clean-up. Painter satisfaction is driven by hide on the first coat, spatter, drying behavior, and recoatability.
Subsector
Kitchen Products
Cabinets, worktops, sinks, appliances. Consumer satisfaction is driven by design, finish quality, durability, and the supplier-side install experience. Kitchen fitter satisfaction is driven by carcase tolerances, hinge quality, and worktop cut quality.
Subsector
Flooring (consumer side)
LVT, laminate, engineered wood, carpet. Consumer satisfaction is driven by appearance vs sample, comfort underfoot, and durability. Fitter satisfaction is driven by tolerance to substrate variation, ease of cutting, and lock or click system reliability.
Subsector
Outdoor & Gardening
Paving, decking, outdoor lighting, garden tools. Satisfaction is heavily seasonal and driven by weather durability, slip resistance, fade behavior, and installation effort.
Subsector
Hand & Power Tools
Cordless drills, multi-tools, sanders, saws, hand tools. Both consumer and trade audiences. Satisfaction is driven by runtime, ergonomics, battery ecosystem fit, durability, and service network access (for trade).
Subsector
Decorative Sundries
Wallpaper, paint accessories, fixings, sealants, adhesives. Satisfaction is driven by ease of use, instructions clarity, and finish quality.
This is a portion of subsectors covered. Contact us for a full list relevant to your portfolio.
How Customer Satisfaction Works in Home Improvement
Example project: A paint brand wants to understand why DIY consumer NPS is climbing while professional painter NPS is flat and slowly drifting toward a competitor. We design a dual-audience study. 800 DIY consumers across the UK and Germany via online panel (CAWI), all verified as having purchased the client’s paint in the past 6 months. In parallel, 200 professional painters per market via phone (CATI), verified as having used the client’s paint on a job in the past 90 days. Consumer attributes: coverage perception, color accuracy vs swatch, smell, ease of cleaning brushes, value for money. Painter attributes: hide on the first coat, spatter, drying time on different substrates, recoatability, can stability, and trade discount. Both audiences rate NPS, repurchase intent, and recommendation to a friend or colleague. The result: consumer NPS is rising because of color accuracy improvements and better can design. Painter NPS is flat because hide on the first coat has not improved relative to a competitor that recently launched a higher-pigment formulation. Derived importance shows hide on the first coat is the single strongest driver of painter NPS because it determines job time. The recommendation: invest in pigment density for the trade range while continuing color accuracy investment for the consumer range. The two audiences are not satisfied by the same product change. This is an illustrative example. Every study is tailored to your audiences, product categories, and markets.
Target Audiences
This is a portion of audiences covered. USP accesses additional specialized roles depending on your category.
DIY consumers
Homeowners and tenants buying for their own projects. Reached online (CAWI). Their satisfaction is shaped by retail experience, instructions clarity, finish quality, and value for money.
Professional painters
Trade painters working on residential and small commercial projects. Reached by phone (CATI). Their satisfaction is driven by application performance, can design, and trade pricing.
Handymen and general tradespeople
Multi-skilled tradespeople doing small renovation, fitting, and repair work. Reached by phone (CATI). Their satisfaction is driven by versatility, durability, and merchant availability.
Kitchen fitters
Specialist trades installing kitchens. Reached by phone (CATI). Their satisfaction is driven by carcase quality, fittings, installation guide clarity, and supplier helpline response.
Flooring fitters
Specialist installers of LVT, laminate, engineered wood, and carpet. Reached by phone (CATI). Their satisfaction is driven by substrate tolerance, click system reliability, and packaging.
Bathroom fitters and plumbers (for installed bathroom products)
Reached by phone (CATI). Their satisfaction is driven by installation tolerances, fixing kit quality, and long-term complaint rate.
Interior designers
Specify finishes and products for residential clients. Reached by phone (CATI). Their satisfaction is driven by sample availability, lead times, and design support.
Our Advantage
Home improvement satisfaction research fails when a single questionnaire is used for two audiences that experience your product completely differently. A DIY consumer judges paint by color accuracy and smell. A professional painter judges the same paint by hide on the first coat and spatter. We measure both audiences in one coordinated study, with the method matched to the audience (CAWI for consumers, CATI for trade) and audience-specific attribute modules tied back to shared KPIs.
Generalist agencies treat home improvement as a consumer category and either miss the trade audience or rely on unreliable trade panels. We maintain proprietary trade recruitment databases of painters, handymen, kitchen fitters, flooring installers, and bathroom fitters across European markets, built over 30 years of continuous fieldwork. Every trade respondent is verified by phone before the satisfaction interview begins.
Our European Home Improvement Monitor, Kitchen Monitor, Bathroom Monitor, and Painter Insight Monitor turn your satisfaction data into commercial direction. When painter NPS shifts, we can tell you whether the trade is moving across the category or whether your brand specifically is losing share to a named competitor.
Project Examples
A painting tools brand ran a satisfaction and brand strength study among professional painters across Germany and the UK. The CATI study identified product attributes where competitors had moved ahead and informed a portfolio refresh.
DE, UK
A finishing products company tracked adhesives and sealants brand health and satisfaction among installers, handymen, and pool builders across the Netherlands and France. The study identified satisfaction differences by trade and prioritized product improvements by audience.
NL, FR
A global paint group ran ongoing brand health tracking including NPS and satisfaction metrics among professional customers across 22 markets. Wave-on-wave comparison flagged regional satisfaction shifts and informed local activation priorities.
22 markets
A commercial flooring brand ran a tracker that included satisfaction metrics among architects and interior designers specifying flooring for commercial projects across Germany, the UK, and France.
DE, UK, FR
Deliverables
- Executive summary report: Consumer plus trade KPI dashboard, satisfaction priority matrices by audience, competitive benchmarks, and strategic recommendations split by audience and channel.
- NPS scorecard by audience: Separate NPS reporting for consumers (overall, by channel, by price tier) and for each trade (painters, fitters, handymen), with verbatims.
- Channel satisfaction map: Satisfaction scores across DIY shed, builders merchant, specialist retailer, and online channels, so you can see whether retail or product is driving the gap.
- Satisfaction priority matrix by audience: Separate importance-vs-satisfaction plots for consumers and each trade.
- Competitive benchmark tables: Your brand vs named competitors on every attribute, split by audience, country, and channel.
- Customer Effort Score report: CES by interaction type (in-store, online ordering, returns, customer service) with audience-specific analysis.
- Full data tables (Excel): All cross-tabulations by audience, country, channel, price tier, and project type. Statistical significance indicators included.
- Improvement roadmap: Prioritized recommendations mapped to audience-specific satisfaction gaps, with estimated NPS impact, implementation timeline, and responsible function (product, retail, customer service, after-sales).
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Can you run consumer and trade satisfaction in the same study, or do they have to be separate?
They run as a single coordinated study, with method matched to audience. DIY consumers via CAWI online panel, trade professionals (painters, fitters, handymen) via CATI phone. The questionnaires share a core (NPS, overall satisfaction, recommendation intent) and have audience-specific attribute modules. Outputs are reported per audience and integrated.
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Why CAWI for consumers and CATI for trade? Why not one method for both?
DIY consumers respond well online and panels reach them at lower cost than phone. Trade professionals respond poorly to online panels in home improvement. Verified phone recruitment confirms the respondent is a working painter, fitter, or handyman in your target trade and category. Mixing methods preserves data quality on both sides.
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How do you recruit professional painters and fitters by phone?
From verified trade databases filtered by trade type, business size, and recent project activity. We confirm by phone that each respondent has worked with products in the relevant category within the past 6 to 12 months before proceeding.
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What sample size do we need for reliable NPS tracking among consumers and trade?
For consumers, 400 to 800 per country supports reliable brand-level NPS and channel segmentation. For trade, 100 to 200 per country per trade is typical for brand-level NPS. We model required samples at proposal stage based on segmentation needs.
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How do you separate product satisfaction from retail and after-sales satisfaction?
We group attributes by touchpoint: product performance, retail experience, online experience, installation (where applicable), after-sales, and warranty. Each block gets its own satisfaction index and priority matrix. This tells you whether your satisfaction issue is product-led, retail-led, or after-sales-led.
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How long does a multi-country, mixed-audience home improvement satisfaction study take?
A typical study with one consumer audience and one trade audience across four countries runs 9 to 13 weeks. Questionnaire design: 2 to 3 weeks. Mixed-method fieldwork: 3 to 5 weeks (CAWI and CATI in parallel). Analysis and reporting: 3 to 4 weeks. Repeat waves are faster because the questionnaire is established.
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Our category sits between DIY and trade (for example power tools). How do you handle the overlap?
We split the sample by usage occasion and primary purchase channel rather than relying on self-identification alone. Each respondent is classified into DIY, prosumer, or trade based on validated screening questions. Results are reported by segment so you can see how satisfaction differs by user type within a single category.
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3062 MA Rotterdam