Why Spoak Is the Secret Weapon Anthropologie Home Stylists Swear By

If you haven’t heard of Anthropologie before reading this headline, have you been living under a rock? We’re only teasing, but as far as we’re concerned, Anthropologie Home is the interior design lover’s It Girl. Their catalog is filled with vibrant colors, delicious textures, and beautiful furniture and decor that dreams are made of. It’s hard to pick favorites when browsing through their storefronts, and as you can probably imagine, we’re not the only ones with heart eyes and decision paralysis when shopping. That’s where Anthropologie’s home stylist team comes into play.

Since launching the team in 2016, Anthropologie has been helping its customers achieve their dream homes through personalized 1:1 consultations and home styling/e-design services. They believe that your home’s style is an extension of yourself and, therefore, should be celebrated—and we couldn’t agree more. (Cue the Anthropologie and Spoak meet-cute!)

To help them execute their vision, the Anthropologie team searched for a powerful, intuitive tool that would allow their home stylists to work nimbly on their design projects. Spoak checked all the boxes and provided them with the resources they needed to do just that.

A successful pilot before fully taking off

Before rolling out Spoak’s software to the entire home stylist team, Anthropologie ran a small pilot test to make sure that the tools were, in fact, what they needed for their business. They were primarily looking for:

• A software that streamlined their process rather than overcomplicating things.
• Design tools that were easy to use with little to no learning curve. Because of the nature of retail turnover, they needed the software to be easy enough for their team to jump in and learn quickly.
• Project organization and a cohesive design flow. Prior to using Spoak, their team spent a lot of time creating mood boards, floor plans, and mock-ups in different places, and nothing felt like an all-in-one solution.

Needless to say, the pilot rollout was a breeze, and the Anthropologie team green-lit the enterprise partnership with Spoak.

Spoak’s software is now being used in 24 Anthropologie Design Centers (23 in the US and one in the UK), helping their in-house stylists provide a seamless customer experience. Their storefronts are just as impeccable as their services, acting as a showroom with case goods and fabric samples for customers to test out in person and the technology, powered by Spoak, to visualize everything in real-time. (Anthropologie also offers e-design services over Zoom for those who don't live near their Design Centers, so it's a win-win for everyone.)

Utilizing turnkey software that pleases both the stylist and the customer

Anthropologie provides the white glove service you’d expect during a design consultation while tailoring the experience to the customer’s exact needs. Spoak's impact on their team’s workflow has been vast, but their customers are really reaping the benefits too. No one customer or home is the same, and that’s the beauty of the Anthropologie design process.

On any given week, Anthropologie’s home stylists take on 10-30+ design projects. Their customers range from people wanting to start fresh and buy all new to people coming in with existing furniture they need to make work with their new big-ticket purchase. Using Spoak, home stylists can put together a cohesive project that covers all the good stuff—mood boards, room mock-ups, floor plans, and product recommendations—beautifully packaged together for their customers.

Tom Magill, Senior Brand Stylist at Anthropologie, said that prior to using Spoak, the home stylist team always had to “MacGyver something together.” Tom shares, “Spoak is a one-stop where a home stylist can build anything from an integral mood board to room rendering and floor plan and present it all within the same cohesive project.”

The perfect brand synergy between Anthropologie and Spoak

As a design-forward business, it was important that Anthropologie found a company to partner with that felt aligned with its values and design aesthetics. Trusting Spoak to help them achieve their business goals was a huge relief and a weight off the team’s shoulders. Tom says, “Spoak offers consistency and a program that feels more in line with our brand."

They needed a tool that could work for their teams internally and be customer-facing. The design tools Anthropologie had been using previously from a legacy design software didn't meet their standards, which was a big pain point for the team. “The Spoak results are cleaner and more elevated, which will only help us grow the business,” Tom mentions.

Innovation that exceeds expectations

When it comes to innovation, Anthropologie’s home stylists are at the forefront, creating unique designs for their customers' homes using Spoak’s design tools.

Cam, a home stylist who has been with the company for eight years and has gone through many iterations of using different design software, was particularly impressed with Spoak's design features. Cam shares, “The magic background eraser has been amazing when building a room. I also love seeing how often the features expand, adding in more diversity to the feature set like structural elements and flooring.”

A partnership built off powerful, design-driven results

The Spoak and Anthropologie partnership has been fruitful, and we’re just getting started. Since launching an enterprise account, Anthropologie has worked on over 700 design projects and over 4K designs using our software, with the number growing month over month.

Spoak is the backbone of Anthropologie’s design process, and their home stylists thrive knowing the tool provides them exactly what they need to make their clients' dreams come true. “Spoak is easy for us and our customers to understand and visualize their project. They love it!” says Cam.

We can’t wait to see what their team comes up with next!