How Lowe's is Building Better Experiences From the Ground Up with Optimal
American retail company specializing in home improvement
In the competitive home improvement space, Lowe's has distinguished itself not just through its extensive product selection, but through its commitment to optimizing customer experiences across both digital and physical touchpoints.
By leveraging Optimal’s platform, Lowe's has systematically refined its website, app architecture, and in-store experiences. Lowe's strategic application of user insights has created more intuitive shopping journeys for both DIY customers and professional contractors, while simultaneously improving internal operations and employee experience.
Challenge: Constructing the Digital Blueprint
Lowe's faced the complex challenge of organizing thousands of products across dozens of categories in a way that aligned with how customers naturally search for home improvement items. Their digital ecosystem needed to serve multiple distinct user groups, from casual DIY enthusiasts to professional contractors and internal staff, each with unique navigation patterns and priorities.
Unfortunately Lowe's struggled with taxonomy inconsistencies across product categories including tools, plumbing, kitchen and bath, and fencing. To help with this, they were looking to launch a global navigation revamp, multiple app architecture optimizations, and improvements to their live chat menu systems.
In addition to their digital presence, Lowe’s also wanted to optimize user experiences for their in-store operations, where they needed to improve cashier experiences, reduce turnover rates, and benchmark sales floor performance against industry standards.
Solution: Measuring Twice, Cutting Once
Lowe's implemented a comprehensive digital and in-store UX strategy using Optimal Workshop's platform:
Their initial approach focused heavily on tree testing for various product categories, establishing baseline metrics for taxonomy effectiveness across their massive product catalog.
After getting a clear understanding of their baseline metrics, Lowe's expanded their focus to include first-click testing and tree testing for their global navigation, alongside multiple studies of app architecture and live chat menu systems.
They deployed numerous surveys targeting operational metrics, including cashier performance, employee turnover rates, and sales floor SEQ (Single Ease Question) benchmarks for both in-house teams and showroom vendor tools.
Lowe's complemented quantitative methods with qualitative insights studies capturing store support directory observations, report fulfillment analysis, and task analysis assessments for remote tendering processes.
More recently Lowe’s has used card sorting studies to cover diverse aspects of the business, from transportation and distribution navigation to paint kiosk categories, task urgency for store leadership, returns app modifications, and receipt label groupings.
Results: Blueprint to Reality
Lowe's strategic approach to employee and customer experience delivered substantial improvements across their digital and physical touchpoints:
- The comprehensive tree testing created a solid foundation for their product taxonomy, making it easier for customers to locate items across major categories without unnecessary clicks or frustration.
- Their research into app architecture and live chat menu systems streamlined customer support pathways, reducing time-to-resolution for common customer issues and improving satisfaction metrics.
- The operational surveys targeting cashier metrics and sales floor benchmarking identified specific training opportunities, contributing to reduced turnover and improved in-store customer experiences.
- Their specialized card sorting studies for professional customers led to targeted improvements in the Pro experience, including optimized homepage designs and more intuitive banner placements for contractor-specific offerings.
- First-click testing for critical CTAs like "Buy it again," "Manage item," and "Remove from cart" increased conversion rates by ensuring these high-value actions were immediately discoverable to users.
Building Long-Term Value
Lowe's consistent investment in customer and employee experience has yielded long-term benefits:
- Their approach of testing early and often has created a culture of continuous improvement, where design decisions are consistently validated against actual user behavior rather than assumptions.
- The specialized focus on professional contractor experiences has strengthened Lowe's position in the valuable Pro market segment, creating loyalty among this high-volume customer base.
- By addressing both customer-facing interfaces and internal operational systems, Lowe's has created operational efficiencies that translate to cost savings and improved employee satisfaction.
The increasing sophistication of their user experience approach, evolving from basic tree testing to comprehensive multi-method studies, has built institutional knowledge that informs product development across the organization.
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