Dalton—Shaw Industries held its ribbon-cutting ceremony last Friday for a new Living Lab that the company said will serve as a real-life test environment for residential products.
The revitalized office building, located here, features nine fully furnished units, which all showcase the latest and greatest flooring, wall and backsplash products and sundries from Shaw’s portfolio of residential brands, the company said.
In addition to providing a unique housing solution in close proximity to Shaw’s headquarters, the company said its Living Lab contributes to the vibrancy of the local community and delivers an experience on par with what young professionals and prospective associates would expect in larger markets.
“Our goal is to create a world-class customer and associate experience,” explained Tim Baucom, president and CEO of Shaw Industries. “The Living Lab combines the two efforts by providing desirable housing for new associates while enabling them to fully experience Shaw’s residential products.”
According to the company, the innovative approach to short-term associate housing needs will enable the company to gather candid feedback, uncover new ideas and aggregate end-user feedback on an ongoing basis—an invaluable component to Shaw’s continual focus on product and service innovation. The first residents of Shaw’s Living Lab will include residential sales trainees, providing them with greater exposure to Shaw’s products in an everyday setting and laying a foundation for them to speak even more authentically to product performance and design attributes, such as cleanability, sound/noise levels and the design’s overall impacts on mood and well-being.
By using the space to both house young professionals going through training and to assess product performance, user experience and the latest design trends, Shaw said it is applying its people-centric approach to create smarter, better products and services based upon ongoing user experience.