Sleek Modular Kitchens

I chanced upon a second setup of Sleek modular kitchens and was wondering about what they were doing differently. How is it that the 2-3 people who sit around the kitchens are totally disinterested in any sort of customer interaction and hence any opportunity for leads and subsequent conversion. I assume it relates to the way their incentive is structured and after my repeated experience, I am obviously curious.

Copyright: Sleek modular kitchen

The funny thing is that my first visit to Sleek kitchens was very similar. It was at a different HomeStop outlet ( maybe Sleek has worked some arrangement with HomeStop though I doubt that gives them any projects automatically) and there were 2 men and a woman working on their laptops. We were exploring around and were months away from deciding which brand to go ahead. 

I looked around, pulled some drawers and checked the kitchens. Then men didn't bother and the woman glanced. I was wondering when someone would come around and explain what they offered etc. So I tried giving the " I am interested, please come and explain looks." I was really surprised but since I wanted to know the type of finish used in one and the approximate price, I went up to the guy sitting closest to the kitchens and asked him. Few questions ahead, I realized that he neither had sufficient knowledge and nor was he interested. After I explicitly asked him to show us around, and he reluctantly got up, the woman thankfully took over. She was the Sales Manager and adept in her knowledge of the kitchens and everything around it. She took our contact details, sent me approximate quotations and even pursued me for a while. 

However, I also remember a defensive attitude during the follow-ups. "I called because you said you might decide in few months". Really?? If I want the customer to buy the modular kitchen from my brand, I will call because I want to convert them and not because of any other reason. As far as the brand is concerned, if I was a decision making authority I would actually just keep 1 knowledgeable sales person around and remove the unfriendly fixtures to some other office location. Judging from Mouthshut, I am not the only person who feels the same.

The experience continued with the website. I tried to download the catalogue unsuccessfully  by entering my details several times. And I was unable to get a catalogue emailed to myself. While the website looks great, I actually don't know why they maintain several websites like  http://www.sleekworld.com, http://sleekworld.co.in and http://sleekkitchens.com/modular-kitchen. I am hoping they stopped at 3 and there aren't more lurking around.

Copyright : Sleek modular kitchen

As quoted, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I did get some help in the form of a friend  who had purchased their Sleek modular kitchens. While the kitchen was very nice and he is happy , I got to know that the overall experience was not smooth. The different folks who take care of the various activities weren't in sync. He also had to  call some senior folks to get work done in time. However they did take care of damaged modules and that sounds like a life-saver. If interested, one can get an idea of their positive customer experiences on their website. If you do order a Sleek modular kitchen, my friend's advice is try to figure who will be the team servicing you and get some references.

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How we ended up choosing Haecker Kitchens

Courtesy: Hacker Kitchens India

I was planning to write couple of posts but procrastination got the better of me. Last year we finalized upon
the modular kitchen brand to go ahead with. Ironically it was one I never thought I would.

We spent quite a bit of 2013 trying to visit different modular kitchen brands ( on my list ) and trying to get a feel for them. A lot of the visits initially left us confused but after couple of visits we had a fair idea. I think it would have really helped us to have visited the stores over a shorter span of time. Some of the visits like Home Town, Cucine Lube, Sleek, Espiq , Scavolini ( @ Sunrise Home Solutions ) were more of walk-ins because we discovered their presence in a mall. We also visited others like Veneta Cucine, Nolte, Hacker, Alno, Gilma Spagniola respectively.

Courtesy: Hacker Kitchens India

We had some initial discussion with Sleek, Veneta Cucine and Nolte . Sleek and Veneta Cucine even went ahead and gave us an approximate quotation based on our kitchen plan whereas Nolte was insistent on waiting till they could visit the site, do accurate measurements and give us a quote. I would have to appreciate both Sleek and Veneta Cucine for their slight aggressiveness to convert it to a deal; especially where the other folks were mildly interested. Of course our flat delivery timelines were to blame. By this time we had decided on our top 3 brands that we would approach when the time was ripe and they were - Nolte, Hacker and Veneta Cucine.

 I tried looking all over the web for customer reviews and stories of experience to find none. Mouthshut.com had a scathing and scary review of an experience of Veneta Cucine. Thankfully I also managed to chance upon European Kitchen Design blog which is written by a guy named "kitchenguy". If you are looking for some serious research on European brands, you should check out his posts ( and more importantly the comments) on European brands, his personal top 20 and the 101 on Laminates and Lacquer. We did manage to get a better idea of the brands even though it finally boils down to the dealer and service. If you see more German brands being recommended, then do remember that the a lot of the top (and large) modular kitchen brands in the world are German, have been around for about a century. But there are others too , depending on which spectrum of the price range you are looking at. And this spectrum is highly divided mind you.

Courtesy: Hacker Kitchens India

Some time back,  our builder offered  us an option where they would   have wardrobe and modular kitchens done from Nolte Express (from Nolte brand), Interwood ( Indian brand operated by the same owners of the Alno dealership in Bangalore and Impuls (from Alno). As usual, we were given a timeline to decide in order to avail of the discounted prices which already seemed a bit on the higher side. Unfortunately for us we liked the exteriors and design of both Interwood and Impuls and the interiors of Impuls and Nolte. However, Impuls was well over our budget.Although we were getting very little from Nolte in terms of offerings. Since we had liked Nolte a lot during our first visit and I had a bias towards it , we thought slight changes would help. We did visit the store and although they were patient and helpful, we never got the revised quotes and were also put off by a lot of things. 

Anyhow door-bitching or a version of it seems to be available at most German modular kitchen stores so please pull out your Ralph Laurens before you visit them.Long story short, we also visited Alno store again. (The first visit was a very good one and we had a great experience. Would really recommend the sales guy.) Due to the tie-up with our builder and because they ( or perhaps our builder ) were scared that if we sit with the designer during the tweaking of the kitchen design, we might figure out the actuals behind the pricing model, we were unable to communicate with satisfaction. The whole thing of not being able to sit was the designer was absolutely ridiculous because it was very easy to do the back calculation well ahead and realize that we were getting a negligible discount. Trying to outsmart your customers ( or potential customers) doesn't really help.

Image copyright: Koel Das

Alno's loss was Hacker's gain. By chance I had called them up to figure out the process of getting a quotation. Some brands insist on paid consultations for detailed design. Usually this is refunded if you choose the brand. Hacker sent us a quote nearer to what we were initially looking at. The design and the quote were reasonable and the designer spent sufficient time with us to give us a design within the budget we required. She was very patient and helpful and would even point out what would be expensive and out of bounds and where they could help us. The only thing that we felt queasy about was paying 75% of the cost upfront and 25% later during arrival of the kitchen at the sea port. All this is paid upfront and you are yet to see the kitchen in real life. Installation happens when it reaches your city and when you are ready to do it ( ie. flat is available, etc ).  Of course we went through the initial payments and they also helped us with the timelines  and even with last minute tweaks. 

Image copyright: Koel Das

I guess looking back, it was the comfort of being able to sit with the designer, communicate what we wanted,needed and could afford. We were never pushed to buy a higher priced module which I genuinely appreciate. We had been very specific about our requirements and affordability with Nolte and Alno, and hence I find it ironic that they couldn't identify us as serious buyers. End of design phase with Hacker, I could even point out what changes could have been made to reduce the price of the kitchen offered by Impuls (Alno). Obviously a designer would have been able to do it better. We did however need to remind the designer to send the appliances, skirting and few other fittings during installation, and in times of conflict the scheduling manager seemed to be influenced by whoever (customers requiring installation) made the most noise. All of this can be managed with some prior planning obviously.

The appliances are all from Hafele Nagold with few from the Nagold J series. The sink  and faucet are from Franke and the countertop is a Shitake Caesarstone (for which Hafele India is the sole dealer). There are very few installers for this engineered quartz and they do an amazing job with the mitre edge. You can barely see the join.The pendant lights are inspired from the Tom Dixon collection and were purchased from Ivanka Lumiere.

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