Kalle Debus – Leifheit

Leifheit is a company offering household appliances cleaning, laundry, kitchen and wellbeing. The company was founded 65 years ago by Günter and Ingeborg Leifheit. Today, Leifheit is active in over 80 countries serving customers all around the world. In this interview, Kalle Debus, Senior Brand Manager for the Kitchen segment at Leifheit, dives into the topics of quality, highlighting the importance of continuous development, customer feedback, brand communication for different user groups, and the use of sales promotions.

The Leifheit Quality

Leifheit started with household products, to which the company has remained loyal as its core business to this day. From the very beginning, the company’s products were intended to make cleaning easier and to combine it with a perfect offer. “A flagship of this is still our first product, a carpet sweeper for easier cleaning called ‘Regulus’,” Kalle explains. Many people still know it from their grandparents. Since then, the approach has remained the same: to bring something to market that didn’t exist before, and make available solutions even better.

Kalle also points to the “best offer” as a driving force for the brand or company; “At the same time, we want to provide people with the best offer in terms of product performance.” Günter Leifheit built the company with this formula, and this pursuit has ensured continuous growth resulting in constant evolution. Leifheit’s brand positioning is therefore very clear, with a mere focus on quality.

This criterion spans the entire life cycle of Leifheit’s products, starting with the product idea; “There are clear specifications as to what the quality of our products has to achieve to develop further following customer requirements.” This ranges from the definition of product quality to the delivery processes and customer service. Additionally, Leifheit also has their own development department, where they can test and continuously develop the quality of their products.

‘’There are clear specifications as to what the quality of our products has to achieve to develop further following customer requirements.”

Customer feedback is the key to success

Customer feedback is also a way of driving the brand forward. As access to customer feedback has become much easier, Leifheit can see that if someone has bought a product from them, he or she will most likely buy it again and again; “In many cases, our buyers come back to us. Even if they currently need a related product,” Kalle says.

As an example of this, Kalle mentions the Cherry-Mat from Leifheit, a cherry pitter: “This product has an outstanding function with a powerful, spring-loaded metal pestle, which I can core up to 15 kg of cherries in one hour one after the other.” What Leifheit noticed among consumers is that with other solutions, they complained of pain in the hand after the umpteenth use. Therefore, Leifheit introduced a modified soft grip that makes handling gentler.

Then consumers were saying that the device was quite large, so Leifheit developed a solution that allows the product to be taken apart so that it takes up significantly less space. “And this without impairing the core functions, handling or even the functionality of the metal component that ultimately removes the core,” Kalle emphasises.

Trends can also be picked up quickly in this way. The trend orientation in the kitchen segment is very high, “We are very close to lifestyle topics here. There is a recurring trend to cook more yourself again, and this is where we make our customers’ lives easier and more convenient, with long-lasting product solutions,” Kalle says.

For example, Leifheit has launched a tabletop spiraliser that can be used to make vegan noodles, so-called ‘zoodles’, from zucchinis. “In this way, we can rejuvenate ourselves a bit and become interesting for young consumers at the same time,” Kalle emphasises.

“Thanks to modern feedback channels such as market research, we have access to more detailed customer feedback.”

COMMUNICATE PRODUCT BENEFITS THROUGH THE BRAND

The challenge for Leifheit today is to appeal to both experienced customers and new, young buyers. For the customers already familiar with the brand, engagement is more important than showing the brand benefits. However, for the younger and new customers, a different approach is required. While the brand must remain visible, communication about other topics such as warranty or functionality also needs to be included to express the usefulness, reliability and quality of the products. “If you don’t know Leifheit so well or have had little contact with the brand so far, you won’t immediately associate it with quality and durability,” Kalle says. The decisive element here is how the consumer perceives the benefit.

According to Kalle, young buyer groups, in particular, require a new and clear customer approach; “Young consumers are growing up with the possibility of having cheap products delivered directly via online platforms. Or they use a simple online price ranking to find the product with the lowest price. Decisive differences in our quality products, which have been developed with effort, are not always easy to recognise.”

To tackle this, Leifheit is intensifying the efforts to make product differences clear and to name them in concrete terms. “When young consumers encounter our products in (online) retail, our messages should ensure at all times that this difference is made clear and understood within the shortest possible time.”

“When young consumers encounter our products in retail, our messages should at all times be clear and understood within the shortest possible time.”

Selective use of sales Promotions

Confronted with the final question of whether Leifheit is tempted to address new buyer groups in the retail trade through new sales channels or promotions, Kalle answers: “Leifheit is a premium brand. Our aspiration is therefore to be in the upper range of quality products. On the other hand, from our point of view, there must also be a value for this. In my category, the kitchen category, the competition is much more intense than in the other categories. Visibility is therefore very important to us. Nevertheless, we only very selectively use a promotion as a sales tool.”

Whether promotions are used or not depends on the product and whether these can be impulse purchases or not. In addition, it only makes limited sense to get involved in such sales activities with a complete product range. The mix has to be right: from sales, contacts with the brand and the development of new groups of buyers. “From the consumer’s point of view, such manoeuvres must not jeopardise the normal price of the product.”

“We only use promotions as a sales tool very selectively, depending on the type of product.”