News - Hansgrohe UK Announces New Logo Licence Policy Archive

Friday, August 17th 2012

Hansgrohe UKannounces the rollout of a new logo licensing policy for retailers of Hansgrohe premium products. The policy, being rolled out from 1^st August 2012, has been devised to manage the online representation of Hansgrohe in the best interests of consumers, but also offers significant benefits for Hansgrohe retailers who value strong customer support.

The new policy provides a platform for legitimate Hansgrohe retail partners to compete online on their own terms. This includes a requirement for a professional online presence supported by quality showroom displays and pre- and post- customer service in keeping with the premium values of the Hansgrohe and Axor brand names.

Iain McKinlay, Hansgrohe UK MD, comments, “Consumers, Hansgrohe and our retailers all benefit from Hansgrohe’s strong, recognisable branding. With the growth of the internet as a research and shopping tool, it’s vital that our online representation and dealer’s service levels are on a par with the physical showroom standards that customers expect from a Hansgrohe dealer. By necessarily offering a full service mix to online customers, our retailers will feel under less pressure to compete solely on “bargain basement” tactics which too often result in poor customer service and dissatisfaction to the detriment of the brand”.

With the development of the policy retailers now commit to ensuring that all websites displaying Hansgrohe materials are maintained to a high standard with all images, text and relevant web links kept up-to-date. To assist with the tougher requirements Hansgrohe offer free marketing support in the form of online tools for retail partners, high quality imagery, advertising banners, applications such as screen savers and Hansgrohe web pages for easy integration into websites.

Where retailers see fit to offer transactional websites Hansgrohe will be implementing strict pre- and post- sale onsite technical service requirements and Marketing Manager Geoff Wickett warns that Hansgrohe is serious about ending trading arrangements if the licence terms are not followedregardless of the turnover level of any dealer.

The company will continue to take action against illegitimate traders using Hansgrohe intellectual property without permission and has worked hard in recent years to lower ‘trader’ presence on Google searches through development of their own Search Engine Optimised (SEO) web presence. Receiving more than 1.2 million visits in the first five months of 2012 alone, Hansgrohe UK’s web pages now rank heavily in the top searches, leading consumers to the Hansgrohe Shopfinder section- the home of legitimate retail partners.