‘We’re much more than a furniture vendor – we’re truly a partner’

Rachel Kroeger

Staff

November 25, 2024

EAU CLAIRE – Atmosphere Commercial Interiors (ACI), one of the largest furniture dealerships in the U.S. known for creating functional spaces, caught the eye of the Eau Claire Area Chamber of Commerce – recently winning Small Business of the Year at the chamber’s 2024 Bravo to Business awards event.

“We had been a finalist for this award in 2022 and 2023,” Bonnie Krahn, a workplace consultant with ACI’s Eau Clarie office, said. “So it was really kind of a fingers-crossed, hopefully ‘third time’s the charm’ (situation), but we had no idea (if we would win). So it was a really nice surprise.”

ACI has been operating in the Badger State for 75 years this year according to its Regional Vice President for Wisconsin and Illinois, Susan Enlow.

“Outside of our Eau Claire office, we’ve got additional teams in other states, and each of our clientele is a little different in each of our offices,” she said. “So we’re used to having many specialties in every area.”

Enlow said ACI helps create spaces for businesses operating within numerous professional industries.

ACI, she said, partners with design professionals and design firms to provide office furnishings that help bring their creative visions to life.

“We work with health care, we work with K-12 (and) higher education and we work with general office, manufacturing and hospitality (businesses),” she said. “So the range of furniture offerings differs greatly by the vertical market that the client may be in.”

As a premier Steelcase partner, Ashley Molbeck – ACI’s regional sales director for Wisconsin and Illinois – said the furniture manufacturer based out of Grand Rapids, Michigan, supplies ACI with insights, research and furniture solutions for every industry.

“Our team is extremely knowledgeable… in all of the varieties of different furniture,” Molbeck said. “Because, as you can imagine, with all of those different verticals that we have, we have a variety of furniture that supports all of the needs and everything as well.”

Tech friendly

In the post-COVID-19-pandemic, work-from-home era, Enlow said more and more companies are bringing their employees back into the office.

“We have seen a shift in what people are purchasing based on the ways they are working,” she said. “It’s shifted to open offices – a lot of collaboration, ancillary items (and) a lot of areas for impromptu meetings.”

Krahn said ACI has always carried the types of product solutions to achieve that vision, and has long promoted the benefits of open and collaborative professional spaces.

“We’ve always been telling the story that we want to create flexible workspaces so that people can choose a spot where they do their best work for the day, whether that be an office – a private office (or) an open office – a work cafe, a lounge chair,” she said. “But I think after the pandemic, companies are realizing the importance of creating those spaces more than ever, because they want to make sure people want to come to the office and have comfortable places to work.”

Enlow said technology has also played a huge role in how ACI has adapted its solutions and furniture offerings over time.

“Each of us is in some form of an office, but still collaborating in this fashion,” she said – referencing the virtual interview she was having with The Business News as an example of her point. “So you need furniture that supports technology, and you need space that supports the sound needs of the ways we’re working – and the new way people are working is just what we’re doing right now.”

Having the furniture to create those spaces is one thing, but having the knowledge to deliver an experience, Molbeck said, is another.

All of ACI’s designers, she said, hold at least four-year degrees, “some go further if they want to do that.”

“Most of them also become accredited in various forms of specialties,” she said.

After completing their undergraduate degree, interior designers have the choice to become certified by the Council for Interior Design Qualification (CIDQ).

According to the council’s website (cidq.org), qualified interior designers can take the NCIDQ Interior Design Certification exam, which is “the industry’s recognized indicator of proficiency in interior design principles and a designer’s commitment to the profession.”

That exam, Molbeck said, is “a grueling test.”

“It is not easy…,” she said. “So every single one of our designers have that educational background.”

Molbeck said that background plays an integral role in how ACI’s designers choose to furnish a space.

“While (working) in health care, we focus on patient rooms, waiting rooms and exam areas,” she said. “(But) there are oftentimes administrative areas or things outside of just what you would consider (to be) in the healthcare realm that do flow into other verticals that our designers are well versed in.”

More than just a pretty place

Armed with the necessary knowledge and certification, Enlow said ACI’s team understands the importance of an office space to the employees working in them.

“We all work, and you know the power of the place that you work in,” she said. “I think especially coming out of the pandemic, people started really looking at their offices differently and understanding the power that place holds in people’s well-being, in their mental health (and) in their productivity levels.”

Having those spaces for collaboration, solitude, comfort and productivity, Krahn said, helps companies in their recruitment and retention of employees.

“We want people to love where they work, take pride in it, have it support what they’re doing and have it be functional,” she said. “It’s much more than just being pretty.”

At ACI, Krahn said “every client is completely different,” so each one needs curated solutions to achieve the goals of their respective company.

Krahn said several steps are taken to determine what level of help the client needs in making all the decisions that go into the interior  of any given professional space.

“Some (clients) know exactly what they want, and they could pretty much say, ‘I want these chairs, these tables and these are the finishes I want them in,’” she said. “Other people come to us and they have no idea what they need or want.”

When working with clients in a consultative manner, Krahn said the process involves a lot of questions to assist customers in discovering their vision.

“We ask them, ‘How do you work? What do you like about the way you’re working now? What don’t you like?’ – so we can create the best solution for them, and then we work with them through the whole process,” she said.

The value ACI brings to any project, Krahn said, is giving businesses and business owners a partner that’s there to help as they explore what to do with their space.

“We’re much more than a furniture vendor – we’re truly a partner,” she said. “We can help (customers) with a lot of the decisions that they probably don’t want to make on their own.”

Those decisions, Krahn said, can expand far beyond simply picking out the furniture, fit and finishes.

“We can help clients make different decisions as far as their paint colors and flooring and things like that in their office space,” she said.

Inspiration strikes

Inspiration can come from many places, but Molbeck said the central goal never changes.

“The thing that I always tell our clients is we are here to create their vision for what suits their needs,” she said. “They are living in it, we are not living in it. Our goal as an organization is to create great client experience, no matter what that means.”

That vision, Enlow said, is driven by the client and is based on what inspires them, their employees and their customers.

“It’s always important for us to understand where our clients are coming from, and we find that out through… an (exploratory) phase,” Enlow said. “That’s where we really understand what the client’s goals and objectives are for their space – for their people and for their business. So there’s never a one-size-fits-all solution.”

Enlow said ACI can help inspire a client to discover their vision several different ways.

“We will work with our manufacturer at Steelcase and go through case studies of other companies,” she said. “We’ll look through all their product offerings, and we’ll create what is basically called a thought starter, and we’ll share that with a client to start getting them to think about how they want their space to look visually.”

In addition to those thought starters, Enlow said they’ll give clients tours of ACI’s showrooms that display the various furniture and solutions the company offers, or build a 3D model the client can walk through virtually.

“I think the thing that we focus on is moments of joy at work and inspiration,” she said. “People oftentimes are inspired to be their best selves – to do their best work – when they are in surroundings that speak to them, whether that is a specific color palette, or the fabric on the chair that they’re sitting on – that is what creates beauty for us.”

To learn more, visit atmosphereci.com.