How to Answer Your Customer's Tricky Colour Questions

Hands up if your customer has asked you for your opinion on their colour choice - is it too dark? Will it match the sofa? What colours go with it? Sound familiar? We at Dulux Trade understand the pressures on professional decorators to offer colour and design advice, so we've come up with a suite of tools to help you guide your customer in finding a choice they're happy with. Here's how to use them in response to frequently asked colour questions:

'What colours go together?'

If your customer has a colour in mind but is struggling to find shades to complement it for either the trim or adjacent walls and surfaces, the Dulux Trade Paint Expert (DTPE) app can help. It has hundreds of ready-made colour palettes, and suggests two additional complementary colours for every shade. Another failsafe way of finding a second or third colour is the Dulux Trade colour card. Each one shows a spectrum of tonal variations of the same colour, so your customer can pick lighter and a darker versions from the card for a subtle colour scheme.

Tools: Dulux Trade Paint Expert app and Dulux Trade colour cards

'Can you match this colour?'

Customers will look to many different brands to find 'the one'. When they find it, they can recreate the exact shade with Dulux Trade so that they get they exceptional quality and finish they're looking for without compromising their vision. Match your customer's favourite colour at our paint mixing facilities at Dulux Trade retailers and Dulux Decorator Centres, then take away a colour card to leave with your client so they can compare it and finalise their decision.

Tools: Dulux Trade Colour cards

'What will it look like when it dries?'

When customers are looking at wet paint on the wall or product in the tin, they can find it hard to visualise how they colour will look once up on the wall and dry. The DTPE app has a visualisation tool that virtually paints surfaces at the touch of a screen in real time, so you can show your customer how their space will look quickly and easy. A picture says a thousand words after all. Always recommend to your customer that they try out shades they like on the wall first, before making a final decision on colour. It's crucial they see what the colour will look like in different lights, at different times of day and if possible, in different areas of the room. Advise them to use some of your tricks of the trade, such as painting the tester on a large piece of lining paper and moving it around the room in different lights.

Tools: DTPE app and tester pots.

'Which shade of grey/white/magnolia should I choose?'

It's safe to say the majority of your customers will choose a colour in the neutrals spectrum, whether that's grey, white, magnolia or anything in between. There are hundreds of neutral shades to choose between, so no wonder customers find it tricky to decide. This is where the visualisation tool on your DTPE app comes in handy again; showing your customer what their space would look like in a particular colour before they've even ordered a tester can help them narrow down their choice and help them save both time and money. Another function of the app is the Inspiration Gallery, where you and your customer can see how shades look in room sets and paired with different shades, again helping them to eliminate the colours they don't like and identify the shades they do.

Tools: DTPE app

'Will this go with my decor?'

From research, we know that your customers tend to choose colours to go with existing furnishings and belongings - usually sofas, curtains, carpets and the like. Whether they're looking for the perfect match to a fabric, or a colour that will look great alongside it, the DTPE app has an inbuilt Colour Picker tool that can assist clients in completing a scheme. Using the app, scan your customer's colour reference with your device, and it will instantly match the shade and suggest ready-made colour schemes based on it, taking out all the guesswork in choosing a shade.

Tools: DTPE app

'Which colour would you choose?'

Well, there is no tool to answer this particular question, but you could suggest they download the consumer version of the Dulux Trade Paint Expert app, the Dulux Visualizer. There they can experiment with ready-made colour palettes, find colours to go with their existing furnishings, see what shades will look like on the wall and even order testers directly from the app. They can also save their visualisations and show friends and family for a second opinion, so you can get on with getting the job done brilliantly.

Download the Dulux Trade Paint Expert app for free, or find out more about our other colour tools that can help reassure your customers.