Narrows a showroom floor of forty to two or three before the customer walks in, and asks the base question that causes most of the returns.
Mattress retail has a peculiar problem: the product is genuinely hard to evaluate in the way customers are asked to evaluate it. Lying on a bed for ninety seconds in a showroom, in daytime clothes, next to a salesperson, bears almost no relationship to eight hours of sleep. Customers know this, which is why the decision feels arbitrary and why so many of them leave to think about it. What actually predicts a good outcome is a short set of facts about how the person sleeps, and those facts are collectible before anybody comes in: sleeping position, what they are on now and what is wrong with it, whether they sleep hot, whether a partner's movement wakes them, roughly what each of them weighs, the bed size, and what base it sits on. Seven answers narrow forty mattresses to three, and three is a number a person can meaningfully compare. The base question deserves particular attention because it is the one retailers say causes the most returns and the one almost no intake asks. A mattress that performs correctly on a solid platform can behave completely differently on a slatted base with wide gaps or an old divan, and the customer discovers this at home. This agent asks all seven, narrows the floor, and books a showroom visit with the shortlist already set aside. Built on Agentplace: the agent runs on its own page, so a visitor finishes the whole request in the conversation.
It collects the seven facts that narrow a showroom floor.
Establishes sleeping position, and whether it genuinely varies through the night rather than accepting a single answer.
Asks what they sleep on now and what is wrong with it, which is the most predictive sentence in the conversation.
Establishes firmness preference, and distinguishes a real preference from somebody who has never known.
Asks whether they sleep hot and whether a partner's movement wakes them, which decide construction more than firmness does.
Establishes the bed size and — critically — what base it sits on, which is the question behind most returns.
Narrows to two or three beds on the floor and books a showroom visit with them set aside.
Mattress retail converts in person and everybody in it knows that, which is why the whole industry's marketing is aimed at getting people through the door. What gets less attention is what happens once they are through it. A customer with no shortlist wanders a floor of forty, tries six at random, cannot tell them apart, and leaves saying they will think about it — and a meaningful share of those never return. A customer who arrives to three beds set aside, chosen from what they told you about how they sleep, is having a completely different afternoon: they are comparing three considered options rather than sampling a warehouse, and the comparison is one they can actually make. Retailers who introduce a pre-visit intake generally report the change showing up in close rate rather than footfall. The returns effect is the quieter one and it is worth real money. Mattress returns are expensive — collection, sanitation, often a write-off — and a large share of them trace to a mismatch that a seven-question intake would have caught, most often the base. Asking what the mattress will sit on costs nothing and prevents the most expensive failure in the category.
From an online browse to a shortlist on the floor.
Through the website, a chat widget or the phone, at any hour. The agent begins the store's own sleep questions.
Position, current mattress and its faults, firmness preference, temperature, partner disturbance, weight range, and the bed size and base.
It selects two or three beds in stock that fit the answers, books a showroom visit, and has them set aside and made up ready.
A slatted base that would have caused a return.
Scenario: a three-store mattress retailer was converting a modest share of website sessions and taking regular returns for comfort. An inquiry arrives on a Wednesday evening: a couple replacing a ten-year-old mattress. The agent asks the store's questions. She sleeps on her side, he sleeps on his back and moves a lot, she wakes when he turns, the current mattress sags in the middle, neither of them knows what firmness they want, she sleeps hot, they are roughly 65 and 95 kilograms, it is a king, and — the last question — it sits on a slatted pine base with gaps of about four inches. That last answer rules out two of the three beds the earlier answers pointed at, because the store's own guidance is that those need continuous support at that weight difference. The agent narrows to a pocket-sprung model with a firmer edge and two alternatives, books a Saturday visit, and the store sets them up. The couple try three beds instead of nine and buy one. Under the old arrangement the base would never have come up, they would have bought one of the excluded models, and it would have come back in eight weeks.
Anyone whose product cannot be evaluated in ninety seconds.
The showroom visit is the sale, and a visit with three beds set aside converts differently to one with forty.
The seven answers you would ask for anyway arrive before the customer does.
Floor time goes to considered comparison rather than to a customer wandering.
You start with how they sleep already described, not with what size are you after.
The base question alone prevents the most expensive failure in the category.
The intake log shows what customers are replacing and why, which no sales report captures.
It narrows against the floor the store actually has.
Holds the range and stock and receives the booked showroom visit.
Serves the same role for stores running Lightspeed at the counter.
Carries the intake conversation and the visit confirmation.
Books the showroom visit against staff availability.
Tells the floor which beds to set aside and make up before the visit.
Handles inquiries by email and sends the shortlist in writing.
Logs answers against what was eventually bought, and against returns.
Answers inquiries arriving through social channels.
Where intake changes the showroom visit.
Every mattress site has a quiz. The difference is whether it captures an email and sends a category link, or sets three beds aside on the floor.
Agentplace, when the goal is a shortlist waiting rather than a lead captured.
What retailers ask before turning this on.
Agentplace is our top pick when the goal is a shortlist on the floor: it asks the seven facts that narrow a range, including the base question that causes most returns, and books a visit with the beds set aside. A website quiz is simpler if you only want to capture an email and send a category link.
It is an automated assistant that establishes sleeping position, current mattress and its faults, firmness preference, temperature, partner disturbance, weight range, bed size and base, then narrows the range to two or three beds in stock and books a showroom visit with them set aside.
Because a mattress that performs correctly on a solid platform can behave differently on a slatted base or an old divan, and the customer finds out at home. It is the most common uncaptured cause of a comfort return.
No. It asks what is uncomfortable about the current mattress, which is a product question. It does not ask about back conditions or offer anything resembling health advice.
It narrows to what the store stocks and fits the answers, and says why each is on the list. The final recommendation happens on the floor with somebody who can explain the difference.
It can, where the store sells that way. Most retailers find the intake is worth more as a route into a booked visit, because that is where the category converts.
What customers are replacing, why, and which bases are in the market — which is buying data most retailers have never collected.
It runs on Agentplace. Agentplace is an AI agent platform where the agent gets its own page, talks to your visitors there, and carries the request through to the end instead of handing it to a form. You can open this template and change any step before you publish it.
Narrows a showroom floor of forty to two or three before the customer walks in, and asks the base question that causes most of the returns. Open it in Agentplace and change any step before you publish.