Color matching has long been a standard offering of paint retailers. In the old days, it involved thousands of different printed color swatches homeowners or contractors could visually pair with the sample they wanted to match to. They’d bring in a paint chip from their wall, a cut-out from a magazine, or maybe something weird like a bird’s feather. Then they’d compare their sample to the printed swatches and pick the closest match. Your technician would then run out to the stock room or mix up a new can, and they’d be on their way. In this post we will learn how using paint color measurement can bring accuracy in wall paintings using spectrophotometers.

This method resulted in a lot of complaints of poor color matches, which meant unhappy customers. Printed swatches aren’t the same color as liquid paint in a can or solid paint on a wall. The fluorescent lighting of your store isn’t the same as the incandescent or LED lighting of a home’s interior and certainly isn’t the same as daylight through a window or on an exterior surface. Matching under these conditions will yield results that are fairly close to the desired color, and if people aren’t picky, that’s probably close enough. However, some people want exact matches, and as the human eye can distinguish between millions of discrete colors, they’ve got a lot to pick from. So paint retailers found a better way.

When a customer brings in the color swatch that they want their walls to look like, your technician zaps it with the spectrophotometer, which quantizes the color measurement into exact color coordinates. These numbers are fed directly into your automated mixer and produce the exact shade that the customer desires. It’s simpler, quicker, and more accurate than the old system.
 

It’s about customer satisfaction. Homeowners and contractors have many options for their home improvement needs. Both standalone paint stores and paint divisions in larger retailers are engaged in zero-sum competition within their geographic areas for the same customers. Once a customer finds a solution that meets their needs, they are likely to return to that same store for their next transaction. As a result, retailers that can deliver color matching solutions the first time, every time, will create and retain customers for life. The long-term value of repeat business will generate returns that far outweigh the upfront cost of improving your color matching equipment.