WANTED: A Unicorn

Finding a chair everyone can agree on is important for a marriage. And your relationship with your interior designer.

That’s what happened to Bob Duncan of the Relax The Back store in Birmingham, AL. Relax the Back is a national chain of stores that offer specialized spinal health and support products. They’ve been the primary U.S. distributor for LIFEFORM Chairs since the mid 1990’s.

A franchise owner since 2016, Bob knows chairs and how to match customers with the right one to meet their needs. So, when Candace Reynolds came in looking for a comfortable – but beautiful – ergonomic office chair, she was in good hands.

This is her story…

Candace and her husband had their home redone in 2015 and she has a beautiful home office. We’re talking work-of-art beautiful. Which makes sense since Candace is an artist. She had worked with an interior designer and at the time, they had found a beautiful chair to fit the space and she loved it. Except there was one major problem.

The chair was very uncomfortable.

Candace says she could do short stints in the chair but when it came to her extensive reading time, having meetings or even paying bills, she couldn’t sit in it comfortably for long periods.

She laughs when she talks about her husband’s opinion.

“Every time he would get in the (old) chair he would say ‘I hate this chair. I hate this chair, it’s so uncomfortable,” she laughs. “I thought ‘I’m going to walk (into the office) one day and he’s going to have just bought some ugly office chair and stuck it in here and we’re gonna have a fight over it. I can already feel it, I can just feel it’s about to happen. So I got busy.”

The COVID Conundrum

She was motivated to buy a new chair, but she had learned her lesson about fit. After her experience with the much-maligned chair, one of her major criteria for buying a new one was that she HAD to sit in it beforehand.

As many of us who have tried to buy goods online in the past year have found out the hard way… #COVID.

Quality, ergonomic office chairs are few and far between in local stores. People forced to work from home have realized the power of a good, comfortable chair. And online, the waiting times for getting one custom-made have been growing steadily. During her search at other retailers, Candace was told she had two options: wait almost three months until a chair arrived in her local area store OR she could travel from Birmingham to Nashville, TN, to a big box store warehouse to try out their in-stock chairs.

Thing is, Candace knew exactly what she wanted. Her gorgeous home office is already complete. With simple, classic lines, and white and neutral colors throughout, her chair HAD to fit this space. But she also needed a good quality, adjustable chair that both her AND her husband could be comfortable in.

Almost at her wit’s end, Candace googled “office chairs with good back support” and thankfully, Bob’s Relax the Back store popped up in the results.

She couldn’t believe her luck. After weeks of searching – she says she spent a solid day on the phone calling local retailers – she discovered there was an ergonomic chair store only 2 miles from her house. Enter Bob, her new best friend.

Once he understood what Candace needed – for her back, her husband’s size and her esthetic – Bob knew the LIFEFORM® Ultimate Executive ergonomic office chair was for her. As one of the most customizable chairs available, he knew it would meet her needs for reading, paying bills, and emailing while her husband could also use it for his meetings.

The WOW Factor

Luckily, Bob had a chair in-store which was exactly what Candace needed to match her office decor perfectly. Our exclusive Ultimate Executive mid-back chair, with beige Brisa fabric, quilting and matching stitching was exactly what she was looking for. When we upgraded the standard black base to chrome, it became exactly what she (and her designer) wanted as well.

“The floor model was perfect. I love the buttery creaminess of this color,” explains Candace. “It would compliment my room but it wasn’t overpowering. And I love the fact that the stitching is the same color as the chair.”

When asked what he loves about LIFEFORM®, Bob simply said:

“At Relax The Back, we sell a lot of chairs to help a variety of people. But when you tell me you’re going to sit for extended periods of time, there is no other chair manufactured in the world that’s better than the LIFEFORM® Ultimate Executive Office Chair.”

“I can fit that (Executive Office) chair like a glove to any person’s body,” Bob continues. “It’s the only chair where the back actually opens and closes. It’s the only chair that’s made with that much supportive memory foam in the seat. And it’s the only chair that has the saddle pommel that helps the pelvis align properly.“

Candace seconds that.

“One of my favorite features (of the chair), is that the arms fold in… so you can get right up to the desk and you can even rest your arms on the arms,” says Candace. “It gives you support as you’re typing on your computer or paying your bills. I just love all the different adjustments.”

Although she loved the functionality and customization of the Executive Office chair, she knew it had to work for both her and her husband. So she texted him to come try it out.

“There is no way I’m taking this chair home and spending this amount of money without you sitting in it,” she wrote him. “We’ve been down this road. I’ve bought every other chair in the house because it looks good and it’s comfortable to ME. And I want it to be comfortable for him. And when he sat in it, he said ‘oh this is the chair’. So we are thrilled with it.”

Unexpected Benefits

“I did not realize I was doing it, but I had moved all of my activities – my reading, my bill paying – into the kitchen area to do them in a padded kitchen chair that fit better,” Candace remarks. “So now I can actually use my office for all that it needs to be used for. I’m able to come into the office and be comfortable. I pay the bills, read, or Zoom, do anything that I need to do on my laptop, I’m able to do it all in one location. Then all of my paraphernalia can stay in the office instead of scattered all over my kitchen.”

“Now I can come to the designated office area in the house – where the laptop is to be used, where the reading is to be accomplished and writing and anything else I need to do. And I can do it in this one beautiful room.”

We’re so happy she can do it in a beautiful ergonomic chair that is comfortable for both her AND her husband… and we checked to make sure her designer liked it too!