Information Technology

Driven to Please

SaaS system powers Arhaus Furniture’s white glove deliveries

From May 2009 | By M.V. Greene | Tags: Information Technology, Nuts & Bolts

spacer Achieving premier status at anything is a high threshold to meet, but Cleveland-based Arhaus Furniture strives to excel on two fronts – the quality products in its showrooms and its back-office logistics.

In the retail furniture business, a smooth-running logistical function means customers receive delivery and set-up of their bedroom, dining room and living room pieces within a reasonable amount of time following purchase. It also means superior customer service that will translate into future sales.

Arhaus takes a "white glove" approach to customer service and delivery, says vice president of logistics John Roddy. This includes meticulously unpacking and setting up new furniture, removing replaced items and discarding packing materials. Arhaus delivery people, who wear plastic booties or remove their shoes when entering a customer's home, will even fluff the pillows.

"We do deliveries incredibly cheap for what it costs us to do," he says. "There's a lot of time involved. We'll move piece-for-piece on the same floor, so if you order a new bedroom suite and your bedroom's sitting there, we'll tear it down and move it to a different room [before we] put our new one in."

Making more than 1,000 deliveries a week, Arhaus operates a sophisticated logistical operation. Rather than delivering from the backrooms of its retail stores, Arhaus delivers from a central warehouse in Cleveland, routing drivers and loading items from that location before transporting them to neighborhoods across the country.

The goal, Roddy says, is "if it is in stock in my warehouse, we can deliver it to you within 10 calendar days. Usually it is around eight days, anywhere in the country."

With 35 showrooms in 13 states, Arhaus meets that tall order by relying on the ETAdirect customer appointment and mobile workforce management system from another Cleveland-area company.

TOA Technologies employs a web-based, software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform to give companies like Arhaus increased visibility into their logistics operations. The platform provides routing and scheduling for dispatchers and drivers and integrates customer contact preferences for communication, such as cell phone or e-mail.

The automated system matches mobile employees in the field with an appointment based on attributes ranging from the skill set and job history of the driver to geographic proximity to the customer. The technology further integrates with a client's customer care and billing systems.

While a centralized delivery system can lack the spontaneity of smaller, independent furniture companies that run deliveries out of their backrooms, Roddy believes Arhaus more than makes up for any loss of flexibility through precision and tracking.

A key measure of efficiency is the critical "delivery window" – often a bane for customers who must wait at home without knowing precisely when a delivery truck will arrive in their driveways. Most companies in the furniture segment began to migrate to a two-hour delivery window within the past two years, Roddy says: Arhaus has been employing it for four years as part of its appointment management and driver tracking application. Today, Arhaus can reduce delivery windows to an hour in most of its markets, he says: Another measure, on-time delivery, is in the high 90 percent range.

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