Customer Story

93-year-old Pierce Flooring & Design takes a youthful approach to appointment reminders

The Challenge

Pierce Flooring and Design is a family-owned business based out of Billings, Montana. They have seven locations and have been around for 93 years. Throughout those years they have learned the value that communication has on the relationship with their customers. Although the medium they use to get ahold of their customers has changed throughout the years, from handwritten letters to text messaging, Pierce Flooring and Design prides themselves on always using the forms of communication their customers and prospects want.

Steve Denny, VP Director of Operations of Pierce Flooring and Design, has been a catalyst for implementing text messaging in their business. “Texting customers is the way of the future” Denny said. “Podium’s text-messaging tool, Messaging Platform, gives us the ability to confirm installation, schedule services, track work that is being done, and send reminders for payment. It has completely changed the way we do business”

The Solution

“There are a lot of review and messaging options out there that are cheaper options than Podium, but by no stretch of the imagination do they do what Podium does,” Denny said. “When we were making the decision, one of the main reasons I was a major advocate for Podium was because of Messaging Platform. Denny knew his team needed a way to quickly and efficiently communicate with customers in a non-intrusive way.

“We have a lot of younger people that want to do business with us,” Denny said. “If we try to call them, we will be calling and calling and calling, and they do not pick up. But, when we send a text, they always respond and it is almost always immediate.” Providing text messaging as an option to communicate with his business has also helped to draw in new customers, especially millennials.

The Result

Using Messaging Platform has saved store managers and schedulers a lot of time that used to be spent trying to connect with customers over the phone. “Before we had the Messaging Platform, we were wasting a lot of time and a lot of business when we made phone calls to customers to confirm appointments,” Denny said. “Now with text confirmations, not only are we getting responses from people whether or not they will be home, but it is happening a whole lot quicker.”

Everyone in the service industry understands how frustrating it is when someone makes an appointment and doesn’t show up. Denny and his team experienced many years of having frequent no-shows. This wasted a lot of time and energy for Denny’s team. “Before confirming installations with Messaging Platform, we were losing 30 – 40 appointments a month because our installers would show up to the home and no one would be there,” Denny said. “Now, we do everything we can to make sure people are reminded of their appointments and are at home when we show up. We have slimmed down the number of lost appointments to maybe one a month.”

“Before Messaging Platform, we had a less than a 50% success rate calling our customers on the phone,” Denny said. “But, now we have a 90% success rate getting ahold of customers.” “Messaging Platform was everything I was looking for and more,” Denny said. “It just simplifies everything. This will be the way of communication between businesses and customers in the future, and it’s good to get a head start on it. It makes you look more professional, and people think we are on-the-ball as a business because of our ability to communicate on a level that they understand and appreciate.”