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Cover Story
Wired for Success
Caroline and Gary Small took control of their computers and saw
their sales begin to rise at Monique’s Draperies.
By Kathleen Stoehr
Photography by Jim Robinette
| ‘Many customers are amazed at
our use of notebook computers at their home. They feel more
comfortable with the level of our competence.’ |
It
seemed that Caroline Ernst had her life mapped out. Growing up with
the enterprising Monique and Arthur Ernst for parents, who started
Monique’s Draperies & Shades in—where else?—their
garage, Caroline knew by the time she was 12 that she wanted to
take over her parent’s business one day.
After achieving a college degree in finance and computer science
(a degree was the bargaining chip her parents used to make certain
she was formulating an educated decision about being a business
owner), Caroline was ready. Now in its 40th year of operation, Monique’s
Draperies & Shades is no longer run by her parents, but by Caroline
and her husband Gary Small, as well as five additional employees.
And, of course, it’s no longer run out of the Ernst garage
but from two locations—Campbell, CA, and the Smalls’
new location in San Jose. Even more interestingly for this modest
company, the Smalls are wired for speed—computer speed, that
is.
CHISEL AND STONE?
“It all started when I saw Caroline beating the heck out of
a calculator getting yardage amounts and putting prices on each
treatment for a whole house installation,” says husband, Gary
Small. “I told her we could develop a computer program to
render those calculations she was doing over and over again. So
I did.”
The program Gary built—“and I’m an admitted hobbyist,”
he says about his computer skills—was first unveiled in 1989.
“I was also using these big two-foot by three-foot pads to
schedule my appointments,” Caroline adds. “They worked
OK until someone changed something, and then it was time to get
out the eraser.”
But perhaps we’re getting ahead of ourselves. First, something
happened in Caroline and Gary’s business that caused this
unrest with two-foot by three-foot scheduling pads and the beating
of calculators. Monique’s Draperies & Shades was growing.
And growing. And growing.
The store is now about 3,000 square feet and Monique’s also
has just become a Hunter Douglas Gallery dealer. Current product
lines, which include all types of soft treatments as well as shades,
shutters, motors and ready-made draperies, is about two percentage
points shy of 100 percent custom work. Their showroom in Campbell
offers many full-sized displays of these products, which allows
customers to get a terrific overview of how these fashionable treatments
will look in a home. “Our whole store is full of displays
that people can touch and operate,” says Caroline. “I
feel this is so important for the consumer. So many times you can
‘sale up’ because they can actually see that something
is a lot easier to handle motorized, than manually, for example.”
Currently, soft window treatments are leading the pack with about
60 percent of the sales; hard window treatments cover the additional
40 percent. “There is definitely more profit in the soft side
of the business,” says Caroline. “There are many products
that go into each treatment and a longer lead time, but our customers
do appreciate the workmanship and uniqueness in those treatments.”
GROWING, GROWING
Part of the reason for the success of Monique’s is the dual
emphasis on sales and service. “If you provide the customer
with service, you get more sales,” says Caroline. “Then
when you get the sale, you need to offer follow-up attention. This
is a continuous circle.”
Pricing is also an important part of Monique’s. “We
can’t afford to do heavy discounting to win a particular job
because of the overhead and employees,” says Caroline. “Also,
we do plan to be around for many more years. We feel service is
a lot more important to a customer than the price.”
Small explains that she often has customers come in for repairs
on shades that were bought from a store no longer in business, “Most
likely because the heavy discounting they were doing finally caught
up with them. Chain stores also can’t provide the level of
customer service [we can] because of the bureaucracy in a larger
company.”
Which brings us back to Gary watching his wife labor with a pencil
and eraser. Despite that he had no formal training in computers—“I
worked in semiconductor electronics for 25 years,” he says—it
was just something he felt he needed to learn to be able to help
with his wife’s business.
One of the programs Gary devised is a sales program that automatically
generates a customer status list. “Each designer has this
program on his or her laptop,” he explains. “They can
keep track of all their customers’ orders, which are currently
being worked on. The designers can put remarks into the list for
each customer regarding backorders, messages left to the customer
and more, and then it date stamps each entry.”
According to Gary, anyone in the store can enter information. Having
this customer status list (CSL) makes it very easy to keep track
of orders and keep the company a step ahead of the customer. “This
is probably the most important part of customer service,”
Caroline adds. “If you promise something you need to follow
up on it. You don’t want the customer to call you because
you forgot to get in contact with them regarding some issue.”
COMPUTERIZING
Back when his wife Caroline was beating up her calculator, Gary
was a novice with computers. After about a year of learning not
only about computers but also the window treatment industry, Gary
launched his first program in 1989. “Caroline used that program,
despite that it was limited and ran on a DOS system, for about 12
years,” he says. But it was the basis for the existing sales
program in place today.
About two years ago, Gary launched the present version, which has
evolved little by little since over the past 13 years. This version
allows for new reports to be setup easily and other changes to accommodate
new products as they come out, especially in the hard window coverings
area. It also handles wallpaper sales including figuring how many
rolls are required based on room measurements and bedding estimates
and orders for comforters, bedspreads and more.
Another feature is the sample book checkout system. “The books
used to be checked out using a handwritten log,” says Gary.
“Not everyone would check them back in and then the system
kind of fell apart. Our computerized bar code system isn’t
perfect but it allows an easy check to see who hasn’t brought
back samples by using a printed report. We can then call them and
provide a gentle reminder.” The system is based on an Excel
spreadsheet with all of the books listed by name, vendor, type of
book (such as fabric, wallpaper, etc.), and then the bar code. They
are also categorized by style, type of print, and more.
“This system did not take too long to develop and we solved
most issues with the way it worked, early on,” says Gary.
“One of the original problems was that the checkout person
wouldn’t be in the right location (field) in the program and
would overwrite the customer’s name with the bar code they
just scanned in. That I fixed quickly, otherwise the customer just
became a number—not good!”
SHOVEL OR BACKHOE?
Despite that Gary still calls his computer prowess a hobby, he mentions
offhandedly that except for the laptops, he built all the company
PCs himself. “I believe people should think of a computer
as a very useful tool,” he says. “I equate it to digging
a large hole by either using a shovel or a backhoe. I would much
prefer the backhoe, but some people may be content using the shovel.”
So with his backhoe, so to speak, Gary added more computer programs,
including electronic price lists—basically an Excel spreadsheet
that offers the pattern name, retail or wholesale prices and many
times the fabric content, the repeats and sometimes the name of
the sample book it is contained in. With this information, he has
developed a database with more than 20 popular vendors and some
45,000 patterns. No price books are needed and all the prices are
“equalized” in the tables to provide only retail prices.
Additionally, Gary provided the workrooms with a program to track
the status of every job for each company they provide services for.
The program prints a job schedule for each “department.”
Schedules for draperies, valances, cornices and pillows or bedding
are generated, for instance. From these lists, each worker knows
what is next on the list because they are ordered by due date. If
there is an issue with a particular job, such as a fabric flaw or
perhaps insufficient yardage, an exception is noted and a new list
is generated to allow for follow-up of these issues.
“This job file is copied to the store automatically every
day,” Gary says. “This information is used to follow
each decorator’s job progression though the workroom. Once
the job is completed, the decorator can schedule the installation
or customer pick-up.” Caroline adds, “All of this is
done without having to contact the workroom for a verbal status
update. It is neat, orderly and everyone is working from the same
page.”
But for those who want to learn more about computers, Gary Small
recommends taking a class or two, especially through adult education.
“I would suggest people learn a good word processing program
and a spreadsheet program. These are most helpful for organizing
a business. It is very important to learn the operating system (OS),
too. I use several versions of Windows, but any OS will work well
if you understand how it works and what it can do.”
DISTINGUISHING SERVICE
Monique’s Draperies & Shades one of the few larger stores
in the area specializing in custom window coverings and almost anything
in fabric, which is what helps separates them from competitors.
But both Gary and Caroline point to their technology as a strong
force in moving them ahead of their competitors. “Many customers
are amazed at our use of notebook computers at their home,”
says Caroline. “They feel more comfortable with the level
of our competence. The estimate or order, printed at their home,
is professional looking and speaks volumes about our business methods.”
Other factors play into the success of Monique’s, of course:
Their showroom; the highly regarded 40-year name of their business;
and being family-owned and a woman-owned business plays a big part,
too. But Caroline returns to the technology of their system by saying,
“People are impressed with the high-tech part of our business
and the efficiency of our various computers and programs. They are
impressed even when we check out product samples with our bar code
scanner. The sales program that my husband developed is one of the
greatest parts of our store successes!”
“If I can do this,” Gary says, “anyone who puts
some time and effort into it can do it, too.” |
