Case Studies
Thomasville Furniture
An established manufacturer and retailer switches from CD-based software to Icovia and sees immediate results.
Thomasville Furniture became an Icovia customer in 2005, selecting Icovia Business Edition to replace their CD-based room planning solution from another vendor. Thomasville's Icovia Space Planner includes Product Catalog Integration (PCI) and is used by customers and Thomasville design consultants at thomasville.com and in stores.
Thomasville Furniture, a Furniture Brands International company, is a full-line manufacturer founded in Thomasville, North Carolina, in 1904. Its furniture is sold through a network of more than 150 independently owned Thomasville Home Furnishings Stores, as well as over 400 leading independent retail stores.
According to Eric Tessau, EBusiness Manager for Thomasville Furniture, there were several problems with their CD-based space planner. "Our previous solution was PC-based and required sending out CD updates twice a year. The CDs were out of date before they even left our mailroom, and required time and effort at each store to install. The program itself was also difficult to learn."
Tessau adds, "Since switching to Icovia, which runs a centralized server that is always online and always updated, maintenance and support have dropped significantly."
And as someone responsible for a wide range of online business initiatives, Tessau knows that Icovia is more than a great design tool for customers. "We use Icovia Space Planner on Thomasville.com for both our customers and as the primary space planning tool for the design consultants at our stores to use." Noting the viral marketing benefits of Icovia, Tessau adds, "The beauty of Icovia is that room plans can be shared and emailed to anyone."
Icovia has positively affected ROI in 3 areas according to Tessau. "First, we have seen a 205% increase in the number of room plans per month created compared to our old space planning tool. Second, our maintenance and support costs have dropped significantly by going to a central online system from a CD-based system that had to be burned and mailed nationwide. Third, by being real-time, our product catalog is always updated and accurate. With the CD distribution, it relied on dealers to install and update, and then the products were only updated every 6 months."
Thomasville knows something about leveraging online tools to increase revenues and stay competitive. And as an early adopter of space planning technology, they know a well-built product when they see it. Tessau comments, "Icovia is far superior to the other online space planning tools that we investigated and previously used."
Thomasville launched with Icovia's Product Catalog Integration (PCI) module to make their full product line accessible within their planner and to integrate with their existing wish list. "It fully integrates with our product catalog, wish list and corporate branding, all packaged in an easy-to-use, consumer-friendly program."
Icovia's easy setup and scalable architecture has made life easier for Thomasville operational team. Tessau notes, "As we add and drop products in our line, Icovia automatically feeds our catalog in real-time, and even flags our customers if they have previously placed an item that is now discontinued."
"Perhaps one of the best parts of Icovia is the strong team they have behind it to support the product and respond to requests and enhancements. Software and database installation was completely painless and very well documented."
One of the more compelling advantages to Icovia is the minimal investment of resources needed to deploy the application, even when product catalog integration is involved. Tessau explains, "Our only time investment was in writing the piece to hook in our product catalog and match the space planning icons with our product lines. This took approximately 3 days of one-time setup. The only on-going maintenance is simple selection of icons to our products, which take less than a minute each."
And their customers share their enthusiasm. "Just last week, we had a gentleman write in commenting how he had such a great time creating room plans in Icovia that he spent 4 hours and planned to make a purchase. We constantly hear positive reviews of Icovia."
"By having an online system, customers can create room plans in the comfort of their own home or office, and then come to a store with either a full printout and checklist of desired items or log onto Thomasville.com on the store kiosks with a design consultant and pull up their room plan. The reverse is also true - a design consultant can create a room plan with a customer while in the store, and the customer can go home and retrieve that exact room plan and tweak as necessary."
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