From Arhaus to your house safely via SaaS

John Roddy is the poster child for software as a service done right for a user. His SaaS tools solved problems he had intended to fix, but the unintended consequences turned out pretty well, too.

Roddy is the vice president of logistics at Walton Hills, Ohio-based Homeworks Inc., the upscale furniture chain that does business as Arhaus. When he joined the company ten years ago it had six people working full time in the dispatch office to route trucks and drivers around four states where Arhaus generated business from 12 stores. Today, Arhaus has expanded into 12 states with 30 stores, but the dispatch staff has shrunk to three full time and one part-time.

That was one goal, grow operations and deliveries without expanding the support group, but shrinking it was better still.

Another intention was to improve the on-time delivery window Arhaus offered customers. Roddy says his aim was to cut in half the industry norm of blocking four hours for drivers to arrive. He succeeded in all the markets Arhaus serves with a 97% success rate. But the system worked so well, in select areas, he's gotten the delivery window down to one hour. His goal for the coming years is to make the one-hour window possible everywhere.

Roddy gives the lion's share of the credit for to a SaaS vendor, TOA Technologies in nearby Beachwood, Ohio. He says TOA's Web-based scheduling service gathers data on each driver as he starts and stops a delivery. Arhaus makes 4,000 deliveries per month, so over time the service has a significant enough database to become deadly accurate in estimating arrival times.

A driver simply logs in his start and stop time to the TOA's site via a cell phone. The TOA service then calculates the arrival time to the next stop and it calls the customer with the expected arrival time, factoring in everything from time of day traffic, the driver's history and distance.

And this is where one of the coolest unintended consequences from the service occurred. "It helps drivers concentrate on driving," Roddy says, resulting in a reduction of traffic mishaps.

He thinks it's because drivers no longer worry about connecting with customers while en-route that there's been a dramatic decrease in traffic accidents, despite adding four stops on average to each driver's route. That's been a huge bonus in terms of keeping insurance premiums under control as well us cutting losses in damaged inventory and trucks.

Roddy points to additional services he now can offer customers. For example, Arhaus just started posting photos of the drivers who will be making each delivery on the Web site.

"Two burly guys can be pretty intimidating. Knowing who they are and what they look like before they get to your door can be reassuring," he says.

Starting this spring, he'll be able connect to customers via e-mail to inform them of arrival times. And he's working on linking up third-party delivery companies to TOA for shipments that are outside the 12-state region his drivers work.

"It's been a huge impact," Roddy says of TOA. "Arhaus drivers are the last employees our customers see. If we do a good job, they're likely to shop with us again"