Regal Fabrics

CASE STUDY

Regal Fabrics

Middleton, MA | www.regalfabrics.com

The Company

Based in Boston’s North Shore, Regal Fabrics is one of the top designers and distributors of fabrics in the country. Their customers include leading furniture manufacturers and upholsterers.

Regal Fabrics was founded in 1987 by Herb and Arlene Kahan, and they’ve remained true to their founding values of quality and service ever since. Their in-house design studio focuses on creating original designs in a variety of strong, reliable materials, both for residential and commercial applications, all at competitive, affordable prices.

Regal Fabrics emphasizes continued distinction in fabric design, construction, and quality, and excellence in customer communication and service. The customer’s needs come first at Regal Fabrics — transforming each relationship into a lasting partnership is the ultimate goal for the company.

The Challenge

This emphasis on exceeding customers’ expectations means that Regal Fabrics has to be picky when it comes to ERP solutions. Responding to customer requests quickly, efficiently, and accurately is very important to them — providing a positive experience can make or break the sale.

Cathy Hall, Senior Customer Service Representative at Regal Fabrics, interacts with a lot of customers throughout the course of the day, and she’s only one member of an entire customer service team.

“I probably talk to 30-40 customers a day, and we process, on average, 50-60 orders in a day.”

When that many customer interactions are on the line, the ability to field them successfully is critical. Regal Fabrics had this need front-of-mind when searching for a new ERP solution. And we’re so glad they did.

The Solution

SalesPad Desktop. At SalesPad, we pride ourselves on enabling businesses to take their customer service to the next level. Customers are the lifeblood of any business, and we know how important it is to make sure that businesses are able to give their customers the white-glove treatment.

Steve Kahan, President of Regal Fabrics, had this to say about SalesPad Desktop’s customer service capabilities:

“One problem SalesPad has helped us solve is [increasing our] speed when giving answers to customers. Before, when customers needed answers about deliveries, or when something was coming in from China, or if it had already shipped, our customer service people had to check in many different places. With SalesPad, the information is all together, so they can give the customer a quick answer.”

TURNING UP THE ORDER PROCESSING HEAT

Hall handles the majority of Regal Fabrics’ larger accounts, which are typically furniture manufacturers. An order from one of these accounts can contain anything from one to 150 line items — predicting the complexity of any given order is no easy task.

Recalling the days before SalesPad Desktop, when entering order information usually involved multiple screens and a lot of back-and-forth, is not a pleasant experience for Hall.

“The difference between our prior system and what we have now with SalesPad,” she explains, “as far as processing orders, is the actual data-entry key punching of the order has definitely improved a lot. It’s much quicker to do now — it used to be more cumbersome to enter the line item and the quantity, and just get to the information you needed to get that order entered. Now, you’re pretty much just on one screen and you can get the order in the system.”

Kahan agrees.

“Since we switched to SalesPad, order processing has gotten better. The number of transactions is always increasing, our business has been growing, and SalesPad has helped us be able to keep up with that faster pace.”

Regal Fabrics’ overall order accuracy has also improved since implementing SalesPad Desktop. Hall reiterated that having the data that the customer service reps need right in front of them when they’re entering orders is a game changer.

“You can quickly check inventory availability and pricing against the customer’s order,” she says, “which allows us to prevent mistakes from happening.”

ACCURATE INVENTORY DATA AT THE CLICK OF A BUTTON

Easy access to current, accurate inventory data is Kahan’s favorite aspect of SalesPad Desktop. Regal Fabrics’ inventory library is complex — any given fabric product has hundreds of attributes associated with it. SalesPad Desktop provides a reliable method of tracking all of that data, and finding the data you need when you need it.

“I turn to SalesPad when I need to check information about inventory items, what the name of the supplier is, or what the original cost is when we’re making decisions about setting prices or giving special breaks to big customers,” says Kahan. “I go in there to find the information that I need.” Hall also appreciates the way SalesPad Desktop makes it easy to access inventory information, especially when it comes to conveying that information to a customer.

“If you’re dealing with a customer on the phone,” she says, “you can easily get at what you need to see; if you’re checking stock you can go in and just quickly view what the inventory situation is, and you can then relay that to the customer. It’s helped us get information to our customers in a much more streamlined way.”

When it’s all said and done — when the phones have stopped ringing, the looms power down, and the warehouses close up for the night, it’s all about creating a smooth experience for Regal Fabrics’ customers from start to finish. And for Regal Fabrics, one of the key players on their team is SalesPad Desktop.

“If you’re a GP customer, and you don’t have SalesPad,” Kahan says, “I think you would notice a huge difference. SalesPad really is a game-changer in that, for a relatively small percentage of the overall cost of the system, it gives us a much better user interface and access to our data. The data was always there before we had SalesPad, but now we can really interact with the data much more directly, and more efficiently.”

We’re proud to be part of what makes Regal Fabrics such a successful, admirable company, and we can’t wait to see what’s in store for them next.