Rugs Direct

Q&A with a CSR

Copyright © 2007 Rugs Direct^®

Hillary Lewis has been a professional Customer Service Representative with Rugs Direct for a little more than a year. She and her co-workers answer hundreds of telephone calls each month from customers with questions about area rugs, decorating, product shipments and a whole lot of inquiries that are sometimes impossible to categorize.

Hillary recently took a few moments from her busy day to talk to Rugology101 about what it means to be a Customer Service Representative for such a highly specialized retailer.

R101: What types of questions do Rugs Direct customers ask when they call you?

HL: There are several routine types of questions that make up a large part of my day. Things like, “What is the status of my shipment?” or “Is this rug available in 5’ x 7’?” But I also get a lot of calls from customers who are looking for help in decorating a room in their home.

R101: What kinds of things do they ask?

HL: Color. They want very specific information about the colors in a rug they are thinking of buying.

R101: How do you help them?

HL: Well, color is a very subjective characteristic so I do my best to describe the colors in real-world terms. For instance, I find comparing a color to a fruit or a vegetable often helps. Cucumber green or cherry red. People seem to relate well to these kinds of descriptions.

R101: Do you find there is a big difference between the color shown on their computer screen and that of the actual rug?

HL: Actually not too often. Rugs Direct does an excellent job of reproducing the photographs of the rugs on the website. Of course there are a lot of different kinds of monitors hooked up to computers out there and sometimes people have them out of alignment. It happens, but not nearly as much as you might expect.

R101: What else do customers ask you?

HL: I get a lot of questions about fibers and what type of rug is best for a certain application. I go through a chain of questions to try and help narrow this down for them. For example, is it a high-traffic area? Does the area ever get wet? Will the rug be in direct sunlight? The single most important question is, “Do you have kids, allergies or pets?” Then I can offer my suggestions to help them determine what will work best for them.

R101: How else do you help Rugs Direct customers?

HL: Sometimes I have to become a bit of an IT consultant! I get calls from people who just aren’t that comfortable using a computer and don’t spend much time shopping on the Internet. They’ll call and ask me to walk them through the ordering process or to help them search our inventory for a particular style or color of rug. It’s funny how intimidated some people can be by computers and technology. But we usually have a good laugh and get them the information or assistance they need.

R101: What recommendations would you give to people who are thinking about decorating with area rugs?

HL: Do your homework! Rugs aren’t simple. There is a lot you need to know in order to make a good decision and obtain a good value. The Internet is a tremendous resource for information about area rugs and how to use them to enhance your home’s décor. And, of course, I’m here to help!

If you’re planning on shopping for area rugs, please begin by searching the Rugs Directory™ at Rugs Direct. If you would like to contact Hillary Lewis directly, please send an e-mail to hlewis@rugsdirect.com and mention Rugology101 in the subject line of your message.

All About Rugs Direct

Copyright © 2007 Rugs Direct

Talk about the largest floor-covering retailers in the country, and one name that may not immediately come to mind is Rugs Direct. But the multi-channel retailer has quietly become one of the industry's major players via the Internet, catalogs and its brick-and-mortar stores in Virginia.

Rugs Direct is a true success story in every sense of the word. David Craig, CEO, launched the business in 1999 with wife, Kim, who served as vice president, and Randy Kremer, president.

After being in the floor-covering industry for many years, Craig is well aware of the challenges inherent in running a successful retail flooring operation. "It's a labor-intensive business with tight profit margins," he said. "It's a business where you can be 'held hostage' by the installers. If you do everything right and an installer makes a mistake, all your profit is gone."

He realized there had to be a better way to sell floor covering without the installation component. He also saw an opportunity to bring the art of selling flooring into the 21st century. He kept thinking about the Internet. "I said to myself, 'There has to be something I can sell via the Internet that doesn't have to be installed, is easy to ship and not breakable.' One thing that fit that bill was area rugs."

So the idea of Rugs Direct was born and the small startup began selling area rugs via the Internet. Growth was a slow process. "We started off with revenues of a couple thousand dollars per month back in the late '90s, then to a couple hundred thousand a month, and then within the last few years the business has exploded to where it is today," he said, adding that he attributes this growth to the company's aggressive marketing plan, development of proprietary software and the growing level of comfort consumers have with online shopping. That and the fact the typical consumer today is time-starved. "We see more and more people turning toward the Internet to help their time management and do their shopping," he said. Kremer added, "We are developing advanced software solutions in order to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace. The goal is to provide consumers with a pleasant and rewarding shopping experience."

Rugs Direct now sells between 12,000 and 15,000 items per month with the average order of about $375, according to Kremer, whose background lies in software development. The volume is not by accident; the company does an excellent job of creating new software solutions and then marketing the benefits to the consumer. "We receive about 170 million hits a month on our website," Kremer said. "We mail out several million catalogs per year -- we try to have a catalog in the mail at least every month, and we are planning to open several more brick-and-mortar retail locations as well. That completes the true multi-channel retail experience."

Pricing is the same no matter what channel the consumer chooses to engage, according to Kremer. "The consumer who goes to the Internet, catalog or the retail store will see the same prices at each," he said. "We try to have a good representation of what we carry online in the stores. But because we have 70,000 items available at rugsdirect.com, it's impossible to put everything in a retail showroom or catalog. That's the advantage of our multi-channel model. If you can't find the rug you're looking for in our catalog or one of our stores, you're most certainly going to find it online. And our proprietary software systems will make it easy to find," he added.

Among those thousands of items are a number of exclusive lines. In addition, there are private-label area rugs and the company is designing its own rug line. "We are working with some of our premier manufacturer partners to bring those products to market very soon," Craig said.

While manufacturers may have been skeptical eight years ago, today they see Rugs Direct as a true partner. It currently offers rugs from more than 60 suppliers - including all the big names in the industry. "We carry Karastan and Mohawk, to name a few," Kremer said. "But instead of offering only a few of their top-selling designs, we make a manufacturer's complete line available. This is one of our major strengths - representing the gamut of a supplier's area rug collections as opposed to just a few products. With our unique software systems we can present everything to our customer quickly and easily, and help her search through thousands of area rugs to find the one that will look great on her living room floor. We're not limited by shelf space."

Kremer and Craig see the future of Rugs Direct as one full of opportunity. Without reservation, Rugs Direct seeks to become the specialty retail leader in area rugs. "Our goal is to gain a 10 percent market share of the entire area rug retail segment," Craig said. "We will continue to leverage technology, invest in innovative software solutions and aggressively market Rugs Direct to the rug-buying public to achieve that goal," concluded Kremer.

To visit the main Rugs Direct website, please click here.