Skilled salespeople drive growth at Back to Bed
By David Perry -- Furniture Today, March 27, 2005
Villa Park, Ill. — Some sleep shops think their systems are more important than their employees.
Not Back To Bed, a fast-growing Simmons-only retailer based here.
"Our most important attribute is our salespeople," said Glenn Haneberg, one of the company's founders. "The majority of them came with us from other bedding chains. They respect us and trust us."
"You cannot throw people away," added Dean Knobbe, another founder. "People are too important. Look at all the time and money you spend getting them ramped up and going. If they get off track, we pick them up and help them become successful."
Those salespeople, who have an average of eight to 10 years of bedding experience, are focused on helping customers solve their sleep problems.
"We try to pick out the products that offer a solution for our customers to sleep better," Haneberg said.
"We sell from a position of strength."
Back To Bed, which prides itself on doing things differently in the bedding specialty arena, doesn't offer comfort exchanges.
"That's the biggest problem in our industry," Haneberg said. "I know the manufacturers don't take those beds back."
"Our customers know they will get a brand new mattress from us every time," added Knobbe.
Back To Bed has A-list locations. The stores, which are generally about seven miles apart, average 3,000 square feet in size, with about 25 beds on the floor. Most of the mattresses are by Simmons, but the three beds in the Tempur-Pedic line are also on the floor.
Tempur-Pedic joined the mix about two years ago "and has done very well for us," Haneberg said. "It's a traffic builder. Consumers ask for it by name."
Metal beds are generally offered through catalogs. Back To Bed doesn't feel the headboards-on-every-mattress philosophy embraced by many sleep shops is the best way to go. "The customer may not like the headboard," Haneberg said. "This gives every mattress a fair opportunity in its own right."
Back To Bed has a great relationship with Simmons, its largest vendor, the retailer's executives said. It's a good match of corporate cultures, they said.
"There is a lot to talk about with the Simmons products," Haneberg said. "That's why it works for us."
A customer-centered approach is also important, according to Knobbe.
"Business can't be one-sided," he said. "Most retailers sell with an adversarial relationship. But people are smarter than that. That's what drives a lot of business from sleep shops."
"We believe that if customers are given a choice between the same goods, they would rather buy from the better operation, the cleaner operation," Hane-berg said.
That's the niche Back To Bed is pursuing.
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