FormPiper Case Study
Household Furniture In El Paso, Texas
What makes for a strong consumer finance program? It always starts with the customer relationship.
When it comes to consumer financing, it's important to understand your industry and the needs of your particular customers. That's something Angel Siqueiros, Operations Manager at Household Furniture in El Paso, Texas, knows quite well. Over the years, he's learned the value of consumer financing to retail furniture customers.
“In a retail environment where a sofa might cost $700, $800, $900, not a lot of people just walk around with that in their pocket," says Angel. "So obviously, financing is a big part of the business. Without it, I don't think anyone can thrive in that space.”
As for the financing
process itself?
In Angel's early days in the industry, things were very different, and a waterfall solution to simplify that process simply wasn't an option.
"We did a lot of things by fax and phone," says Angel. "Things were very manual, it was a very, very cumbersome situation. And the thought of a waterfall was unheard of at the time."
As the business has evolved, the needs of the customer have evolved as well, and consumer financing is now table stakes for furniture retailers.
Businesses like Household Furniture also need to be able to run applications by multiple lenders in the span of a few minutes, without having to manually reenter customer information into multiple forms. In a busy retail environment, where profit margins are thin and every sale matters, there just isn't time to lose.
So, when Angel first heard about FormPiper from one of its happy clients at another furniture retailer, he was intrigued by the possibilities.
"I thought it sounded really interesting," says Angel. "We looked over the video that was attached, and it really got my attention."
Angel decided to give FormPiper a shot. Since then, FormPiper has become an important solution for Household Furniture. And it's helped the business in significant ways.
"It's a two part thing," says Angel. "Obviously, the speed that we can now process our applications is the number one thing, but also that it gives us a level of flexibility that no other waterfall has."
Angel has seen the great results that FormPiper delivers for his business by streamlining the consumer finance process, and that's something he wants to share with other retailers.
"When it comes to your product, it's different," says Angel. "That's the number one thing, it's not like what [other retailers] are probably familiar with. You can't really compare them to any other waterfall per se, because it doesn't operate like a waterfall. It really puts it in your hands how you want to use it, and it just takes all the work out of it. But at the same time, it gives you more control that other waterfalls don't give you, while still providing reporting and the other options that you have available. And obviously the integration portions that you guys are working on, on top of that. So it's not comparing apples to apples with other providers, but it's providing a far superior service."
In Angel's view, when a retailer struggles with their financing program, it's often a process issue, rather than a problem with a lender.
"If they're struggling with their financing program, a lot of times, it's not necessarily something they're doing wrong," says Angel. "Maybe just something you need to add, like a waterfall to speed up your processes and reduce the amount of overhead you're putting out when it comes to staffing. Because you know, [FormPiper] really does all the work for you, so something like this would really make all the difference in the world. If you're having a problem with your financing program, in my experience, it's typically not a problem with the lender, it's usually just the process to get to them."
Angel found the perfect solution for Household Furniture's process problems in FormPiper. And beyond the solution itself, he's been very pleased with the FormPiper team's attentive service.
"Everybody has been very responsive," says Angel. "Whenever there's a problem, it's always easy to get information via a question, I can always reach out by phone or email, someone's always there to answer...So, a very, very good experience so far."
Want to see for yourself why Angel and other customers are so happy with the FormPiper solution? Schedule a demo today.
