A Commitment to Customer Service Keeps Dwyer's Changing With The Times
Dave Dwyer rises from the plastic-covered loveseat as a woman and her son enter his Athens, Ga., furniture store, greeting them with a sincere, "How can we help?'
He recognizes the woman, but can't quite put a name to a face. After quickly conferring with his wife and business partner, Harriett, they come up with her name and the fact that she hasn't been in the store in more than three years.
After more than an hour of browsing with Dave bringing an occasional piece of aluminum furniture from the warehouse, the woman selects more than $2,000 of furniture and orders a $200 oblong table. Dave and another employee load the goods in the back of her pickup, then Dave securely lashes the merchandise down despite a driving summer rainstorm.
"We try really hard to give the personal touch," says Harriett. "I may not remember the name, but I know what she bought three years ago."
The personal touch is one reason people shop at Dwyer's, located near the center of Athens, home to the University of Georgia and about 65 miles east and slightly north of Atlanta. The Dwyers say their repeat business is high, which has been bolstered by a successful cable TV advertising program on channels such as ESPN, CNN and TNT that brings in new customers.
What started as a lawnmower distributorship more than 30 years ago has turned into a robust casual furniture store. In addition to an impressive selection of wrought iron and aluminum furniture, shoppers can choose from a variety of houseware items ranging from candle holders and ceramic Christmas cottages to lampshades merchandised on a massive display that dominates an outer wall.
The Dwyers added lampshades in 1990 just before a recession hit. Dave said the lampshade business paid the rent during lean times. "We sell a lampshade or two every day. No one else in Athens was carrying them, and we saw this as a way to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace."
Almost on cue, a woman enters the store with a lamp she purchased at Dwyer's years ago. With the attentive help of Harriett and one of the store's three part-time employees, the customer chooses two shades.
Although he eschews the term "mom-and-pop shop," Dave says, "It's probably the most accurate description of our business."
Dwyer's has grown as the casual furniture industry has matured from the time when casual furniture was redwood picnic tables, into the mid-'80s, when Dave and Harriett quit selling lawnmowers to expand and concentrate more on the furniture end of the business.
Product mainstays at Dwyer's include wrought iron furniture from Lyon-Shaw and aluminum from Winston. Other vendors include Tropitone, Lloyd/Flanders, Homecrest, Woodard, Kingsley-Bate, Allibert, Grosfillex, Telescope, Lane, Lexington's Henry-Link and Classic Rattan.
Dave estimates that 55% of his business consists of casual furniture sales, with gift and lampshade sales making up the remainder. Out of casual furniture sales, he says wrought iron represents 40% of the business, with aluminum and wicker/rattan trailing at 20% each.
The remainder mostly is wood and resin. The store maintains a good mix of merchandise at different price points, but "never any schlock goods," Dave says. They make the most of their 6,300-square-foot showroom, which is almost equally divided into thirds with wrought iron and mainly aluminum sandwiching the gift section. Clocks and framed pictures are featured along the walls, as are chair and chaise lounge cushions.
"We've never been a price promoter," Dave says. "We discount off the front end and then hold that price except for manufacturers' closeouts and slow-movers." Dwyer's doesn't actively solicit commercial business, Dave says, noting that most manufacturers maintain staffs to handle contract sales. However, Dwyer's has supplied about 20 6-foot teak benches to local hospitals as well as wrought iron chairs for alfresco dining.
One way Dwyer's maximizes space is with "The Chair Gallery," a selection of chairs from furniture sets that are not on display.
Customers can examine the chairs and if they want to see the entire set, it is brought in from the adjacent 4,000-square-foot warehouse. Then, during the winter months, hearth tools are featured in the chair gallery area. In fact, the Dwyers recently added a gas fireplace to display gas logs in a more appropriate setting.
Promotions Drive Sales
One unique promotion Dwyer's has used to drive new business involves selling $35 gift certificates to local real estate agents for only $25. The certificates are given to home buyers as gifts. "Obviously, if we get a new customer in the store, then we have an opportunity to have a customer for life," Dave says.
Other promotions include radio and cable TV advertising. Dave says advertising in the local newspapers doesn't work for Dwyer's on a regular basis with the exception of clearance sales and at Christmas. He tried advertising in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution supplement that covers a growing suburban county to the west of Athens, but that also met with poor results.
Consequently, Dwyer's mainly sticks with sponsoring a morning newscast on a local AM radio station - which they have been doing for years - and spot advertising on cable TV.
Harriett writes the copy for both, doing voice-overs on radio and appearing in the TV spots. Although the cable spots are professional produced, her homespun style shines through, accurately mirroring the selling environment at Dwyer's .
The Dwyers pay $625 per month for 170 spots on cable, or about $3.70 per spot with free production thrown in as a bonus for signing a 10-month contract.
Dave and Harriett attribute their expanded customer base to the success of the cable program. "Ten years ago, we knew 90% of our customer's by name," Harriett says. "But we've extended our customer base to such a point that we only know about 20% now."
Like much of suburban Atlanta, Athens has undergone tremendous growth over the past few years, especially on the city's west side with a plethora of strip malls and a new regional shopping center. But Dwyer's occupies its original location, just five blocks from downtown. The Dwyers considered adding a location but didn't want to stretch the operation too then. And at 61, Dave is pondering retirement in three to five years.
Still, Dave has no plans for slowing down. Next month, he becomes president of the 300-plus member Casual Furniture Retailers. Dave says the CFR cements positive working relationships as dealers swap ideas and meet manufacturers one-on-one.
"The manufacturers think so much of CFR that they have their mid-year meeting at the same time as our September Casual Market, he says.
"I don't know why more people don't belong to CFR," adds Harriett. "If they are afraid of sharing trade secrets, that shouldn't matter because most likely they are in non-competing markets. I know of other people who use the realtor gift certificate program, and they was my original idea. But I still use an inventory method that I learned from a gal at the first convention we went to."
The Dwyers say the secret to success is based on an often-uttered, but seldom followed business axiom: Treat customers they way you want to be treated.
But the Dwyers do more than pay lip service to the axiom - they live it.