Springdale, Utah—QFloors, designer of a host of flooring-specific software solutions and programs for specialty retailers, kicked off its 2023 Users Conference here at the mouth of the beautiful Zion National Park earlier this month to record-breaking attendance.
“There’s more people here than we’ve ever had at a conference before— I think you can see it’s splitting at the seams,” QFloors CEO, Chad Ogden, told Floor Covering News. “The people that are here are the ones who want to improve their businesses and who are dedicated to that.”
The conference is designed to gather the company’s users together to not only bring them up to speed on what’s new with the software and programming but to allow flooring dealers to network and discuss solutions that work for them peer-to-peer.
“This is our third conference, and the value is sometimes as simple as one nugget of information,” said Brad Lenz, who co-owns Rice’s More Than Floors in Marshfield, Wis., with his wife Kerry Lenz. “Waylon [Reeves] from White River Flooring gave us the nugget of exact timekeeping with QFloors, and that completely revolutionized the way we do job costing. Well, that one nugget really paid for the trip in my eyes.”
What’s new
The conference is a fantastic opportunity for users to learn what’s new and what they can expect to come down the pike as far as new features and programming, integration partnerships and more. Two of the company’s integrated partners were at the event to highlight the advantages of these integrations—Mobile Marketing and Roomvo.
In terms of new programming, Ogden noted the almost-decade-long wait for QPro to officially launch with its full accounting suite will hopefully come to an end by the next QFloors conference. The accounting suite, Ogden noted, is what will help the QPro platform revolutionize industry software.
“The technology to do this is much, much harder than it is compared to QFloors software and, as a result, we’re the only ones that are doing it,” Ogden noted. “Most of our competitors are taking their older technologies and continuing to build web interfaces on top of them. In my opinion, that’s not going to work very well in the long run. What I’m going to deliver to you is going to be first rate—it’s going to be the standard for the industry and everybody else will be trying to catch up. It’s what you guys deserve. It’s what you want. And it will be what we deliver.”
There were several newer features also on the docket, including QPay, the company’s proprietary payment system that was launched in 2022. The system facilitates easier collection of payment from customers, including big-ticket purchases. “We were relying on outside partners and running into issues,” Ogden said. “We decided that we would create our own payments company where we could control the customer support and not have to rely on other people to support our customers, where we could control the pricing, where we could control the technologies were being used. And since we’ve taken that in-house we’ve been able to service our customers better.”
The company also unofficially launched Installer Viewer, which will be accessible for installers in the field. “This will be on an installer’s phone so that any installer can look at their installation schedule,” Ogden explained. “They can click on any day and see detailed notes and information for those installs.”
Another feature that QFloors continues to develop focuses on the commercial side of the business. “There are very few options on the commercial side for our customers,” Ogden explained. “So, we stepped up and are giving people another option that is going to be big for our industry. There are a lot fewer commercial-only dealers but after the pandemic many dealers are diversifying—and they’re diversifying into commercial applications.”
In fact, QFloors dealers are already reaping the benefits of the QFloors commercial offering. “The commercial feature was something that was newer to us that we were able to implement—and it saved us,” said Sierra Madsen of Installer Director Flooring in Rigby, Ind. “You can handle so many elements at once that we couldn’t before. You can schedule, bill, manage inventory all in one place instead of jumping back and forth between QuickBooks or other software. It’s really nice to have a one-stop shop. It’s life changing for a small, family-owned business. It’s been great.”
For Installer Direct Flooring, Madsen said inventory management for the business overall, which has two sister businesses in the area, has made a huge difference. “Inventory is a nightmare when you do it with a plain white piece of paper. You write on it with a marker and stab it with a nail, stick some duct tape on there—and that’s how you track it. Inventory tracking and receiving, when you switch to QFloors, changes everything. It really saved us.”
Tackling tech consolidation
The conference also gave QFloors the opportunity to address the sweeping tech consolidationthat has occurred over the last two years—Rollmaster was acquired by Broadlume in 2021; RFMS was acquired by Cyncly in 2022; and Mobile Marketing was acquired by Cyncly in 2023.
Ogden was quick to address any speculation that the company would be selling to private equity or outside entities. “A few years ago, there was a rumor put out into the industry that we were going to be purchased by Cyncly,” he said. “We want to reassure you that that is not going to happen. I don’t care how much pressure people put on us—we will not be doing this. It would be the worst thing for our customers and the industry as a whole.”
Ogden noted that 25 years ago, when QFloors was launched, the main driver was to offer a better software option to the flooring industry—and the same rules apply now. “The whole reason we got into this is because there were very few options and the products weren’t very mature. I think we’re at a point in time where that same thing is happening again. If we consolidate down to one or two brands, everybody will become more than content to just sit on the systems they’ve already developed. Pricing will be affected, customer service will be affected and innovation will stall. Companies aren’t forced to do anything. They just stand still and collect the money and the dealers, the customers, the industry are the ones that really lose out.”
Customer service is a pillar of the QFloors platform and dealers often commend the family-owned business for its quick response time and community atmosphere. That culture is not something QFloors said it is willing to compromise on and, therefore, acquisition is not currently plausible. “We’re here, committed to our users,” Ogden noted. “They’re really important to us.”
However, Ogden noted that remaining independent doesn’t mean it won’t be integrating with adjacent technology suppliers to better the experience for flooring dealers. “You’ve got estimation, visualization, website technologies, CRMs and an ERP system that’s the core. We believe that the best thing for our customers is for them to be able to choose what they want to use. So, we won’t be playing favorites with anyone. We’ll integrate with whoever is best for us and our customers.”
