Victoria Blinds is a small family-owned business. We started off as a husband and wife team with a shop front nearly four years ago although David has been working in the industry for about fifteen years. Now we are expanding and have hired additional staff.
Prior to getting DBs, we were doing everything manually which also had a huge potential for calculation errors especially when you are training new inexperienced staff. We found that we were also wasting a lot of time double and triple handling everything.
We saw Drape and Blind Software at the BMAA expo in Brisbane and thought it looked great especially from a time-saving perspective but we did not follow up. The busy season hit last year and I was basically working around the clock to get the quotes and orders complete. Going forward we knew that we could not continue working this way and needed to invest in a better system so we re-visited DBs. We also looked at other software but didn’t get a good impression or follow up from them.
We automatically felt comfortable with Peter from DBs and their ability to service us at short notice probably got us over the line. The fact that our pricing structure was uploaded into the system for us and that a day of on-site training was provided was very appealing. Dave and I are both not at all computer/technology savvy (ask Peter and Steven) so DBs’ on-going support through the “Go To Meeting” facility was also very attractive as we knew that help is on hand if we need it. We also liked that we would be dealing with someone in Australia and not from an overseas call centre which would be frustrating.
DBs has been fantastic for Victoria Blinds! Since installing the program I have had a baby so I am not in the showroom on a full-time basis. With DBs I now have peace of mind knowing that room for error has been minimised. As long as the correct dimensions are entered the system will calculate the correct price. Training new staff is also much quicker and easier compared to the old manual system we had.
DBs has enabled us to run our business better. Now, our quote presentation is more professional and visually appealing for our customers. I can duplicate quotes with a slight change – margins/fabrics etc and provide potential customers with several options. We also have the ability to see job margins automatically which is great when customers are asking for additional discounting. This way we know that each job is profitable before we issue the quote. I can now pay supplier invoices with confidence because I know what we are expecting to pay and I can follow up discrepancies easily. I have saved money on supplier invoices because in the past I would have just paid the bill.
Overall, we love Drape and Blind Software. In saying that there are limitations, but that comes with everything and it is just a matter of training ourselves to work around this because the positives out way the negatives dramatically. Implementing DBs was a little daunting originally and a lot for us to get our heads around and also a large financial outlay (I thought that at the time) however, I now ask myself why we didn’t do it sooner?