Limiting Person-to-Person Contact Through Dal-Tile's "Tile Takeout"

As the coronavirus crisis has created an immediate urgency to limit in-person contact between people, Dal-Tile’s sales organization — which provides exceptional service every workday to tile contractors and other customers through the largest network of company-owned sales service centers (SSC) in the industry — has rapidly introduced a new way to serve that’s designed to decrease direct contact for customers and our team members, speed up transactions, and increase sales.

In late March, Dal-Tile introduced the Tile Takeout program, which offers SSC customers the convenience of curbside pick-up for their orders. The program is supported by two key service innovations that were implemented in the last year to make doing business with us easier: the ProExchange customer self-service application, and Mobile Oasis order processing used by sales team members.

“With Tile Takeout, customers schedule a time for their order pickup online using ProExchange (or they also can call the location to set it up),” explained Scott Maslowski, senior vice president of sales for Dal-Tile. “When the customer arrives, they can ‘stay in their ride’ by calling the location to let the team know they have arrived on-site for their order. They then ‘skip the line,’ as our teammates bring their order directly to their vehicle curbside.”

Maslowski said that through the program, customers’ open accounts are billed directly or they can also prepay by credit card.

To help SSC create awareness about the program, the marketing team quickly developed themed promotional support materials that the locations could customize with their phone number, including exterior banners and signage, interior self-standing displays, fliers and counter displays. The locations also have been promoting Tile Takeout within posts for their locations’ Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, as well as in email signatures.

“All our SSCs implemented Tile Takeout in around just a week,” said Paul Hansen, general manager of SSC sales operations. “It’s a great innovative addition to our service model to improve the customer experience, not just while we are actively limiting contact to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, but how we’ll continue to do business after this crisis has passed.”