Michael Cote encourages bed hopping. All the better to help find that special one with which to settle down, he figures.
Cote, you see, is in the businesses of selling mattresses. He brings them to the doorsteps of homes so shoppers can try them out. If a customer wants to buy the bedding, the sales crew unloads the mattress on the spot.
His two-year-old Wicker Park neighborhood-based company, Sleep Squad LLC, quietly began shuttling mattresses via $200,000 customized mobile showroom/delivery truck to folks' homes last spring.
A former T-Mobile employee, Cote, 39, started Sleep Squad figuring mattresses were among the items most households needed but for which consumers hated to shop, bothered by price variations, hard sells and time taken off work to accommodate delivery.
"You're walking into the sea of white; all these mattresses. They all look the same, and after trying four or five of them, they all get confusing," Cote said. "People hate cheesy salespeople, and the high-pressure close. We've given our customers the sale price online up front. It's an everyday no-haggle low price."
Here's how it works:
A shopper goes to the Internet site (www.sleepsquad.com) or calls (888-767-7533) to make an appointment, and answer a couple of questions regarding preferences for brand, size and firmness to help narrow the selection of 100 Simmons and Tempur-Pedic mattresses in inventory to two or three to bring out.
Within one hour of a scheduled appointment, a two-person team -- one person doing the selling and the other usually fielding questions from passersby -- arrives in a vehicle tricked out with coffee maker, DVD player and monitor that shows informational DVDs or movies to keep tykes entertained while parents shop.
The mobile bedroom showroom, designed by Cote's architect father, is supposed to get as close to your front door as allowed.
Standard routine has the shades pulled down in the unit for privacy.
The salesman gives a spill about accessories, and provides a sheet of information, including pricing, about the selections being tested. Uniformed workers step out of the showroom while the customer tries the bed. A camera mounted in the corner captures the action.
The service allows customers to spend as much time on the bedding as they want, although the average customer typically takes between 15 and 20 minutes, said Cote, president and CEO of Sleep Squad, which has four investors, three full-time employees, and about 20 part-time workers.
In a traditional store, he figures, a customer typically spends, at most, five to 10 minutes on the mattress -- not enough time to really evaluate the piece.
The mattresses are priced 50-to-60 percent off manufacturers suggested retail prices, and there's no charge for delivery.
One expert in the retail mattress business says Cotes' business model is an unnecessary one with all the current retailers. But, added David Perry, bedding editor for Furniture/Today trade newspaper, the mattress shopping experience is generally not considered to be pleasant.
"I don't think there is a pressing need to sell beds door to door," he said. "The industry now has many, many, many bedding stores; probably too many. There's no lack of places a consumer can go and try out a new bed."
Perry said that some consumers might feel apprehensive about trying the mattresses in a mobile unit, even with the shades pulled down; or "they might feel more pressure in that sort of setting to buy than they might in a store."
Cote insists there's no pressure. He encourages shoppers to try to bed down with their shoes on and in several positions. He claims a 95 percent success rate for the 100 or so appointments Sleep Squad has had. In those cases where there's no match, the crew will head back to headquarters, and load up other selections.
Customers have been having fun with the concept, he said. "We've had people come out in pajamas and slippers. One family of four came out to lie on the bed."
Source: Chicago Sun Times, 10/01/07
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