Furniture Mart USA, based in Sioux Falls, SD, is a top-40 ranked U.S. furniture retailer operating over 50 stores across six Midwestern states and a frequent fixture on the Furniture Today Top 100 list. With a high volume of daily deliveries across a large geographic footprint, the company understood that the last mile was one of the most important moments in the entire customer journey.
Under the leadership of CIO and CTO Erald Gjoni, Furniture Mart USA set out to close the gap between the experience customers expected and the one they were actually getting.
The results speak for themselves:
- 96% on-time delivery rate
- 91% successful delivery rate
- 92% delivery confirmation rate
- 4.8/5 customer satisfaction score
“If I Can Track My Pizza, Why Can’t I Track My Furniture?”
The inflection point came when Furniture Mart USA’s CEO posed a simple but pointed question: if a customer can track a $20 pizza in real time, watching it get prepared and arrive at the door, why does spending $3,000 or $5,000 on furniture leave them with zero visibility?
Erald recognized it immediately as the Amazon Effect. Amazon’s innovations become customer expectations, and those expectations don’t stay contained to one category. Customers trained by Amazon, Uber, and DoorDash arrive at every retail experience expecting real-time transparency, regardless of who is delivering or what is being delivered.
At the time, Furniture Mart USA had a significant gap to close. Customer communication was largely manual, and the level of automation across the delivery experience was limited. The question of whether to be operationally excellent or customer-centric had been posed to Erald by a respected industry peer, and his answer was immediate: both. But closing that gap would require decisive action. As Erald put it, they didn’t have a 12 to 18 month runway. They needed to decide quickly, find the right technology, and move.
From Version 1.0 to a Platform Built for What’s Next
Furniture Mart USA’s technology journey was intentional and phased. An earlier vendor relationship served as a foundation, what Erald describes as Version 1.0, that began shifting the organization away from legacy thinking and toward a more customer-centric model. But as Furniture Mart USA grew, so did their ambitions, and they eventually outgrew that first platform. The search for what came next led them to Package.ai.
The decision was rooted in clear strategic vision. Furniture Mart USA wasn’t looking for a point solution. They were looking for a partner that could deliver immediate wins while laying the foundation for deeper automation and a fully connected customer journey.
The implementation focused on four core areas:
- Automated delivery communications. Intelligent, multi-channel notifications replaced manual outreach, keeping customers informed and prepared at every stage of the delivery process.
- Self-service scheduling and confirmations. Customers gained the ability to confirm, reschedule, or adjust delivery preferences on their own terms, reducing friction and not-at-home failures.
- Real-time tracking and transparency. Live delivery visibility gave customers the confidence and clarity they expected, directly addressing the gap the CEO had identified.
- Storis integration. Package.ai’s bidirectional integration with Furniture Mart USA’s Storis platform was a critical piece of the solution. Rather than creating another disconnected data silo, it unified the customer journey from point of sale through fulfillment and delivery, giving Furniture Mart USA’s teams a single, real-time view of every customer interaction. Data flowed both ways, meaning insights from the delivery experience could inform the broader customer relationship rather than disappearing into an operational black box.
The onboarding experience itself set a new standard. Erald described Package.ai’s level of support as unlike anything he had previously experienced from a SaaS partner. The team was structured and methodical, clearly defining what they needed from Furniture Mart USA at each stage. The implementation moved efficiently and was completed without disrupting other major initiatives already in flight.
Measurable Impact in the First 60 to 90 Days
Furniture Mart USA began seeing measurable impact within the first 60 to 90 days, representing the largest improvement in customer satisfaction the company had seen with any platform to date.
- 96% on-time delivery rate
- 91% successful delivery rate
- 92% delivery confirmation rate
- 4.8/5 customer satisfaction score
For Erald, the trajectory of those results was as significant as the numbers themselves. The improvement in customer satisfaction was not gradual. It came quickly, validating both the decision to make the switch and the methodical approach the team took to implementation.
Looking Ahead
With a strong foundation in place, Furniture Mart USA is well positioned to build on this momentum. The platform is expanding naturally beyond delivery into pre-purchase touchpoints, post-delivery review collection, NPS surveys, and customer re-engagement, creating a continuous thread of communication across the entire customer journey.
Upcoming priorities include self-scheduling, giving customers direct control over their delivery windows, and automated backfill, which fills canceled slots in real time without manual intervention. Further out, Furniture Mart USA has its sights set on agentic AI capabilities that move beyond reactive communication into fully autonomous customer experiences.
The ambition is clear. Delivery should not feel like a logistics handoff. It should feel like a brand moment, one that earns loyalty, drives referrals, and reflects everything Furniture Mart USA stands for.
“We chose Package.ai because it was a stepping stone in the evolution of our customer experience.”
— Erald Gjoni, CIO/CTO, Furniture Mart USA
