It was two and a half decades ago, at Surfaces ’99, that QFloors was first dreamed up by Chad Ogden—QFloors CEO/president and third-generation flooring retailer—in a hotel room in Las Vegas. After long and grueling hours on the show floor looking for the perfect software solution for the family flooring business, Ogden realized he’d have to design one himself. And that he did.
“Trent Ogden, [QFloors CFO], who had an accounting degree and years of experience as controller in the family flooring chain, wanted a system that everyone in the company could use to streamline, coordinate, track and organize their tasks,” explained Chris Ogden, co-owner and communications specialist at QFloors. “Information had to be easily accessible for all employees and integrated throughout the system. Chad, as the computer programmer, was adamant that rather than the DOS-systems dominating the flooring market at the time, this program needed to be created in a Windows platform. So with those mandates in mind, seated on the hotel bathroom floor, Chad started laying out the design that was in his head. When the sun rose, he handed the papers to his dad [Steve Ogden, owner, Ogden’s Flooring & Design] and brother Trent and said, ‘This is what we need.’ That was the beginning of QFloors.”
Twenty-five years later and QFloors remains one of the top flooring-specific software solutions in the industry, with a unique focus on the needs of the flooring retailer.
Standing out in a crowd
So what makes QFloors special enough to survive more than two decades in an industry known for its love/hate relationship with technology? Easy: breadth of product and customer service.
Borne of the needs of a flooring retailer, it should be no surprise that the QFloors of today has a variety of product offerings that are all meant to support the flooring retail community and their businesses. From QFloors (ERP for retail, commercial, multi-family, builder) to QPro (the browser-based version), the company has all manner of retail needs covered. What’s more, QFloors offers additional programs to help streamline background processes, including QPay (credit card processing); Installer View; QLeads; its latest launch, QTagger (showroom pricing); and many more. This breadth of product allows users to pick which programs are useful to them without being lassoed into multiple products that may not fit their needs.
What’s more, the company offers open integrations, bucking the industry trend to limit integrations. The ERP software currently integrates with third party products like visualizers, estimators, CRMs, schedulers and credit card processors with more integrations in the works. “In an age where all of our ERP competitors are consolidating into a closed bundle of products, we are still offering QFloors and QPro integrations with third-party apps, giving our customers many integrated choices,” Trent Ogden said. “And in the future, we will be more inclusive, not less so.”
That dedication to the needs of the customer doesn’t stop at product development. In fact, it’s most ardently represented in the company’s steadfast commitment to customer service. And while some software companies have gone the way of AI chatbots and general automation, QFloors has kept its promise of personalized service. “QFloors has stubbornly stuck to the personal touch,” Chad Ogden explained. “The company has a large support staff trained to answer questions not only about the software but also about accounting, margins, bookkeeping, inventory management, b2b, job costing and scores of other subjects related to running a floor covering business. Not the cheapest way to go, but the most satisfying.”
QFloors’ dedication to the retail community doesn’t end there. As the technology sector has been rocked by unprecedented consolidation over the last two years, QFloors has remained privately owned. “QFloors has been privately and family-owned and funded since its creation,” Chad Ogden said. “The opportunity would have to be a good thing for our QFloors customers, QFloors employees and for the flooring industry in general. It’s about so much more than money for us.”
QFloors will host a 25th anniversary User Conference this year, an Alaskan cruise, from Aug. 16-23.
(For the full story visit the Jan. 20/27 print edition of FCNews.)
