Critelli Furniture is a fifth-generation family business that has been around for more than 110 years, specializing in medium- to high-end furniture and interior design projects. Their clients are typically 50+, often retired and ready to invest in high-quality customization. About 80% of their business is custom work, and rugs are a huge part of what they do, thanks to their direct sourcing from Pakistan, India, and other regions.

Because their team and clientele tend to be older, the store relied heavily on sketchbooks for decades. But sketchbooks are inconsistent—some staff stay organized, some don’t. So when they joined David’s performance group and saw the CXM system built specifically for furniture retailers, they decided to implement it in January. It became especially helpful during a challenging year.

Now, the process is: greet customers with the traditional sketchbook, then input everything into CXM. They simplified their pipeline into three stages: New Opportunity → Quote → Appointment, because appointments are where most deals close. Their close rate at the appointment stage hits roughly 65–80%, compared to the typical industry walk-in close rate of 25–30%. So driving customers to appointments is essential.

CXM helps the sales manager track every opportunity and follow-up, which has become more important as traffic declines. Repeat customers and referrals are also a big part of their business, so staying organized digitally is critical.

In terms of automation, their main setup so far is the automatic text confirmation for in-store or in-home appointments. They want to do more—like automatic messages when someone moves to the quote stage, or anniversary emails a year after purchase. They also see future value in segmenting customers (e.g., people who looked at rugs) so they can promote targeted events like their annual rug sale.

Looking ahead, they want to modernize their website—possibly moving to Shopify—and integrate CXM forms more cleanly. They’re also considering replacing sketchbooks with iPads to fully digitize the customer journey, from first contact to after-sale follow-up. The goal is a seamless digital + in-store experience that supports their design-driven process and keeps customers engaged long-term.

Overall, Critelli’s has already strengthened their customer experience significantly through CXM, and they see many more opportunities to build on this foundation in the coming year.