ACE Hardware stores partner with Deputy to enhance customer service

For more than 90 years, ACE Hardware has been America’s neighborhood hardware retailer. With more than 5,000 hardware stores locally owned and operated across the globe, ACE Hardware is the largest retailer-owned hardware cooperative in the world. From local hardware stores to lumberyards to super-size home centers, each ACE Hardware is unique and tailored to meet the needs of its local community.

Bobby Heuser, owner of Heuser ACE Hardware store in Bluffton, SC does not view his store as being in the retail business, “We like to consider ourselves in the service industry”.

Bobby, who opened his store in 2015, made it his goal to provide the best customer service and operate in the most efficient way possible.

ACE Hardware recommends certain services and software to new franchise owners so that they can operate efficiently. Darrell Moseley, owner of the ACE Hardware Hillyard location in North Spokane, WA, signed up for the recommended scheduling vendor when he opened his franchise back in 2014. “I was familiar with the software and knew it would be difficult and expensive to use,” says Darrell.

Once Darrell and his team started using the recommended scheduling vendor, they faced numerous issues. “Plain and simple it was awful. It was so cumbersome to make a schedule, taking up hours of my time.” Darrell and his team needed a solution that could handle multiple schedule changes while saving them time.

On the other hand, owner Bobby Heuser of Heuser ACE Hardware store dismissed the software recommendations from ACE. “I knew that we were missing some key features that we needed.” He was upset with the degree of timesheet integration to scheduling, “We would rather use Excel spreadsheets!”

Bobby and his team used complicated Excel spreadsheets to view and create their schedules. “We weren’t able to have a visual of the work week, which made it difficult to see which days we were understaffed. Timesheets were also on a completely different spreadsheet, making it difficult to map everything out.” Using Excel also made it difficult for employees to call off work. Employees would have to go through management to make their shift available for other employees. “No one would get notification alerts for available shifts in Excel. We had to do most of the work.”

Both owners showed frustration with their last employee scheduling software, so finding a solution was a crucial step in order for both stores to operate and be successful. When Bobby discovered Deputy he was “shocked” that other ACE Hardware stores were not utilizing a product like Deputy. “ACE needs to push all of their franchises to use a solution like Deputy”. In fact, Bobby would spend 8 hours a week, just making schedules! Now, with Deputy, Bobby only spends around 2 hours a week for both scheduling and payroll.

“The amount of time we spent on building schedules has dropped by two-thirds. It used to be an all-day event with trying to get all the Excel sheets together and distribute the schedule. Now, it only takes me about 20 minutes! Having an integrated timesheet and scheduling feature was the biggest time saver for us.”

Darrell also saves time with Deputy. Darrell and his staff switched to Deputy after he and his employees signed up for the free trial. “Before Deputy, I used to spend an hour and a half setting up schedules. That was time that I didn’t have. What I love about Deputy is that it saves me so much time. Now, it only takes around 20 minutes! Deputy makes it so easy to view schedules in advance — it’s everything we need it to be.”
Now, Darrell and Bobby are both Deputy advocates. “I only give testimonials for products that I truly believe in and Deputy has really improved the way we operate as a store,” says owner Bobby Heuser, “We started as a small family business, and now we have been recognized by Ace Hardware as the “Coolest Store 2016” and won industry-lead awards such as “Best New Store in America” and “Young Retailer of the Year”. We pushed very hard to run and operate efficiently. We couldn’t have achieved that without the help of Deputy.”