About Mattress City

Locally owned and family operated, Mattress City was founded on the idea that customers should be treated as an extension of your own family. Stewart Patey, the founder and owner of Mattress City, entered the mattress industry in early 2000. Working for three major mattress stores over the next five years, Stewart built his business model and eventually opened Mattress City. Fourteen years later and the brand has five stores in Washington state. 

In just four and a half years, Mattress City has seen incredible results with Podium. Starting with just one store, Stewart implemented Podium to help get more reviews and rank higher against competitors online. The results were nearly immediate, and he soon expanded Podium to all five locations. With Podium, Mattress City has collected more than 2,800 reviews, boasts a 4.93 average star rating, and has increased foot traffic, phone calls, and texts to their stores. 

“Out of all of the things I’ve done since starting our business 14 years ago, Podium ranks in the top one or two ways we’ve pushed our brand forward into our community,” said Stewart. 

The Challenge

Before Podium, Mattress City struggled to get reviews to help their online ranking in Google search–the big box stores were winning with big ad spend to capture more leads online. Furthermore, customers and prospects had to call into the store with every question. Stewart Patey, the owner, described the challenges Mattress City was experiencing this way: 

• The process to leave a review wasn’t working for customers
  “If you don’t get reviews, you’re absolutely going to lose,” said Stewart. “We were doing an exceptional job, but we couldn’t get enough people to figure out how to log into Google and leave a review. It was too difficult to get a review.” Because it was so challenging to leave a review, Mattress City employees were tasked with trying to educate customers on the steps to leave a review. This process was time consuming and often resulted in too few reviews.
  

• Not a big enough budget to compete with the big box stores
  “Competing against the big mattress stores as a small, local business is hard. I needed to find creative ways for my business to stand out in the community,” said Stewart. Forced to compete against bigger mattress store brands with ad budgets ranging from $200,000 to $1M, Stewart needed a better way to show up online without breaking the bank.
• Customer communication was only possible through phone calls
  When a new or returning customer had a mattress question, the only option was to call into the store. Sales reps were required to field the few phone calls that came in, hoping to direct callers into the store to try out a mattress and make a purchase. Marketing efforts relied on emails or direct mail and there wasn’t a good way to capture new leads on the website without a web chat option.
  

The Podium Solution

With Podium, Mattress City built a better review request process with text, started showing up in the top three organic search results, and implemented Webchat on their website—helping them capture more sales and direct more prospects to their stores in person. Altogether, Mattress City uses Podium to deliver: 

• An efficient, effective, and results-driven review request program.

Instead of teaching each customer how to leave a review on Google, Mattress City is sending out review requests via text with a link directly to the review site. The process is simple for customers and easy for Mattress City sales reps. And the influx in reviews is helping drive more business. “When we ask our customers what brought them into our store, they always say it was our Google reviews,” said Stewart. “60% of the people that walk into our doors say they read our reviews and they’re ready to buy.”

• A higher online rank in organic search results.

It’s too hard to compete against the ad dollars of a big box store. Instead, Mattress City is focused on collecting more reviews to boost their organic search result ranking. And it’s working. “I can’t outspend the number one, two, or three ad spots,” said Stewart. “But what I can afford is something they don’t do and something their employees don’t do because they don’t take it seriously—collect more reviews to boost my organic search ranking.”

• An easier way to respond to reviews quickly.

With Podium, Mattress City can stay on top of reviews that are coming in daily. “Podium is the platform that allows me to not only see reviews quickly, but it allows me to respond to reviews,” said Stewart. And with pre-written templates make responding to those reviews even easier.

“Podium makes it super simple to reply to any review. I don’t have to sit down and write everything from scratch. I can go through the templates I’ve customized, tailor them a bit more, and reply quickly to every review,” said Stewart.

• An easier way to compete with the big box stores.

Podium is helping Mattress City compete against mattress stores that have been around for 30 – 50 years—outperforming all of them online. “Podium has put me in the forefront of nearly every competitor in my area,” said Stewart. “I truly believe Podium has given me an unfair advantage over my competition in many ways. We compete at a high level with our competitors because of our Podium reviews.”

• A more convenient, customer-focused way to connect with leads.

“Initially we thought Podium was just about helping us get reviews from our customers and helping us stand out in that way. But I’ve seen a tremendous increase in customer communication with Podium,” said Stewart.

Podium is helping prospects and customers connect directly to Mattress City through text. This change in communication has reduced the time sales reps traditionally spent on the phone and encouraged prospects who don’t want to phone into the store to simply text a rep instead. “Podium prevents any sort of phone anxiety for the customer because they have the opportunity to click on our Google profile and start a text conversation,” said Stewart. “It’s just a better experience for our customers.”

• A better way to capture leads online with Webchat

Webchat is helping Mattress City connect customers with a live sales representative at their closest location. “Podium is fabulous technology. A customer clicks on the Webchat icon on our site and they can ask any question to a rep at the store closest to them,” said Stewart. Webchat messages show up in real time on the sales rep’s phone so they can get back to inquiries quickly. “Now, we actually make sales directly through Webchat. And because we can see customer conversation history, we can pull up an inquiry from months ago and let that person know what they were looking for is back in stock. It’s just awesome—I love it!”

Results & ROI

Since 2018, Mattress City has used Podium to see results like: 

→ A 12x increase in reviews—from 2 per month to 12.8 per month

Podium has helped Mattress City collect more consistent reviews. Since implementing text review requests, Mattress City has seen an increase in reviews from just 2 per month to nearly 13 per month.

→ A higher ranking in online search results

With more reviews, Google is pushing Mattress City to the top of search results. “Podium has consistently done what it always has done—given us more reviews for every location,” said Stewart. “And Google has made us more relevant. Now, 92% of the time when someone Googles our store in our area, we are in the top three search results.”

→ 30% increase in website visits from Google  

With a high number of reviews for every location and a high average star rating, Mattress City is seeing a 30% increase in website visits from Google. New prospects are finding their Google profile and clicking through to their website more frequently than they were before Podium.

→ 86% increase in clicks-to-call from Google

With Podium, Mattress City is also seeing an increase in clicks-to-call from Google. Showing up higher in search results has helped them increase direct calls to their stores by 86%.

→ 39% increase in driving directions clicks from Google 

As new prospects find Mattress City online, clicks and calls aren’t the only metrics increasing. The number of clicks on driving directions from Google has increased by 39% since using Podium to increase reviews.

→ 2,840 total reviews collected with a 4.93 average rating

With an average star rating of 4.93, Mattress City has collected more than 2,840 reviews for their five locations. Review requests are sent via text, making it easy for customers to click a link and leave a review. 

“Podium is no longer an expense. It’s an investment. We wouldn’t be where we are today without it… Some companies are just surviving. Mattress City with Podium is thriving. Every business today needs to be using Podium.” 

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