Fireside Hearth & Home Runs On Scaffold
“We had 100 customer service reps working in 27 different builder portals to handle new POs, reschedules, changes, and cancellations. Scaffold shows us exactly what is actionable, in a single, normalized flow that any one of my reps can process. It has been transformational for our company.”
Fireside Hearth & Home is the largest fireplace installer in the United States, delivering more than 90,000 fireplaces annually and serving over 2,500 homebuilders nationwide.
Fireside relies on a team of roughly 100 Customer Service Representatives who manually monitor builder portals and keep them synchronized with Fireside's ERP, Epicor. This workload spans 27 different builder portals, each with its own rules, documents, and workflows.
The Operational Challenge
Typically, fireplace installation is not very complex, but the operational process was unfortunately quite complicated. Scheduling a single job required CSRs to complete multiple time-consuming steps:
- Constantly monitor portals for new or revised POs
- Download and cross-reference documents to build a complete scope of work
- Manually enter work orders into Epicor
- Accept POs inside builder portals
- Process multiple schedule changes and corresponding portal acceptances
- Enter completion notifications in builder portals after install
Because each builder had unique processes and portal behaviors, CSRs were siloed by builder and region. Staff could not easily shift between workloads, which forced Fireside to maintain specialized roles — significant pain was felt when someone was out, and it took a significant lift just to keep all systems in sync.
The Impact of Scaffold on Operations
Within the first 60 days, Scaffold delivered major operational transformations.
90%+ Reduction in Processing Time per Order
Scaffold automated the majority of manual entry, data checks, document extraction, and portal actions — allowing CSRs to focus only on true exceptions, which really needed attention.
Unified Workflow Across All Builders
Scaffold normalizes data from every builder portal, enabling any CSR to process any order from any builder without retraining or specialization.
“Scaffold has given us scalability, being able to shift capacity to another call center without missing an install.”
80%+ Reduction in Errors and Missed Jobs
Scaffold detects the instant Epicor is out of sync with a builder portal, reducing rework and preventing costly mistakes.
“I think we're not just driving efficiency, we're improving our delivery to our customers, which to me is a higher priority.”
Automated Detection of Conflicting Builder Data
When builders send inconsistent information through multiple channels, Scaffold flags it instantly and prompts CSRs to reach out — something previously impossible to catch in real time.
Conclusion
Scaffold gave Fireside peace of mind and security for an incredibly critical team that functioned as the lynchpin of the business. Not only can Fireside scale and grow with more confidence, but it can deliver better work to its customers. Fireside is exploring expanding Scaffold to its division offices and accounting team.