Mattress Marshals inspects consumers' beds
By David Perry -- Furniture Today, August 4, 2008
Margate, Fla. — Larry Frank leads a posse of Mattress Marshals. His job is to bring order to the bedding marketplace.
Frank is CEO of Mattress Marshals, a company based here that specializes in performing home inspections of sleep sets. His staff of 70 documents the condition of mattresses, performing 400 to 800 inspections each week and bringing problems to the attention of retailers and producers.
"Our business is based solely on the honest evaluation of the merchandise we service," Frank said. "Our service eliminates the guesswork and perception issues that the consumer may have after the delivery."
For example, Mattress Marshal inspectors check to determine the exact depth of body impressions on a mattress, an issue that some consumers believe indicates a faulty mattress. If the body impressions fall outside the acceptable range, Mattress Marshals provides the documentation that helps consumers get relief, Frank said. But the company also can help producers and retailers reduce return rates when it determines that consumers do not have issues that warrant mattress replacement, he said.
The company serves producers and retailers along the East Coast and as far west as Ohio, an 18-state region.
Frank, who worked in the home furniture repair business for years, started Mattress Marshals in 2005. The company has service agreements with a number of national bedding producers and retailers, he said.
Mattress exchanges can be costly for producers and retailers, according to Frank. In a number of cases, his company helps retailers and producers reduce exchange rates, thereby helping them boost their operating income, he said.
Mattress Marshals offers its customers electronic order management and live updates on service calls on its Web site. Frank said the company uses only trained and certified bedding inspectors, who can spot quality issues as they crop up.
"We can flow back information, after we have completed enough inspections, to the retailer or manufacturer," he said. "We can share the results of how the merchandise performs in the consumer's home. We get to see the problems as they are happening."
Frank started Mattress Marshals after a sales rep for a mattress producer asked him to look into consumer complaints about that company's products. That sounded like a good idea to him, since he had years of experience with in-home visits working for Furniture Service America, which handled in-home furniture repairs for a retailer.
"I was in charge of hiring and recruiting craftspeople to perform the in-home services," Frank recalled. "You can imagine how difficult it was to find the right individuals who could do upholstery repairs and wood furniture repairs. But the one thing they could all do equally well was a mattress inspection. That's when I first thought about building a business to do nothing but inspect sleep sets."
And that led to the creation of Mattress Marshals, which has enjoyed steady growth as it has expanded its operations, according to Frank.
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Bedding Benchmarks is an editorial feature that provides a roundup of bedding news from all sectors of the industry. Bedding producers, retailers and suppliers are invited to submit information for this page to David Perry, Executive Editor, at dperry@reedbusiness.com . Or you can mail information to: Bedding Benchmarks, Furniture/Today, 7025 Albert Pick Road, Suite 200, Greensboro, N.C. 27409.
