More company control can lead to a better customer experience, according to Restoration Hardware CEO Gary Friedman.
During Restoration Hardware’s third-quarter financial results conference call, Friedman elaborated on the customer experience point and the issue of control.
“As we look at it long term, I think our bias is to control more of it than to control less of it,” Friedman said during a Q&A session. “And so as we’ve learned, as we’ve in-sourced our home delivery and we learn to control, to operate those, we see more benefit than less benefit and now probably have a view that we want to control more of it than less of it, if not all of it, right? That in the future, you know, is there a day that 100% of our deliveries in the company, from a furniture point of view, we control. And there’s probably more of a likelihood that we do. And there may be a few markets down the middle of the nowhere that you say it just makes completely no sense. But you have to argue that from both sides, to say, like, OK, we’re going to be a luxury brand, we’re going to develop, we’re going to deliver really high-end product, but we’re going to hand it off to somebody who might screw up that customer experience.”
Friedman explained that there is a certain investment, cost of doing business at the high end, and “controlling the customer experience” 
that is necessary.
“And so we are rethinking, we are testing our models and trying to find the right place to land,” he said. “And it may land at we’re going to control all of it, quite frankly, that our customers are too valuable to put the final mile or the final handoff into anybody else’s hands but our own. We haven’t come to that absolute conclusion, but I’d say the debate has taken us to controlling more than controlling less. And the key there will be, the more we control, the more we’ll have to invest, but we won’t invest unless we think there’s a good return.”
What’s more, Friedman said that furniture of this quality has never been made in these quantities.
“So we’re building a new railroad,” he said. “And we are investing human capital and financial capital to ensure we have the best long-term supply chain. Does that mean we’re building factories? Not necessarily. Does that mean we might build a furniture factory in the future in North America? That could be likely. Because we might want more control of that part of the supply chain. And you have to think about all those in concert. But if we think about enhancing the quality of our product and in places we can control it, we may make an investment to do that. We may have to make a financial investment to enable a strategic vendor to get to the next level. We may have to make a human capital investment to help people.”