New Bath Today: Growing a White-Glove Aging-in-Place Business Across 20 States
New Bath Today operates around a simple idea: people should be able to age safely in their own homes.
The company specializes in bathroom renovations designed around that goal. Rather than putting homeowners through a four-to-six-month remodel, New Bath Today typically completes installation in one to two days.
That speed is part of a broader white-glove model. New Bath Today brings the consultation into the home, personalizes the bathroom around the homeowner’s current and future needs, and handles the project with as little disruption as possible.
People should be able to age safely. I think what we do is truly making a difference in the lives of the people who buy our product.
Frank Watz, VP of Consumer Finance, New Bath Today
That model has helped New Bath Today grow to about 500 employees across 20 states. And despite its size, the company has worked to preserve the customer-first approach that helped it grow.
As Frank explained, New Bath Today’s teams remain involved long after installation. If a customer has a problem years later, the company will send someone back out to address it.
The Challenge
A Financing Process That Became Harder to Manage as New Bath Today Grew
For New Bath Today, the in-home appointment is a critical window to complete the sale.
The company was already working with multiple lenders, but the process was still fragmented. If the first lender declined a customer, the rep had to move to another lender, submit the application again, and sometimes repeat the process a third time.
That meant more back-and-forth for the rep and more friction for the customer.
The customer is questioning, ‘Why are you asking for my personal information three times?’
Frank Watz, VP of Consumer Finance, New Bath Today
Frank knew that process would become harder to manage as New Bath Today grew. Without the right technology, he estimated that he would need a five-person team processing second and third applications from the office, potentially a day or two after the original appointment.
For New Bath Today, that delay could directly affect the sale.
As soon as the sales rep leaves the home, the chance of that deal closing is slim to none. You have to have a solution in place that the sales reps can finalize everything before they leave, because once they leave, your odds have dropped dramatically.
Frank Watz, VP of Consumer Finance, New Bath Today
As New Bath Today expanded into more states, the team had to manage different lender relationships, licensing requirements, regulations, and credit environments.
The company needed a way to manage its existing lender network more efficiently and help reps get customers to the right financing option faster.
The Solution
Connecting Estimating, Contracts, and Financing
Frank had already tried other fintech solutions before working with One Click Contractor. He was looking for a better way to handle financing when the first lender wasn’t the right fit.
He wanted to avoid the back-and-forth of sending an application, waiting for a decline, and starting again with another lender. He also needed lender
That search led New Bath Today to One Click Contractor. Its multi-lender financing platform gives reps access to multiple lenders and helps connect each customer with a financing option they are more likely to qualify for and accept. For New Bath Today, that meant reps could keep working toward an approval during the appointment instead of restarting the process with a new lender after every decline.
New Bath Today’s relationship with One Click Contractor eventually expanded beyond financing. The company also began using its estimating platform, which gives reps a structured way to build the project estimate and contract in the home.
Connecting the two brought those parts of the sale into one process. A rep could build the estimate and contract in One Click Contractor, then move directly into financing if the customer needed it.
Frank is very direct about the impact of that connection:
I’d say it’s a game changer. If you want to grow your business, you want to give your sales reps something that they can learn and trust.
Frank Watz, VP of Consumer Finance, New Bath Today
That trust also comes from having a partner behind the technology. One Click Contractor works closely with New Bath Today, providing personalized training and ongoing guidance as the team grows and its needs change.
This is also especially important because New Bath Today’s reps have very different levels of comfort with technology.
Some of [our sales reps] are extremely savvy and other ones are very old school, and it’s very challenging to have them on multiple platforms.
Frank Watz, VP of Consumer Finance, New Bath Today
Financing also isn’t something every rep uses on every sale. A rep might go a month or two selling cash projects before working with a customer who wants to finance. With a separate financing platform, that could mean trying to remember a password or relearning a process they hadn’t used in weeks.
With One Click Contractor, the rep is already in the system building the estimate and contract. When financing comes up, the next step is already there.
If they’re already running their contracts through that system, it’s going to be very easy for them to, ‘Oh yeah, just now I click on this button,’ [and] go into the financing platform.
Frank Watz, VP of Consumer Finance, New Bath Today
The platform is also designed to make that process straightforward for reps to pick back up, even when they haven’t financed a project recently.
The layout is truly designed for anyone to very simply complete the process and do it the right way.
Frank Watz, VP of Consumer Finance, New Bath Today
The Results
Financing Now Represents Half of New Bath Today’s Business
Financed Sales Grew From 20% to 50%
When New Bath Today began working with the team behind One Click Contractor’s financing solution, roughly the mid-30% range of its business was financed.
Today, that figure is about 50%.
The increase has happened as New Bath Today itself has grown and entered new markets, including areas with tougher credit environments. That makes the ability to connect customers with the right financing options increasingly important to the company’s sales process.
Frank has seen an even bigger change over his full tenure at New Bath Today. When he first joined, only about 20% of the company’s business was financed.
The Financing Process Is Now 3× Faster
Instead of taking a customer through a sequence of applications and declines, reps can move through financing options much faster and get to an actual approval during the appointment.
It probably now takes a third of the time it used to take, on average.
Frank Watz, VP of Consumer Finance, New Bath Today
That changes the conversation in the home. Rather than focusing on another application, the rep can move forward with approved terms and talk through the options available to the customer.
Nearly Three Years Without a System Outage
Financing is used in 50% of New Bath Today’s deals, so a significant share of customers go through the financing process. If the system goes down during an appointment, a rep could lose the opportunity to get a customer financed and close the sale before leaving the home.
Across nearly three years of working together, New Bath Today hasn’t experienced a system outage.
That reliability gives reps something Frank considers especially important as the sales organization grows: a system they can learn and trust.
Weekly Performance Reviews Guide Financing Decisions
New Bath Today also participates in One Click Contractor’s Performance Advisory Program, which pairs every customer with a dedicated Account Manager and industry experts who understand the home improvement business.
Frank meets with the One Click Contractor team weekly to review financing performance across New Bath Today’s markets. They look at KPIs, investigate changes in approval and decline rates, and discuss where the lender strategy may need to change.
If a state has an unusually high decline rate, they dig into why. Is it the market? The customer profile? The lender mix? Is something working in one state that New Bath Today can apply somewhere else?
I don’t want it sugarcoated. I want to know, hey, if we’re doing something right here, can we mimic that somewhere else?
Frank Watz, VP of Consumer Finance, New Bath Today
That becomes more valuable as New Bath Today expands.
Different states bring different regulations, licensing requirements, lenders, and credit profiles. Frank sees having the right lender relationships and the right partner behind them as a way to reduce the risk of making the wrong financing decision in a new market.
Having the right lenders in place and the right partners in place provides you with some isolation from making a bad decision on who you go with.
Frank Watz, VP of Consumer Finance, New Bath Today
The program includes:
Strategic performance reviews
Review KPIs, identify problems and opportunities, and agree on the actions to take next.
Industry benchmarks
Compare performance against relevant patterns and anonymized insights from similar home improvement businesses.
Ongoing training
Train new reps, locations, and team members, and provide refreshers as the business grows.
Ongoing advisory and support
Work with a consistent point of contact who knows the business, understands its history, and can provide guidance between scheduled reviews.
Looking Ahead
Supporting New Bath Today’s Next Stage of Growth
New Bath Today continues to grow beyond its current footprint of roughly 500 employees across 20 states.
For Frank, having the right partner means having experienced people to turn to for guidance and strategy as the business grows. Many members of the One Click Contractor team have spent years working in the home improvement industry themselves, bringing that experience and a commitment to continued innovation to the relationship.
I pick their brains, they pick my brains. We’ve been able to really collaborate on a lot of different things, especially what’s going on in the world of finance.
Frank Watz, VP of Consumer Finance, New Bath Today
For a company growing across markets with very different credit environments, that combination of technology and ongoing financing expertise gives New Bath Today a sales process that can grow with it.