How The Mighty Have Fallen: Will They Rise Again?

In 2006, Pro Home Systems, an audio and visual entertainment and communications installation company based in Walnut Creek and Oakland, was flying high.

Sunset and Popular Science Magazine presented the company’s handiwork in the House of Innovation, a rock ‘em, sock ‘em 6,500-square-foot home bristling with technology and eye-popping design.

Pro Home was flush with a booming economy as its trampoline. Customers routinely ordered whole house entertainment systems, giving Pro Home carte blanche to fill their man caves, momma commando centers and kid video galleries with the hottest, finest products.

In 2007 and 2008, everything changed.

“We had a huge dip in dollars in January of 2008,” remembers Glen Casebeer, operations manager. “It cratered in January of ’09. It was 25 percent off of what it was at its peak in early ‘07.”

Casebeer has been with the company for 31 years. Recalling the fear, he admits the only thing holding the company together was long-term contracts rolling to completion from previous years.

Like so many companies, Pro Home was forced to look in the mirror and decide: sink or swim.

And if swimming was the answer, what stroke?

“We decided, when the economy started to tank, not to follow the companies that started discounting,” says Vice President Kevin Vawter. “Instead, we had to make ourselves completely available.”

Vawter began calling long-time customers and fielding calls from Circuit City, Good Guys and Anderson’s customers who had been cast adrift by the demise of the large box outlets.

“Instead of charging them the liability we had to carry to touch their equipment — equipment we didn’t sell them — we started them as if they were our own customers. We wanted them to realize they could turn to us. That’s what we had to do to survive,” Vawter explains.

Soon, they realized their proudest offering, exceptional service, wasn’t enough. In order to keep their technicians working, they had to buy products for less money and take jobs that would zero out, accepting even a few with high risk of loss.

“First, we went to manufacturers and basically ran it like a flea market. We offered lower prices for their products. If they said, yes, we’d make a deal. If they said no, we’d move on to someone else,” admits Vawter.

The response was immediate, and in some cases, hostile.

“‘You’re out of your mind! Who do you think you’re talking to?’” Vawter paraphrases.

But a few manufacturers played along: Krell, Meridian, Dynaudio and Nuforce, among others. Vawter speculates that Pro Homes client demographics and years of partnering with manufacturers meant those companies saw the wisdom in working with them, despite the reduced profit margins.

Two years later, he reluctantly acknowledges some satisfaction over the fact that the resisters were eventually forced to lower their status and are now stuck — or bankrupt — because they refused to “play ball.”

Despite the latest upswing, with new orders rising 10 percent over last year and a thick, 150-page service completion notebook Vawter slaps down on the table during an interview, life at Pro Home is far from easy.

“It takes a daily examining of how we do things,” Vawter emphasizes. “Making sure in every instance we’re following our game plan. Not letting anything slip, even over a bracket to hang a TV.”

And the TVs they hang are beefy.

There’s an $8,000 70-inch ELITE, made by Pioneer, sprawling across the east wall in one of their sleek showrooms.

“We are not a discount based company, we are a value based system solution company. If someone wants to buy a TV on Amazon, we’re not going to be able to beat the price. However, it’s buyer beware and we’re a local company that can help with an entire system.”

Vawter is clearly proud of the company’s service record and doesn’t shy away from answering a question about four negative customer reviews found online.

“Ten years ago, this was a very different place and there are people out there who were not treated the way they are now. The bad articles are the ones that show up on the Internet. Can I get those customers back? Is that a goal of mine? Yes, definitely.”

Vawter might follow his own cue, if Nick Gerber of Moraga can make a suggestion.

The Gerbers had a system installed by Pro Home in 2002 that recently needed upgrading. Although pleased with the company’s creative solutions and soup-to-nuts capabilities eight years ago, they were less impressed with recent service.

“We basically needed a new universal remote system and they said it was too small a job,” Gerber said, “so we went with a competitor, Twilight Solution.”

The forecast for Pro Home Systems is unclear, and like many companies struggling to survive, their every step is guarded, with little room for slipups.

Almost on cue, Vawter’s phone rings and he jumps to answer, saying, “It’s a customer, I have to take it.”

In the next room Casebeer is answering a call from a technician. Returning clients are ordering streamed audio, something that didn’t exist three years ago, and iPad based control systems are hot.

The phone rings on a third line: there’s no more time for shop talk. Vawter has a call to the Gerber family in mind.