Leaf Home is a direct-to-consumer business that offers home solutions that include the installation of gutter protection systems, home water filtration and softening, and stairlifts, with the aim of enhancing home safety and mobility. Its teams provide in-home assessments, custom product solutions and professional installations, across North America.  

A pandemic-led boom in the home renovation and remodeling industry caused Leaf Home’s growth to skyrocket in the past few years, from fewer than 30 locations to more than 250. However, they were still relying on manual processes to manage their logistics, costing them precious time and money. The company mostly deals in large, bulky products that require flexible domestic freight strategies. As the operational consequences of rapid growth began to kick in, the company’s managers realized they needed to modernize their logistics management system, and leverage more advanced technologies. 

Leaf Home chose Uber Freight’s TMS, which consolidated their operations from a disjointed array of manual processes and software systems into one technology platform. During the onboarding process, Uber Freight worked closely with the Leaf Home team to understand and tailor their approach to their specific business requirements, beyond just providing the technology. Uber Freight’s TMS is designed to allow Leaf Home to self-serve, while also getting the support the company needs from the Uber Freight team. 

A big priority for Leaf Home is ensuring timely delivery and customer satisfaction for their wide variety of home products. Products are moved across individual field offices before making it to homeowners, meaning delays can cause major ripple effects. The Uber Freight TMS’s automation capabilities have allowed Leaf Home to offer faster and more reliable deliveries because, instead of relying on clerks to book loads one by one, Leaf Home now uses the TMS’s real-time procurement capabilities to efficiently book multiple loads. Leaf Home now has access to Uber Freight’s Exchange platform, which brings shippers and carriers together to negotiate contract and spot freight. Through TMS and Exchange, Leaf Home has been able to streamline its procurement processes, secure the best possible rates, and expand its carrier network. 

Uber Freight also helped Leaf Home’s team to gain access to significantly more data points, in order to truly understand and monitor what’s happening in the company’s supply chain, on a single platform. This broadened view has aided Leaf Home in making decisions — both day-to-day and on a strategic level — and this has been particularly helpful in riding the growth wave that has expanded the scope of their operations. 

The company reports that implementation has saved Leaf Home nearly 1,000 hours in labor a year, and slashed full truckload costs by nearly 20%. In addition, they’ve improved on-time delivery rates and reduced missed pickups. With this upgrade in efficiency, they’ve been able to fulfill their brand promise of “done right at every step,” elevating the level of trust and loyalty their customers have in them, as well as improving the experience of working at the company, says Michael Matisz, vice president of supply chain at Leaf Home. “We have four people on our logistics team, and that is the same amount of people we had in 2018,” Matisz says. He notes the dramatic changes that happened as soon as the new system was live. “We saw thousands of dollars of savings on day one.” The overall improvement in the smoothness of delivery operations has had wider benefits, too, and not just in customer satisfaction. “Believe it or not, this makes us more popular with our installation managers, because they don’t have to wait around for trucks,” Matisz says.  

Steve Barber, vice president of product at Uber Freight said his team learned valuable lessons from the implementation with Leaf Home, along with other customers over the years. One is that a “co-innovation mindset” mean that Leaf Home’s feedback shaped, and continues to shape, TMS enhancements. “We’ve found that feedback is not just important to us; it’s critical to us. We have to have that feedback to shape the way that we develop our technology,“ Barber says. 

Over the past year, Uber Freight has introduced a series of new functionalities to its TMS, and is exploring next-generation TMS with an emphasis on AI capabilities. But Barber says success is about more than technology alone. “It’s not just about deploying the latest and greatest AI, carrier connectivity tools, or UIs or integrations. It’s really about the technology plus the partnership.”  And it’s not just about transforming logistics, adds Barber. “At Leaf Home, logistics and supply chain is driving their business forward.” 

Matisz appreciates the commitment Uber Freight has made to continue to adapt and improve its technology according to Leaf Home’s needs. “Our confidence in the fact that Uber Freight and the team led by Steve isn’t going to deliver us a solution for 2025, and allow that to be what we’re also using in 2026, is what keeps this partnership fresh. We’re not shy about our growth, and we want partners who are as customer-focused as we are,” Matisz says.