As a POS Omnichannel solution provider, we understand that providing features that seem to be fit with client’s expectations is not enough. We have to tailor our system to client’s operation overall and so that it can streamline all processes in their businesses in the long-term. Greg Penno – owner of Mr. Pet’s is one of our long-term partners whom we also tried to optimize his business in the same way: from his expectation, we have gradually set up system to replace the old one. Let us tell you the customer success stories of this tenacious partner.
Overview of Mr. Pet’s business
Mr. Pet’s located in Canada is an exclusive shop selling collection of dog and puppy supplies, including the latest accessories, toys, crates, collars, and more. Greg Penno – the store owner who has been working with us directly to set up the POS system for his business since the first days until now when he has 11 stores across the country.
Greg is not only the man who understands his employee’s pains but also the man who thoroughly comprehends the POS Omnichannel system. Because Magento is the most customizable platform, he usually suggests us about his ideal ways to tailor the system to his business operation with the very detailed and logic documents. Therefore, we can easily do customization based on his requests or quickly suggest an optimized approach for the problem he meets by digging more deeply in the root cause and using our expert’s 10-year Magento- experience and knowledge.
What happened to his business?
Everything seems to be very smooth in our cooperation when we can gradually develop customization to tailor to Greg’s roadmap while he’s more and more familiar with our solution and can assist us in giving requirements or even approach more specifically. Then COVID-19 suddenly comes that changes a lot of things. The global economy has been struck seriously by the Corona pandemic. Thousands of stores are locked down, the staff is required to take a leave off respectively to guarantee that the required distance is maintained at least 6 feet (1.8m). Nobody wants to leave their home for shopping or unemployment everywhere that leads to a substantial sales drop in most businesses. Being a necessity store, Mr. Pet’s confronts another problem: his online sales have witnessed a dramatic increase, mostly for store pickup orders, estimated about 10 times as the number of store-pickup orders before the pandemic.
What might be the solution?
He, therefore, tried to design a very detailed process of taking advantage of the Magento backend to guide staff in fulfilling orders properly. However, with the cutdown of the number of staff working in a store square meter (to guarantee 6ft distancing) and a complex process in the backend, it’s still hard for Mr. Pet’s store to fulfill such a large number of orders. Specifically, the hardest part might be editing orders: Magento does not allow editing orders to guarantee the accuracy of data. Although products are always available in all stores, they are not exactly available in the store the customer wants to go to pick up. Therefore, staff often call or email customers to announce the estimated available time or suggest the alternative products that finally lead to the change of order value.
However, all orders in fulfillment steps are verified and invoiced orders (confirmed to be paid by card). If staff changes the products, the order value is changed and staff has to take the extra fee or refund the remaining customers when this person comes to pick up in store. It does mean that POS has to allow this process to happen easily. Plus, the new order created after editing should have the same number order as the old one so staff and customers will not be confused. Meanwhile, the old order should be kept in the system for accounting purposes later. To solve the urgent problem with store pickup orders in stores, Greg truly wants us to immediately help in editing orders in POS quickly, taking advantage of PWA technology. It seems to be simple if editing order is the only thing we need to do.
Rushing for deadline – customer success stories
With our 10-year consulting experiences, we understand that this is only the tip of the iceberg. We were hustling to figure out the best way to optimize the workflow while Greg was very rushed due to the shortage of staff in store who have to handle the increasing number of pickup orders. We conducted lots of meetings among our consulting team but the problem couldn’t be solved properly. A lot of ideas were brought up but they couldn’t be arranged as a logical and smooth process. Moreover, there were a few missing points which made it hard for us to understand the issue clearly and that might lead to an incomprehensive solution in the long-term.
Of course, we totally could have customized our system based on the missing process then we could update later because of the flexibility in customization of Magento. However, our ethics in doing business doesn’t allow us to approach this way. On the one hand, we tried to apologize to Greg in regards to 2-week-delay (this seems to be short but the longest since we worked with him) in delivering solutions. On the other hand, we kept collecting as many related ideas as possible, devoured various documents and asked other retailer experts, days and nights, working days or weekends, hoping to find an ideal approach. When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it (Paulo Coelho – The Alchemist).
When the customer success stories are told
Then one day, it seemed to be clear that we had designed a suitable approach that could cover all scenarios for store-pickup. Taking advantage of the user-friendly interface of POS PWA and combining UX lessons picked up everywhere, we designed a rough process and mock-up which were quite suitable. Everything seemed to go on the right track. We both agreed that it should be presented to Greg to see his comments. He was quite impressed with our approach and truly made lots of contributions by sharing his current process and detailed documents which were used to train staff. It was Friday night when we got a full process after presenting a rough solution and then we immediately worked on the new documents throughout the weekends, breaking down the tasks, preparing a meticulous diagram for our developers to easily work on. With a clear process and mock-up that were prepared previously, our IT experts could easily suggest the solution, estimate the project timeline and recommend a few optimizations to have a complete process for curbside pickup.
We totally believed that the initial delay was worth Greg’s waiting. We arranged a meeting with him immediately to discuss the full solution:
- Wow! Wow! It’s amazing.
…
- Yeah! I truly believe it works. You know, I totally believe that my staffs will not be confused anymore by working on this PWA POS interface
- Wow! I have never thought about that. We totally can do this for the future process too.
Tons of WOW during our conversation brought us to cloud 9. Although Greg is always a kind guy who compliments our software and appreciates our effort every time we deliver a feature optimizing his business successfully, we totally felt different this time. It is the tenacity from both sides – from Greg and from us backed by the technology that makes our collective effort worth 3000 WOWs and have created such inspiring customer success stories.
Going from an idea to realization is not an easy but a very interesting path. We feel more and more trustful, determined and committed to our initial value since the first days we established the company: becoming a trusted partner in a life-time, assisting clients in bringing both parties to the higher level.
How do you feel after reading this story from Mr. Pet’s? Don’t hesitate to talk with our dedicated consultants who are always willing to help you lift the burden and run your business better.
