In retrospect: I was brought into Tulip to originally build greenfield mobile applications or “to innovate”. Runner was one of the mobile applications that my team created based on a very simple need that all retailers had – fetching items for clients while in-store. But the beautiful thing about this application was that it was really a beachhead into an area Tulip was not yet engaged in: task management and it went hand-in-hand with another existing Tulip application: the in-store catalog. This mobile application was conceived and built in less than 4 months. It also paved the way for many firsts for Tulip: first multi-tenant app, first app hosted on GCP, and first app to use the Apple Watch. We had immediate customer adoption from two existing luxury retailer customers plus gained a new very large luxury retail banner. Initially deployed within multi-floor flagship stores this app quickly grew to be globally deployed and according to one customer actually changed the way they sold products from individual to team based. I have since moved on from Tulip but I still check-in with some of these retailers when I travel to NYC. There is nothing better than to see your products getting used in real life. I am so proud of me and my team for getting this one off the ground!
ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS FROM NOVEMBER 20, 2018
(https://medium.com/@sarah.mcmullin_82646/introducing-tulip-retail-runner-next-gen-retailing-task-management-d4f8e47ef421)
How many times is this going to happen to you this Black Friday? You’re in a store. You found the perfect pair of pants you want, except they don’t have your size, or you want it in a different color. You search around some more but can’t seem to find them. So you go hunt for an associate with the pair of pants in your hand for reference. After tracking them down you ask them if they have this pair but in a smaller size, maybe in the back? They take you and your pants over to an antiquated POS to do a product look-up. They type 1000 keystrokes into a green and black screen. After what seems like an eternity the associate says you’re in luck, the system says they have a pair in the back. Just stay there while they go to check. They’re gone…5 minutes, 10 minutes. Are they even coming back? Your friend texts to say she’s waiting at your rendezvous. You leave. The store loses the sale.
75% of retailers cite potential sales losses due to wait-related reasons like our sales associate who couldn’t answer an inventory related question quickly. We set out to tackle this exact problem when we built Tulip Retail Runner.
We designed Tulip Retail Runner to be a simple, yet elegant portable mobile application that does one thing really well: facilitate tasks from a shared queue for a set of associates (runners). With one simple scan of a tag, we can facilitate a quick product look-up with Tulip Retail Assisted Selling catalog, see its inventory availability within the store, and with one touch launch a runner request. The runners have Tulip Retail Runner, a shared task queue where each can be notified and accept runs quickly. No more walkie talkie requests that result in broken telephone. The requesting associate gets detailed status of where the run is at all times and the runner gets all the details of the product request at all times. Most importantly, the requesting associate never has to leave the customer’s side.
Requestor vs. Runner vs Manager: know where your run is at all times, have all your product pick details in one place, & measure your product inquiry wait times.
We also know that customers are willing to wait about 5 minutes before moving on. With Tulip Retail Runner you can actually measure how long it takes your associates to get product into your customer’s hands. Its design evolved around meeting this North Star metric through several usability rounds with store associates. Additionally, Tulip Retail Runner tracks the most requested products so you can start to understand what inventory is moving in store (and what is not). It was also designed to be multi-purposeful for many applications within a store: from champagne requests to change room size inquiries to delivery pick-up to product availability questions, Tulip Retail Runner can handle them all.
So this Black Friday pay careful attention to those retailers who pride themselves on service — a true differentiator to online. How many times does a store associate have to leave your side? The answer should be none.