Keep your regular customers coming back: app to track when they last shopped

See which of your regulars you haven't seen in a while, so you can reach out before they make the big supermarket their weekly shop.

Who it's for

You run an independent grocery or convenience store in a suburb or a country town. Deli counter, smallgoods, bread in by six, fridges down the back. You and your partner are there most days with a couple of casuals on the weekend. Your trade is the regulars: the woman who gets her meat every Thursday, the cafe up the road that runs an account, the family who take a box of fruit and veg. The problem bites when you work out, two months late, that one of them stopped coming in.

The problem today

Right now it's all in my head. I know faces, not names. There's an exercise book under the till for the account customers and a page of phone numbers in my phone. If a regular stops coming in I don't find out for weeks, and by then they've got a routine at the big supermarket on the highway and they're not coming back. The cafe that still owes me from last month, I only think about it when I'm doing the books on a Sunday night. My partner will say, we haven't seen Maria in a while, and that is the only system we've got.

What the app does, screen by screen

1. Customer list (staff and owner) — Lets anyone behind the counter find a customer by name or phone number and see when they last shopped.
2. Counter check-in (staff) — Lets staff tap a regular's name as they come through, so the last-shopped date stays current without anyone writing in a book.
3. Customer page (staff and owner) — Holds one customer's history in one place: what they usually buy, the notes about them, and any follow-up that's due.
4. Haven't seen lately (owner) — Lists the regulars who have gone quiet, longest gone first, so you know who to ring today.
5. Follow-ups (owner and staff) — Shows the calls and messages due today, with a button to open a chat or send a text, and keeps a note of what was said.
6. Customer portal (customer) — Lets an account customer sign in to see what they owe, their statements and their standing order.

Who uses it and what it keeps track of

• Customers — Name, phone, how you know them, whether they run an account, what they usually buy, and when they last shopped. Staff can look up and add. Only you can remove someone.
• Shops and deliveries — The day someone came in or had a box dropped off, who served them, and anything worth remembering. Staff add these as they go, you can see all of them.
• Follow-ups — Who to contact, why, when it's due and what came of it. Staff and owner only, never shown to the customer.
• Statements and order sheets — The statements, invoices and standing orders for account customers. Each customer sees only their own, you see everyone's.

What it changes for the business

You stop losing regulars quietly. Instead of working it out months later, you see someone go quiet within a fortnight and you ring while you're still their shop. Account customers can look at their own statement, so there is less chasing and fewer awkward conversations across the counter. A casual working their first Saturday can greet someone by name and know what they usually come in for. And what you know about your customers stops living only in your head, so it's still there when you take a week off.

The one decision that matters

The decision is who gets logged. One way is to record everybody who walks through, which means whoever is on the till is asking strangers for a name during the Saturday morning rush. The other way is to record only the people you would actually pick up the phone to: the named regulars, the account customers and the delivery orders. Go the second way. A shorter list that is genuinely kept up to date is worth far more than a list of everyone that nobody maintains past the first week. You can add someone the first time they do something worth remembering, and the counter screen makes that a few taps.

What to build first, and what can wait

Build the customer list, the counter tap, the quiet list and the follow-up notes first. That is the whole point of the thing and it earns its keep from the first week. The customer portal can come next, once you have statements worth signing in for. Standing orders, delivery runs and anything to do with points or rewards can wait. If the habit of tapping a name at the counter doesn't stick, nothing built on top of it will work either.

How BooDoo builds it

You describe your shop and the way you want it to work in plain words, and BooDoo builds it. It sets up the database and the sign-in, so staff get the counter screens, you get the quiet list, and account customers see only their own statements. The same request gives you a website on its own live address and an Android app you can publish to Google Play under your own account, which is what you want if staff are using it on a phone behind the counter. Your own web address can be connected. WhatsApp buttons open a chat with a customer. When you want something changed, you describe the change.

How you'll know it works

The haven't seen lately list gets shorter week by week, and people start mentioning your message at the counter. You hear I got your text, I needed bread anyway.

Build it

Paste this in and it gets built.

I run a small grocery store and I want a website, plus a phone app for my staff, where I keep a list of my customers with their name, phone, what they usually buy and when they last shopped, so whoever is on the till can find someone in a couple of taps and mark that they came in today, and so I can open one screen that shows me the regulars I haven't seen in a while, longest gone first, with a button to text them or open a WhatsApp chat and somewhere to write down what they said. My account customers, mostly a couple of cafes and some families who get a box delivered, should be able to sign in and see their own statements and what they owe and nothing of anyone else's. Staff should only get the counter screens and I see everything.