A customer interview. Coffee Molly Coffee Houses

Greetings to our subscribers and everyone who came to the Shifton company page by chance. Today we offer an interview with one of our customers - the owner of a cafe chain, who has been using Shifton online service for quite a long time.

Shifton: Hello. Let's get acquainted!

Irina: Hello! My name is Irina Uskova , I own and manage a chain of coffee shops Coffee Molly in Nizhny Novgorod (Russia).

Shifton: Tell us a bit more about your business.

Irina: By the beginning of 2021, the company had more than 20 bartenders with different degree of occupation. Coffee Molly has been operating in the city since 2014, developing the concept of coffee shops for office workers. Today there are seven coffee houses in Nizhny Novgorod with a total turnover of 25 million rubles per year.

Shifton: Why did you decide to partner with Shifton?

Irina: The market specificity is such that our employees are quite young people, and therefore they often change jobs. For most of them it's their first job. Therefore, work with personnel takes a lot of time and includes selection of applicants, training, mentoring and professional development.

It has long been clear to me that this process should be taken lightly, since the main point is to preserve the main “backbone” of bartenders - 5-6 people. They help newcomers to adapt quickly and easily.

All this ebullient activity affects the work schedule on a daily basis, so it should be promptly monitored, and in case of changes everyone must be notified immediately.

Shifton: How have you dealt with these issues before?

Irina: Previously, we sent updates in a general chat, sometimes we had to call employees personally in order to make sure that they were aware of the changes. But the more coffee shops we opened, the more we needed to automate the whole routine.

Shifton: Does your company need an automated online scheduling service?

Irina: Of course, those who follow the trends are aware that the food services market is adapting IT-technologies more and more. Working on schedules is a daily routine of the administrator and senior baristas. As part of scheduling, they should take into account preferences of employees (personal matters, second job, etc.), the efficiency of the bartender at a particular coffee shop and the specifics of the day (weekend or weekday). In addition, we need to organize training for newbies, conduct an inventory or general cleaning, find a replacement for the sick, or divide the shift between two employees. And of course, we should take into account all possible delays and overtime.

We had automated this process for a long time, but the growth of the company went on, and I wanted something more than just a program that would set work schedules. I was looking for partner developers who would make it so that the program could also work as a payroll for each employee. There were even more ideas...

Shifton: Did your expectations come true as the cooperation with Shifton expanded?

Irina: Yes, I totally feel good with it! Frankly speaking, when I accidentally found Shifton it took me a while to notice how flexible this product can be.

At the testing stage, I asked many questions about what else is planned to be implemented and what functions Shifton offers, so that employees at every minute of time would be confident in their work schedule and know in advance the sum that they will receive at the end of each month. I wanted the payroll to be performed without delays, and to be carried out in real time mode and be available to a person on his smartphone at any given moment, and not only on the payday.

Shifton: Did you manage to fulfill your requests? How satisfied are you with the support from Shifton developers?

Irina: All my requests were fulfilled, and I also realised that the program can be modernized further according to our needs. I closely communicated with the developers for 6 months and told them what we like and what else we expect to see. We implemented the program quickly and immediately realized that we wanted to use it more and more and customize it for our needs.

Shifton: Have you succeeded so far?

Irina: We managed to accomplish the following points: we automated the schedule for each employee, taking into account their preferences, assigned bartenders to branches, and adjusted the calculation of bonuses and fines. We also eliminated errors in salary calculations, when some shifts were not taken into account or were paid for twice. We also installed the application on the smartphones of all employees, where they instantly receive notifications on updates and payroll. We also reduced the time spent on scheduling by 10 times, and reduced turnover, since employees see their shifts/salary and can influence them, so in general we improved the time planning process for all employees.

Shifton: For sure you have more suggestions on the customization of the Shifton tool?

Irina: Yes, of course. We are waiting for a more user-friendly interface for making changes in the schedules. Now not all details can be changed, and to adjust certain parameters, you need to create everything anew. We are waiting for more flexible settings in salary reports for general periods and the option to leave comments on work. As for the service functions, we need the option for employees to leave comments and draw up reports on the accomplished tasks in the application. I am also interested in the automatic calculation of bonuses depending on sales indicators or KPI fulfillment and more flexible settings of the application interface for the convenience of employees: what to display on the main screen, what notifications to send, and what to report on.

Shifton: Thank you for your detailed and informative feedback, Irina. Can you recommend Shifton online service to owners of other companies?

Irina: I already recommend the tool to my customers, whom I help to launch their coffee shops, since Shifton helps to save money, it is easy to use and my employees like it. Before starting to use Shifton, I thoroughly tested more than 10 different applications and programs. By the time I found Shifton, I've already agreed with a developer who was ready to create a similar program for us. And Shifton completely solved all my issues with scheduling and automation of payroll.