Another version of the Tula app has hit the app store, this time with all the updates for the iPhones 6 to account for the new screen sizes. We also pushed out a handful of small bug-fixes with this release, and all our customer white-label apps have received the updates as well.
Grab the latest version of the iPhone app on the app store, and for those of you with custom white-label apps be sure to tell your students to look out for the updates as well!
One of the things that most inspires me, is when I see someone walking in our Chicago neighborhood with a yoga mat, headed towards Maile's studio.
We work in an industry where people measure clicks, page views and conversion rates. There are conferences about sales funnels, lead optimization and a host of other things that attempt to turn the art of making something extraordinary and valuable into a predictable science.
And yet the thing I think about most, is footsteps.
People who have built yoga studios, and the people who teach yoga, they do something so valuable that every day people stand up, change their clothes, and sometimes walk through snow storms to get to their yoga.
Think about that. Would you walk for 20 minutes through the snow, in 15 degree weather, to get to your Facebook page? How about to get to your favorite TV show? Questionable at best. But every day I see people walking through our neighborhood to get to their yoga.
Why this matters is because we recognize that the point is to create something so valuable that people would walk through the snow to get to it - not to trick them into landing on your website with a different button color.
We're often asked how we're different. I don't know how to answer this sometimes, but I suppose one way is to talk about the things that inspire us.
And I find no inspiration in measuring clicks.
Footsteps on the other hand, those are inspiring.
Over the past few days we've released some subtle but super handy enhancements to Tula.
Updated View Everyone Page
First, we've updated our 'view everyone' page to allow you to view, filter and sort your people on a number of new parameters. We also killed the pagination and introduced endless scrolling on this page, which makes it a lot more functional.
For example, maybe you want to see everyone who's last attendances was after January 1st. Or maybe you want to see everyone who purchased a pass prior to a certain date. Or maybe you want to see everyone who bought a pass after one date, but their last attendance was after or before another date. Like a lot of things in Tula it's super easy to use and quite simple in the UI, but very powerful underneath.
Check-in Flags
There's always been a nice way to leave notes on your students, but sometimes you might want to call out something important about someone to other staff members. Maybe they've gone negative too many times and they need to make a payment. Maybe there's a medical issue you want your whole staff to be aware of. Now, there's a fast and easy way to add an alert to someone when they're checked in.
When people have the check-in flag set, there will be both a pop-up alert when they're checked in, along with a red flag indicating there's important information about them.
We're always looking for ways to refine and improve Tula, and we hope you like these new features as much as we do!
2014 was a great year for all of us at TULA - and that includes are customers too! Looking back, we improved TULA a total of 169 times and maybe more. That means, we added or improved features, fixed bugs, and increased the performance and stability of TULA 169 times in 2014.
Here's the complete list (in case you were wondering):
Even with all of these improvements in 2014, you can expect the same from us in 2015. We strive to do all of this without complicating our product. You can count on us to keep things simple while making you a more powerful business owner.
This is a blog post by Derek Hopper, Lead Engineer of TULA.
One of my first jobs was with a company called Mike's Carwash (they're a big carwash chain throughout Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky). Our main focus was the customer and giving them the best experience possible. Customer retention is high because the employees are friendly and always do the right thing.
Mike's Carwash has a concept called "WOW points". For example, you get a point if a customer mentions you by name when you're not around. If a customer takes the time to send in a comment card about a great experience, you get a point.
It's a reward system at its core, but it's so much more than that. Doing these things becomes second nature. You become less focused on the points and more focused on continuing to do the right thing. You start racking up the points with customers because you're always focused on them.
I like to think we have a pseudo WOW points culture at TULA. No matter how long a customer has been with us, we treat them the same - we treat them as we would want to be treated. Our glowing reviews reflect that.
We are racking up the WOW points as best we can. That's how we try to stand out. Customers that have received responses from us in less than a few minutes know this. Customers that ask us for advice know this. Customers that need website help know this.
Each time a customer comes to us with a request, we handle it in the best way possible.
Here's the best part. You can translate WOW points into many different parts of your life. You can do it at your yoga studio. You can rack up points with your friends or at the office. If you focus on it for at least thirty days, you'll form a habit of it. Eventually, you'll forget about the points altogether and all you'll have left is a better culture, a better yoga studio, and a better you!