June 2023 Updates | Resilience & Reliability

Faster App Response with Web sockets

Recently our team of engineers have been working under the hood of joe to make a more efficient and stable experience for your baristas. The answer is a big investment in web sockets.

For us non-software engineer folks, web sockets are a technology that allows joe to have a more instant connection and response, where requests (such as processing a payment) are exchanged in real-time.

Prior to this update, with every action -- whether that’s the barista tapping among the menu, adding an item to the cart, applying a promo code, etc. -- a request was sent from the joe device to the joe server, then had to wait for the server to respond. This was time consuming and added a ton of load to joe and your internet connection. Now, with web sockets, we establish an open connection between your joe device and our server. This connection stays open, and both sides can send requests and responses to each other instantly.

For example, prior to an investment in web sockets, the process of a barista just adding a 16oz iced americano to a ticket, and a customer inputing their loyalty phone number resulted in more than 350 requests to and from our server — yikes 😱!

With our web sockets’ open connection, the same order creation process, plus a customer loyalty phone number, and redeeming a reward, now only requires 48 requests from our server — mind blown 🤯 .

With this update to stability, your baristas and customers in-person will notice a far faster and more efficient real-time communication, providing a smoother user experience.

Updates to On-screen Payment and Processing Prompts

As seen below, the latest update to joe Point of Sale includes new on-screen prompts related to payment processing and error codes when a payment is being processed.

Updates to these visuals include:

1. New consumer prompts for adding a tip and card payment via chip, swipe, or tap.
2. Contextual prompts for baristas about customers’ payment
3. Payment error codes, such as “Card removed too early”, or “Try a new read method”

These updates will provide baristas more context throughout the transaction, limiting the number of canceled payments, reduce workflow interruptions, and will give customers a swifter checkout experience.

Redeem promo codes on multiple items with “Unlimited Use Promo”

If your shop loves to offer promotions such as happy hours or uses promo codes for discounted items like employee shift drinks, this update is for you.

We’ve updated parameters around the “Unlimited Use” promo codes so they can be redeemed on multiple items in a cart, for in-person redemptions only. As seen in the images below, this example of an “Unlimited Use” Happy Hour promo code applies 50% off pastries during the hours 3-6pm.

With this update, the “HHPastries” promo is automatically applied to all pastries in the order.

At joe, we are committed to providing the best possible experience for coffee shop owners, baristas, and their customers. Our latest update to the joe Point of Sale system is a significant step forward in optimizing barista efficiency, supercharging customer loyalty, and helping grow coffee shop businesses.

If you haven't already, we invite you to try out the joe Point of Sale system and experience these exciting new features for yourself. 

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