wow. this is amazing. are you a programmer? how did you set up the system?
Thanks, No, as Irvin, a few others can atest, I am not a programmer. I knew though what a Software database could do and realized that the stringing/service part of tennis was a perfect application for database software. I knew how to setup a simple database, but really it was learn on the fly.
One of the things I hated about this industry, was getting my racquet strung. I remember bringing in my racquet to a store, verbally telling them what I wanted, they would yeah yeah me and beyond that, I just hoped they remembered. THere was never any receipt or acknowledgment that they had my racquet.. in fact I realized, I could come in and just point at a racquet that had been strung, any racquet and say, thats mine.. they would charge it to me and I'd have a new racquet, really just absurd that I could do that.
I don't know about everyone else, but I like to feel that a service store is accountable, I never got that so, despite my system being somewhat formal, I think most people feel better knowing, that I know exactly what needs to be done.. the work order is printed out on their "claim ticket". There is now no gray area if something goes wrong.
But I will say, since I started the database, it's been a lot of tweeks and adjustments, getting it to be more "user friendly" and faster. Someone now, brings in their racquet, in less than 5 seconds, I can have them out the door, with a new work order, they have their claim ticket, and the labels have been created. Thats the other thing, labels, Hate the manual labels as half the time you can never read what the hell it says.
That reciept used to be on a laser printer, but I realized I could tweek the report, its' what it is, a report from the database, to print onto a receipt printer, the kind every store has. As you can see, I think it comes out looking pretty professional looking, give clear and concise instructions, and who exactly the racquet belongs to. In the future, I will be printing out, probably a special or two, as sort of a coupon, on the claim ticket.
Well it is still work in progress, and whats more, its been a challenge, but rather fun little hobby anyway.
What is nice about this database, is that it keeps track of every customer, keeps track of every customer's racquet and every single service that, that particular racquet goes through.
I'm working on right now is a feature that when I click the completed button, it will automatically send out a text message to the customer, telling them that their racquet is done and can be picked up. I think that will be awesome.