POS Customer View, I've tried, I've tried really hard

[ShawnBouchard]

Shopify enabled a customer view feature a while back. The idea was great! Customer transaction would be shown on a front facing screen. At first, customer profile information was there as well. What a convenience! 

We'd ask a customer for their email address, type it into our POS, add them to the sale an voila! the customer information would move onto the front facing screen. We could then ask "Does this look correct?" and gesture to the screen. The customer could review their purchase, see their customer profile on the screen and confirm everything was correct. It was awesome! Then Shopify removed the customer information from the customer view due to "privacy" concerns.

Then shortly after the disconnect issues started happening. I submitted Bug reports, and called support to no avail. We started making "re-connecting" the Customer view screen part of the morning routine at opening. 

- Open Hardware in POS

- Navigate to Customer view

- Forget the Customer view device

- Unmount the Customer view from the stand

- Close customer view app

- Re-open app and scan the POS screen barcode

- Re-mount customer view app

We would do this every morning as part of opening. No big deal, it's probably best to lock the tablet up at the end of the night in the safe and disconnect it anyway. But then second shift would come in and say "Oh, you guys didn't connect customer view". ... "yes we did".... So, mid day we'd wait for customers to lull and repeat the process for a second time. 

- Open Hardware in POS

- Navigate to Customer view

- Forget the Customer view device

- Unmount the Customer view from the stand

- Close customer view app

- Re-open app and scan the POS screen barcode

- Re-mount customer view app

Then the shift would get 3 or 4 hours in, and yes, again, customer view would disconnect. So, they'd go through the process again. 

- Open Hardware in POS

- Navigate to Customer view

- Forget the Customer view device

- Unmount the Customer view from the stand

- Close customer view app

- Re-open app and scan the POS screen barcode

- Re-mount customer view app

I've spoke with support maybe 3 or 4 times on this, I've submitted bug reports, I've tried developer mode on the customer view app, I've tried 2 different tablets. (I've tried 4G connected tablets, wifi connected tablets). Today though, after having another customer ask about the screen that was not working, we have decided to take it down. I'm removing the tablet mount, bringing the tablet home, we will no longer be using this poorly executed feature. 

[PBonShopify]

That's incredibly disheartening to hear.  I was SO excited for this feature. Im almost angry to hear they've let it go to the wayside.

[Piperzqn]

Hi there, I have been considering this option of our business so to full proof customer email / ph data. Its a great idea but havng second doubts now after reading your experience. Have you had any success of late? Cheers Tom

[MaggardRazors]

Nothing has changed.  The app is as buggy as ever, even running two fully updated ipad registers and two fully updated android tablets.

The app disconnects at random times.  Sometimes it lasts 2 hours, sometimes it last 10 minutes.

We've tried everything.   I don't understand how they can make the card readers work SO FLAWLESSLY (via bluetooth) but screw up this customer app so terribly (they use your wifi network to connect to each other).  Our Wifi network AP is literally  10 feet open-air from these registers.  Doesn't matter.


They need to fix this app.

[BB8]

Years later the app is still hot garbage and there's no customer-facing display options when it's a standard across the industry. Seems like they only prioritize app development they can paywall.