Luminous Team: 50% of ERP Implementations Fail!

Transcript:

Transcript 

Josh Sanders Guest 00:00

Those are probably the two biggest indicators that we look at when we're implementing a new client is how the products get fulfilled, and then also wholesale versus not.

Jared Ward Host 00:08

The number one thing I would say that drives us at Luminous is accountability. You're using us for this to work.

Taylor Caldwell Guest 00:16

Actionable things that are going to help me move my business forward.

Jared Ward Hos t00:19

Get ready hey guys, welcome to ops unfiltered. Today we have our newest employee co-worker. Uh, his name is taylor. What's?

Taylor Caldwell Guest 00:39

up taylor. Not much excited to be here, excited to be on the first podcast from for myself, um, just excited to be at Luminous. This is awesome.

Jared Ward Host 00:46

Yeah, let's go. So today I'm bringing in Josh and Taylor. They head up our CS team. So that's everything from account management, onboarding, implementation, anything that has to do with those things that is Josh and Taylor's domain. So Taylor comes from a company called 4Up Golf. So quick background that's an ERP system that our CTO that's where he came from as well. He built a 4Up. He built an ERP from the ground up for the golf industry and Taylor was heavily involved in implementation and onboarding there. So, taylor, let's start out with this. Actually, first, josh, what was the decision-making process behind scaling the next implementation person?

Josh Sanders Guest 01:38

Yeah. So my background definitely isn't in onboarding and implementation, or even account management for that, for that matter. So my background primarily e-commerce, so we thought it would be a great decision to bring someone on board that had tons of experience. So shout out to Taylor um, I've noticed especially his attention to detail with with onboarding and implementation is unmatched. He's more detail-oriented than myself, so he's been instrumental already in implementing new processes and really keeping in mind how we scale the department and how we do that in the most effective way possible.

Jared Ward Host 02:23

Yeah, I think Luminous was just scaling to a certain point where not only the sheer number of clients was starting to become overwhelming, because you have to maintain a certain level of a certain standard, because all Luminous clients expect us to be extremely hands-on, and you were doing that with every single client. So it got to a point where, okay, we need to hire somebody, but it needs to be an intentional hire. We can't just hire some random college students Like they have to. Actually, they have to bring something to the table. So, taylor, why did you, why'd you join Luminous? Like what was the decision-making process there?

Taylor Caldwell Guest 02:55

Yeah, um, main thing was is is. It seemed like Luminous was was people that I could relate to, um, everybody that I'd met. You know I'd reached out to Josh um kind of got some feedback from him. Um, obviously I know Brendan and I felt like that this was a for me. It was. It was I was looking for something new, I was looking to expand. I'd been at the same place for a long time, which isn't a bad thing, but, um, ultimately I was ready for a change in industry. I never wanted to be known as just the golf guy. That was kind of the space that we were in.

03:30

And um, luminous to me is is over the last couple months has just been something that is meeting a need, um, which was something important for me. And the next thing that I went to that it's feeling a need um, something important for me. In the next thing that I went to that it's feeling a need that our customers are excited about what we're doing and that we're hands-on, we get to build a relationship as well, as that goes from like employee one to everybody. You know we're all involved, we all care about our customers and that's important to me. You know I want my tech guys to know just as much about the customers and and want them to be as successful as I do, not just because I'm talking to them, but because it's a reflection on, like, what they're doing every day too. So and I, I I genuinely felt that and and that was awesome. So that was, like my, my main decision.

Jared Ward Host 04:17

Yeah, it's interesting, one of the ethos of Luminous. Um, I was in a sales call this morning and so the prospect was he was just like hey, look, all the tech stuff is fine, like we'll go over that Dude, 50% of our choice to go with you guys, or not, is can I pick up the phone and call somebody that understands operations? And I thought that encapsulated our value prop. It's like 50% of our value prop is that it's like. And if you know, you know, if you've gone through an implementation with other systems, then you know how important that is and I think that's something that I've been really proud at, starting at Luminous, josh taking that even further, and then now Taylor's coming in. He brings, I think, a lot more wisdom and maturity and scalability to the implementation processes. So what are some things that you've learned in implementation? Onboarding, like, I guess, what is in all of the actions that you do with our clients? What are the thoughts or the ethos that drive those actions? What do you stand for basically?

Taylor Caldwell Guest 05:33

Oh, no pressure, Good question. For me it's about time management if that's okay to start there. Management, if that's okay to start there. Um, and the main reason being is I have so much bandwidth in a week or a day or whatever timeframe you want to use, and where we're trying to grow and we're trying to scale. A lot of this is is can I, can I be efficient with my time but still offering a customized hands-on um, connected interaction and experience with clients and implementation? So how can I build that customization into a process that can help us be efficient as we grow, as we expand not just our customer base but our employee base as well. That's something easy for them to come in and learn and hit the ground running right. So that's that's for me.

06:25

I think that's answering your question, but I have to look at and say is this going to add value? Or how is this going to add value and and being able to, does this need to be a phone call? Can this be an email? Can it be a text? I love that we're able to text a lot of our customers, that they're able to text me and and ask some questions, you know, while they're in implementation, and that we're available to help them at all the time, and it's not that that's at the expense of my family or anything like that, but that that's who we are. There's a relationship there that I feel like is sustainable and scalable.

Jared Ward Host 07:00

So quick. This will be the first question of rapid-fire questions. We're really trying to get to know our new implementation team and what drives you guys. So first question what is the gap in the market that you guys are solving, for example?

Josh Sanders Guest 07:28

between, like a SKU vault and Luminous. What gap are you guys feeling or building towards? Yeah, I guess I can speak to that a little bit more In this space. I feel like there's a lot of implementations that go like self-onboarding or something like that, where it's like, hey, how you do it, good luck. Kind of thing. Like if you have any questions on like best practices, good luck. Kind of thing. So for us it really comes down to we are here for you, we genuinely care about your brand and we're gonna get this thing to the point where it works. Because you hear so many horror stories of other systems where it's like, oh yeah, we implemented that, but it never worked. Where we come at it and it's like, hey, we're going to do everything in our power to get this to the point where it works and it's solving problems.

Jared Ward Host 08:22

So, josh, we've gone a lot of the clients that we onboard. We're following up a botched implementation of just a different tool. What are some examples that you guys have seen of implementation being botched and then how have you fixed it?

Josh Sanders Guest 08:43

So I mean there's a couple of different scenarios of like I've heard from a lot of people implementation being botched and then how have you fixed it? So I mean there's a couple of different scenarios of like I've heard from a lot of people where it's like oh, I didn't know I could do that in this software, the system that they're on, that they're coming from, it's like, oh, I didn't know I could do that. Or like, oh, that would have been a good idea. Or oh, we really needed that feature and they just brushed over it. We don't know how to use it.

09:05

So I think it all comes down to communication, where in implementation, it's like we like to go to the client and say, hey, what's the best way to communicate, moving forward, like if we need something quick from you guys or if you guys need something from us. So I think it really just comes down to that present communication. Like frequently we'll do group messages or we'll create a Slack channel or heck Google chat, whatever it may be. So I think it just boils down to are you in present communication with your clients, addressing questions, collaborating with them? Because e-commerce ops is so flexible and different for everyone, you almost have to have a system with implementation, people that are willing to collaborate with you and find the best solutions.

Jared Ward Host 09:55

The number one thing I would say that drives us at Luminous is accountability. So when somebody signs up for Luminous, I think we all share the same sense of accountability that you're using us for this to work. I think that's probably the biggest difference that I notice is other people are other companies are. Like you're paying us a SaaS subscription, like you figure it out? Here's some FAQs, here's some articles. We have really well-trained cs reps that will, like you know they'll listen to your problems but but at the end of the day, like they don't really care if the system's working, because that's the kind of the point of sass is put somebody on subscription and you just profit off them until their business is dead and if they're locked into a long-term contract yeah, it's like we got you locked in, so that the number one difference I notice is at Luminous, we actually feel accountable for this solution to be working.

10:58

An example that I've seen in implementation is like LitJoyCrate, for example. They were on Skubana and there were a bunch of little things that just weren't working, but the number one difference was it genuinely was just accountability. The number one difference was it genuinely was just accountability. Like either the CS reps diving in deep understanding the problem and working with them until the problem is solved, or you know which. That could require a lot of process. It could require multiple conversations to actually understand the issue. It could require a feature request that gets communicated correctly and gets put into a roadmap.

11:38

But at the end of the day, I think that's why I like LitJoyCrate. One of their specific issues was they had one way that they did pre-sells and they needed the system to account for pre-sells a certain way. After a lot of discovery, we ended up fixing that problem and I think that's just one example of the many things Every company has like three, four, five things like that where it's like, okay, the system's generally working for me, but they never quite got us to the finish line on these three, four things and that's that's like luminous because we have that accountability. We we come in and solve those things, or or we help you with the workaround or there's very few issues where we'll just say good luck, like go elsewhere.

Josh Sanders Guest 12:32

We always are diving in to those problems to find the best solutions, where there's always limits to what, like, a system can do. But we're always willing to dive in with the client and find what works best, even if it's really sticky, might be a tough solution to find but we're we're willing to dive in and find that solution with our clients.

Taylor Caldwell Guest 12:54

And I think what you mentioned too is like a lot of times that takes multiple versions, if you will, multiple times collaborating and figuring out like, why are you doing it that way? Is that necessary? Or how much leeway do we have to maybe change things here, Instead of just trying to have Luminous fill the same needs or processes that they were doing before it, can we make a process a little bit better, Can we improve upon that, and not just to make it fit what Luminous does, but can you be more efficient on your end as well? Like we've been able to go to that level with you know LitJoy, and say like hey, how flexible is this. And that took several calls, um, several meetings, several visits to their warehouse to be able to make like a recommendation and and be able to move forward with a realistic solution for them. Like we go to that level.

Jared Ward Host 13:52

Yeah, taylor, I have a question for you, coming from the golf industry, so working with physical brick and mortar locations, and those companies are typically pretty structured in the sense that it's kind of predictable. You have a point of sale that you have to implement, you have the inventory back-end system, you have the T-sheets and time bookings Coming into e-commerce. Now what do you think has been the biggest difference between what is needed in onboarding in a structured industry versus e-commerce? The Wild West, yeah.

Taylor Caldwell Guest 14:32

It's a little more cookie cutter coming from the golf industry, meaning I can do one thing and and it's going to apply to to most courses you know they're going to have very similar structure with very limited variability where and that comes.

14:47

I guess because of a lot of the, a lot of them are run by a municipality and that's kind of directed from them and, um, we're in the wild wild West here. It's very different. It's very much. I own my brand, I want to run it my way, which isn't a bad thing, but I have my ideas and you could talk to however many different brand owners and you're going to get that many different ways of doing something similar, from selling on Shopify to selling on WooCommerce to, you know, uh, amazon or or wherever, etsy, whatever platform you're using on, like how you're going to get growth, how you're going to, what's your plan moving forward, and it's all very different and it works for them, and maybe like a specific industry that they're they're in in, where their buyers are looking for their products, right. So how can we then help them and understand the full picture? I think?

Jared Ward Host 15:42

And I think that also, you just hit on a really cool point. Where that's the biggest difference that somebody will experience in implementation is because we have that accountability. It leads us to just ask questions, and sometimes challenging ones, like you know. Ask why five different ways, like get to the real issue. I think that's where other systems they don't do that. They just don't. I can confidently say they do not do that.

16:11

I've been in that boat, you know. Get on the call with your NetSuite account manager and they're going to send you an FAQ like nope, you do it this way, this is how you do it, sorry. If you want to do anything else, here's a $100,000 bill for customization costs. I think that's the biggest difference with Luminous is because we service the founder and the operator who want to do things their way, and we're genuinely curious to find the exact reason behind their way of operating and then fit the system to that. And sometimes things just don't work. Sometimes there are unreasonable things, but we'll sure as hell get to the bottom of that instead of just saying, hey, can you do pick and pack this way? Nope, do it this way. What if I don't want to? Nope, sorry. If you could set expectations to all future onboarding clients. What would you guys say If you could do that just in like a couple sentences? What would you say to the future prospective clients that are about to get onboarded?

Josh Sanders Guest 17:19

Get ready. No, I'd say we're ready to get in the trenches with you to a certain extent, obviously, but I would just say, like we're there. Like I mentioned earlier, we're present with implementation. We are there for you and if you have questions or concerns, like I said, we're willing to dive in and we're willing to dive in deep to how to solve those. So I'd say, yeah, like, don't be afraid of implementing a new system like Illuminis. It might be a little bit of a learning curve, learning new things, but I'd say, don't be afraid of it, be ready to tackle it and we'll be there for you as well, why shouldn't they fear?

Jared Ward Host 18:05

If somebody's about to implement Luminous, why shouldn't you be afraid?

Josh Sanders Guest 18:10

Well, I mean a lot of people we work with. They're first-time brand owners scaling maybe two to $4 million or whatever that may be, and they may not feel super confident in the way things are set up like operationally. They're not sure like if it'll even get adopted. They might be hesitant to come off of like Google Sheets because that's their comfort zone, right, it's easy, they're comfortable there. So I would say don't worry, because it's not our first rodeo. I tell people that all the time that, like, we've done this before and we can help you find solutions that work best for you as a company, because it's not a cookie cutter deal, like your needs will be drastically different than others, but we can help recommend best practices and get you implemented the best way possible.

Jared Ward Host 18:59

I think it also goes back to again that common theme accountability. We feel accountable with you guys to get this working. Now, that definitely includes, like we both got to be diving in. If we're diving in more than you are, then there's something wrong. Like you know, there has to be equal in. If we're diving in more than you are, then there's there's something wrong. Like you know, there has to be equal effort here.

19:20

Um, but it's like I would, I would almost guarantee somebody is, if you care as much as we do or you feel as accountable as we do, um, we'll, we'll solve your problems, we'll figure this out. Um, I think that therein lies the issue, with expectations I would personally set would be hey, no worries, we care, we are accountable to the outcome. We need you to be equally accountable. It's going to require just as much effort as we do. Like it's going to require that on your end. And I would also send an expectation, probably, of collaboration.

20:02

Like, you're not always going to know the solution, neither are we. It only so, if you find yourself coming to you know we're going to run into problems when we run to that problem if you or us are constantly saying nope, it needs to be done this way. Here's the solution. I think that's where you run into problems. It needs to be very much a collaborative approach of look, we're going to run into issues. When we run into those issues, let's stay curious and let's really collaborate to understand all the different options. In operations e-commerce you run into a problem. There's honestly probably like 10 different solutions. The first one that comes to your mind it's not the only one and you can only get there with like true collaborative um attitude and us understanding the business.

Josh Sanders Guest 20:59

That's why we're so prodding. It's not not the right word, but that's why we ask why so often in like implementation? Because if we can understand the business maybe 90 of what the client understands of it we can make much more educated recommendations and suggestions. That's why, heck, our first call with most of our clients that we bring on is like super discovery-focused, where it's like okay, where are you housing your inventory 3PL in-house, what are your different sales channels? We get into it with them and then that puts us in a better spot to give those recommendations that they can take and we can collaborate on a little bit more effectively.

Jared WardHost21:43

Let's say, when implementations go bad or they go through a rough patch, what typically causes that? What makes implementations unnecessarily difficult? So I'm not talking about general difficulty. You know, implementing a new backend system it's hard, it's just hard and it just comes with problems inevitably. What are some unnecessary problems and what do you think causes those?

Taylor Caldwell Guest 22:17

I think we've kind of been touching on it a little bit at this point, but I think that sometimes we create a process or a cool formula on Google Sheets that we're super excited about as an owner, or something like that, and we, we don't want to leave it behind, um, and so we want to find a way to, to take this new system but still do our old processes, um, and being able to, like you said, to be flexible. Like we, we want to be flexible as well, but we're going to ask for that from that end sometimes as well, and again being able to say what can we remove, what can we simplify and what needs to stay the way it is and why does it need to be that way. But I guess, to answer more of your question, with where they get stuck or why I'm not exactly remember exactly how you worded it, but, like um, I think we, we really want to work together and when it turns into a, a, like a you versus me, or um, there's just things that they're. They're kind of get stuck in. I don't know how else to say it, but um, I think that's where we can kind of come in and say let's tear it down to the studs and then let's rebuild what's needed, let's put that in place, and then we're going to add, like we want to add value, not just do what you're doing right now, but like we want you to grow, moving forward too, and so I'm always kind of keeping that in mind as we are doing this implementation. Are we set up for success, not just now, but into the future?

24:11

So there's some things that maybe people don't understand or don't see, and that's comes down to like maybe I need to explain things better. So making sure that they're understanding me as well as I'm understanding them, like why we're doing this, why we're having this process, we're going through this flow. A lot of times I get people who want to go to step 10 before we've hit steps two and three, and so making sure that we're going through some of these things in the right order and making sure they understand why that is so I like to make sure they understand the end, um, and a little bit of the process, and I feel like that can answer a lot of their questions, get us on the same page and then we're moving forward, versus the alternative of wanting to get to the finish line before we've kind of gone through everything we need to, if that makes sense I would.

Jared Ward Hos t24:55

Something that, I would add, is the biggest issue that I see or rather, problems come from this more than anything in my experience is it's as simple as expectations. When a customer or a prospect has the expectation that Luminous will just solve all my problems without any work in between, will just solve all my problems without any work in between, and yes, that's the destination that we're trying to get to, is that Luminous is solving your back-end problems. It is the backbone of your company and we've solved all those pain points that you were, for example, an expectation of hey, you know, inventory planner does forecasting like this, like I thought luminous was going to do our forecasting. Basically, like luminous can't be on feature parity with every single point solution on the market. Like in the e-commerce ecosystem, people are exposed to so many different types of tools Like even think about ClickUp, asana Luminous has a project management, but you can't expect Luminous to be on feature parity with Asana, shipstation, inventoryplanet.

26:22

Like literally everything, literally everything. Like well, why can't you just have decades of building for every single module? It's like that we're very much going to have to. It's it's a very collaborative approach of, and the expectations are like look, not everything is going to be perfect, but, all in all, luminous. You'll be able to operate much better once you're all in one system.

Taylor Caldwel lGuest 26:53

And that's like one thing that I've come from again with a background. There is being an all-in-one solution versus competing with a company that has, however many employees focused on one specific piece. They're going to do it better than we do, but there's a benefit to being all-in-one right Rather than doing it through an API or something like that. Right, you're going to have access to all that data and I feel like that's what is doing, you know? Yeah, project management, inventory, accounting, whatever it might be being able to have as much as we can in in one solution and that's the ultimate.

Jared Ward Host 27:28

That's the ultimate problem with e-commerce. If you're a modern e-commerce company that sells wholesale big box retail operations, you use a 3pl fba mean the depth of features that you need. What Luminous is ultimately like against is I wouldn't say it's something as strong as like we're against, but what we're solving is when you get to the super glued tech stack with like eight different solutions solving for all those things and, at the end of the day, there's not one central source of truth. So, yeah, that's all I would. It's like expectations, expectations around timeline, around features. We're not, we're not going to have every single little thing you need, but we will be able to solve the baseline of problems and more. Um, yeah, anything else about that?

Josh Sanders Guest 28:22

I'd say clear assignments, so like if you're dealing with a company that's got 20-25 employees or or more, whatever the situation got to have a clear space where you're tracking tasks and keeping everyone accountable. So that's another thing. Like with our larger clients come to them and, hey, where do you prefer to track this project? Whether it be like a Google sheet or if they have some sort of internal project management. Always need to keep that front and center, especially for, like, the main stakeholders of the company, so that everyone stays on track.

Jared Ward Host 28:58

Okay, we're going to just bust through a bunch more questions, so just give like quick answers, like both of you, so that we can clip them out. What's been the best implementation experience in Luminous history and why? What made it that?

Josh Sanders Guest 29:16

That's a good question.

Taylor Caldwell Guest 29:17

Josh has done more than me, but I'd say for me it's been I don't know if you want like a specific customer or not, but like I really enjoyed working with Ember just because they were, they were open and it was great to be able to go in see their process and it's a little bit different than than a lot of others that we've worked with, but we were able to go in get it implemented really quick. They were willing to make a change to ShipStation from I don't remember what they were using before and we were able to get them up and going pretty quick and it was very collaborative and Daryl's awesome.

Jared Ward Host 29:56

So collaborative and very open. Yeah, very curious.

Josh Sanders Guest 30:00

Yeah, I'd say the recent one would be like full rack, where someone who's not afraid just to like to dive in to the system, like kind of similar to Ember, where it's like oh yeah, like we'll get our team in there using it and like we'll figure things out, like obviously we will provide all the training. But if a client's willing to also just dive in and start learning the system, they'll get really good usage out of it and they'll get implemented pretty quickly.

Jared Ward Host 30:27

If you were a Luminous client, how would you utilize the implementation team? How would you approach a implementation?

Josh Sanders Guest 30:35

I think I would ask a ton of questions Because we've worked with so many different companies and brands. I would ask questions like what are other people doing to become more efficient in the warehouse? Or how are people using quotations and purchasing? I really like the question from one of our clients, pillow Cube, where he was basically what's the most important things that your clients do in Luminous day in, day out, which I thought was an awesome question, and then we were able to go through okay, yeah, if you were to spend X amount of time in Luminous per day, this is what you need to hit, and it really just narrowed it down for them so that they knew exactly what reports to access, different actions to take. So I think just questions like that, that's what I would take advantage of.

Taylor Caldwell Guest 31:23

Nice, yeah, I think the system can do so much. But focusing on and I I like that question of what are give me five or 10 things that I can focus on. You know we have a bunch of reports. Give me two or three reports right now that I can look at and I can see real time actionable things that are going to help me move my business forward.

Jared Ward Host 31:48

Me personally, I would call up Josh, I would have his number. Or Taylor, I would text you guys, I would call you. I would 100% take full advantage of that. Like you have your account manager's phone number. We're super hands-on, we'll dive in and help you guys solve problems. That's, that's number one. For me, when I implemented the system it was, it was really difficult. Like our account manager, you know, it would take a week to get a zoom meeting and by then I'd even forgotten the problem or like maybe I'd already solved it myself. So, yeah, that's that's. The biggest thing is like just staying being able to just call Josh. Hey, dude, real fast. I'm running into this, like how would you solve this or what should I do, and getting a quick answer. I think that's, that's massive. What are the biggest indicators of implementation timelines?

Josh Sanders Guest 32:38

Um, what we've found biggest indicators and like tracking timelines for implementation, is whether you have a 3pl or if you do in-house fulfillment. In-house fulfillment tends to take a little bit longer just because there's more more employees in the warehouse to train up different processes, to go over different modules, so like if you're they're using pick and pack or something like that, whereas a connecting to a 3PL is a little bit more just connecting up different tech. Another piece would be if they do wholesale, so like also EDI involved with that, where again another module introduced more complexity in the operational stack, if you will. So those are probably the two biggest indicators that we look at when we're implementing a new client is how the products get fulfilled, and then also wholesale versus non-wholesale.

Jared Ward Host 33:31

If you're wanting to implement Luminous in like one to two weeks, like speedy implementation, let's get this thing going super high priority. What would you tell clients to prepare for?

Josh Sanders Guest 33:44

I'd say have all your data ready, like skew catalog filled out with all the pertinent info. Have, like, your crm ready to go and what's also been really helpful with some of the clients we've onboarded recently, where they'll even have like a flow chart showing oh, these are different sales channels, this is how we fulfill and that gives us a really good picture of how their business works. So I'd say, just scope of how the business works and then also get your data ready for quick import, quick implementation.

Taylor Caldwell Guest 34:13

Yeah, I'd say buckle up. We're going to go through and we're going to replace. We're going to change some things. You got to be ready for it, but we'll be there. We're going to replace. We're going to change some things. You got to be ready for it, but we'll be there. We're going to be there along the way, and we might not be able to go in as much depth as we want to for some pieces, but we'll get you up and going and then we'll make tweaks. It's not done. An implementation isn't done at GoLive. In my opinion, an implementation is never done. It's it's. It's an ongoing thing where you continue to learn and like, yeah, we'll get what you need in the next week or two, and it'll be bare bones, but like, let's, let's continue to grow, let's continue to make this the system that you dreamed and envisioned it would be, and that's going to take some time, but we're going to be there still, even after go live what does a customer use for visibility into the implementation timeline and tasks.

Jared Ward Host 35:10

So how does what lens do you guys give to the customers and all the stakeholders of the companies to see the progress and what you're doing?

Josh Sanders Guest 35:20

so we track a lot of it internally on, like asana and different things like that. We communicate those, those timelines and those tasks to the clients. But then it also depends like how they'd like to see it. We've tried multiple different tools like project management, onboarding, but we've also found it effective where it's like hey, where do you want to track this? Like what's like hey, where do you want to track this? Like what's your tool of choice, where do you want to see all this? And then we're flexible enough where we can move it simple as a Google Sheet, all the way to like. If they internally use I don't know mondaycom, clickup, whatever it may be, we're happy to dive into that a little bit more as well and make sure everyone has the visibility that they need.

Jared Ward Host 36:01

Cool. What is the process like for a feature request? So let's say you run into something or a client is using the system and they're just like man. It would be really nice if you could do this. What is that process like? How much say do customers have on what we put into the roadmap?

Taylor Caldwell Guest 36:20

I think that's like in, in my eyes, customers control the roadmap, um, and not not a hundred percent, but like that's. They control, like, what direction we're heading, what areas of the software need to be improved? Um, and as far as the improvements go, um, or feature requests, like generally, those will come in through through josh I or through chat or something like that. And what we're going to do is I want to understand it, what are you wanting it to do? What are you, um, missing is it? Is it something that we currently have, but it's not as you would like it? And then from there, I think, we'll go in and we want to design something.

37:04

We want to um, reiterate with you, so being able to, you know, depending on how in depth we need to go, if I can come back and say, hey, this is what we've got so far. You know, shoot, shoot holes through it and and let us know what you think and let's make some tweaks and adjustments, and then, um, we'll get out a final product. Right, and it's not saying that everything is going to be done, but I think a lot of the time we're listening to all feedback and that's how we're going to grow is seeing what we can and can't do.

Jared Ward Host 37:33

I would say if I were a Luminous customer, I would be most excited about giving feature requests, because we listen intently to customers' problems. So if our forecasting or if our inventory maybe there's a component of it that you wish, you have a wish list, Luminous for sure listens to your wish list. We might not solve the problem exactly how you want to. Sometimes we solve it in a better way, something that you didn't even think about, but we do listen to feedback and we implement rather quickly. I think for little issues or just like little wish list things, it goes through a quick, a very quick feature request process that gets approved and, depending on the urgency of it or just where we're at in our roadmap, I mean you could see that new feature pop up three weeks later, and it just depends. But you know, regardless of the timing, though, we do listen what about emergencies? So boom, system down. Taylor, Josh, what do you do? How do we handle emergencies at Luminous?

Josh Sanders Guest 38:57

I'd say I mean, if it's a true emergency, get us on the phone. If it's a true emergency, get us on the phone. If it's a true emergency and it's holding you up from conducting business, give us a call and we'll make sure to pull the strings that need to be.

Jared Ward Host 39:11

First off, I want to real fast. I do want to say this real fast so many prospects. They think like, oh, you're a're a newer company like you guys are gonna go down easier. You're gonna, guys, net suite, microsoft, 20 year old companies, they go down. I don't know if you know that, but like every back-end software, like the random emergencies will come up, like there's so many net suite horror stories of like it just went down and nobody, they just didn't care. So the question is, how do we respond to those emergencies which inevitably they will happen at some point? Like, um, how does luminous respond? Well, I think what you mentioned.

Taylor Caldwell Guest 40:01

You know it's like I've heard so many horror stories. How do you get a hold of your NetSuite rep? You know, like you may have their phone number, but like, are you going to hear from them? You may, you might not, I don't know. From what I've heard it doesn't sound like it, but like you'll hear from Josh and I, so like, if you call us, if you text us, you're going to hear from us, and probably pretty quickly as well. You know, like we may be on a call, may not be available right at the moment, but if I can find out what's going on through an email or text or whatever, that becomes my new priority number one and we're going to get you up and going right.

Josh Sanders Guest 40:43

That's our, that's our goal but I will say I've I've been working at lumis for like a year and a half and I don't, I can't, think of a specific situation where, like the system quote went down so pretty dang reliable thanks guys, we'll see you next week.

Jared Ward Host 40:57

Bye.