Play Empire: a direct line to every nursery on the route
Play Empire is a Bury company supplying educational toys and learning resources to nurseries and early years settings. Their van visits each setting on a regular route. We built them an app that keeps customers in touch between visits, and gives Play Empire a way to reach them that doesn’t get ignored.
- Client
- Play Empire, The Fun Learning Company, Bury. Educational toys and resources for nurseries and early years settings
- What we built
- A customer app for iPhone and Android, and the web platform Play Empire’s team runs it from
- App
- C# / .NET MAUI, one codebase for both platforms
- Platform
- PHP and MySQL, hosted and maintained by us
- Connects to
- WooCommerce (product range), Xero (invoices and customer pricing), Stripe (card payments), Twilio (SMS), Apple and Google push notifications
- Status
- Live on the App Store and Google Play
[01]
The brief
Nothing was broken. Play Empire already had a WooCommerce store and a loyal customer base. What they didn’t have was a direct channel. Texts and emails were the only way to reach customers, and both are easy to ignore.
The idea was simple: give customers a reason to install an app, with offers they can only get there. Once they’re in, Play Empire can talk to them directly, with a notification on their phone rather than another email in a busy inbox.
[02]
What customers get
- Next van run. The date of the next visit to their area, with a countdown.
- Wish list. Add anything from the range and the driver brings it on the next visit.
- Exclusive offers. App-only prices, with a notification when a new one lands.
- Shop any time. The full range, at the setting’s own agreed prices. Pay by card, or on account for invoice customers.
- Purchase history. Everything the setting has bought, ready to reorder.
- Their team. A manager invites colleagues, so the whole setting can add to the wish list.
- Messages. A conversation with Play Empire, in the app.
Play Empire store artwork, used with permission. Sample products and prices.
[03]
What Play Empire’s team gets
The app is the part customers see. Behind it is a web platform the team runs the business from:
- Planning calendar. Van runs by area, so every customer sees the right next visit.
- Offers. Create an offer, choose who sees it, and send the notification.
- Every conversation in one place. Push, SMS and email to each setting in a single thread, with replies coming back to the same screen.
- Scheduled reminders. Customers hear about a visit before the van arrives, without anyone remembering to send it.
- Visit outcomes. What happened at each stop, logged.
- No double entry. Products come from the WooCommerce store. Each customer’s discount comes from their Xero record. Every order raises the invoice in Xero, marked paid for card payments and outstanding for invoice customers.
[04]
Built properly
- Push marketing is opt-in. Customers choose whether they get offer notifications, and can change their mind in the app. It’s what Apple requires, and it’s the right way round.
- Customers can delete their account from the app, and it really is deleted.
- Staff sign in with two-factor authentication, and each role sees only what it needs.
- We host and look after it, so the app, the platform and the integrations keep working as Apple, Google, Xero and Stripe change around them.
[05]
Still building
The app is live, and we’re working through Play Empire’s next round of changes with them.
We wanted a way to talk to our customers that didn’t get lost in their inbox. The app gives nurseries a reason to stay in touch with us between visits, and gives us a direct line to them when we’ve got something worth telling them. It works the way we do: the van, the visits, the invoicing, all in one place.
Got customers you’d like a direct line to?
Talk to us about an app.