customer-driven development Archives

Work is well advanced on the next Tower Systems POS software update.

The update, for small business retailers across Australia and New Zealand, delivers new facilities requested by customers, along with other refinements designed to help retailers save more time. Time is the currency that matters most in a small shop, and every update is measured against it.

What makes a Tower Systems update different is where the ideas come from.

Plenty of the suggestions in this update arrived through the company’s Software Ideas platform. It is a proprietary, transparent system that works simply. Any customer can suggest an improvement to the software. Every suggestion is visible to every other customer. And all customers can vote for the ideas they want most. The suggestions with genuine support across the customer base rise to the top, and they shape what gets built.

Customers guide the software development. Not a product committee guessing at what retailers might want. Not a sales team promising features to close a deal. Actual retailers, describing actual needs, voting in the open.

The transparency is the point. When a retailer can see what has been suggested, what is popular and what is coming, the relationship with their software company changes. It stops being a black box and becomes a shared project. Retailers also learn from each other’s suggestions, because a fix requested by a gift shop in Bendigo often helps a garden centre in Nelson too.

This approach only works because of who Tower Systems serves. The company develops and supports POS software for local specialty retailers in Australia and New Zealand, and the focus is only on indie retailers, not franchises or chains. Indie retailers know their businesses intimately. Give them a genuine channel to shape their tools and the software gets better in ways no head office roadmap could predict.

The update will roll out to customers as part of their existing coverage. Details will be shared with customers as release nears.

Learn about the Software Ideas platform at www.towersystems.com.au.

At Tower Systems, we’re here: 1300 662 957 or sales@towersystems.com.au. If you’re in NZ, call 0800 444 367. Contacting a human is easy.

Most software companies decide what to build behind closed doors. A roadmap is set somewhere, customers find out when a feature appears or does not, and the cycle continues without them. At Tower Systems, our customers help decide what we build next, openly and on the record.

We call it Software Ideas.

Transparent and democratic software enhancement discussion.

Software Ideas is many years old and remains a key tool that Tower Systems customers love.

How it works

Any customer can submit a suggestion — large or small, anything that would genuinely help their business. Before it goes anywhere, our team checks that it can realistically be built. Once it passes that check, it opens for all customers to vote on.

The ideas with the most support move up the list. That list shapes what we develop next.

Why we built it this way

We could have kept our roadmap private. Most companies do.

We did not, for a straightforward reason: customers deserve to see what has been suggested, what others are supporting, and where the software is heading. We also check viability before a suggestion goes to a vote, so we are not raising expectations for things we cannot deliver. What goes to a vote is something we can actually build.

Priorities are not set by the loudest voice or the largest account. Every customer gets a vote.

What it means in practice

The people who understand a trade best are the ones working in it every day. They see the small frictions and missed opportunities long before any vendor would. Software Ideas gives that knowledge a direct path into the product, rather than leaving it in a support ticket or a conversation at a trade event.

Why it fits how we work

We build, sell, train and support our software ourselves, here in Australia, because we want a direct relationship with the retailers we serve. A system that lets customers suggest, check viability, and vote on what gets built next is a natural part of that.

If you want a software partner that builds with you rather than at you, Software Ideas is worth a look.

Tagcustomer-driven development

The Next Tower Systems Update Is Coming, and Customers Wrote Much of the Brief

Small business retailers in control: Software Ideas: how our customers help shape what we build

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