Vendors - A preview of your updated dashboard
On January 3rd, you will notice some changes to your dashboard. You can find the details surrounding those changes in the launch announcement, here. For this post, we'll give you a high level preview of what to expect on day one of using the new dashboard. There are 3 major changes to the dashboard.
1. Schedule tab
You'll notice that there is now a tab called "Schedule". This will be where you can schedule Charters and Shuttles. Charters is the new capability that allows you to request a delivery provider for a block of time. Read more about that here.
There are now two distinct categories of gigs on the platform.
On-demand - these are shipments you create on the open deliveries screen that you need done asap (yes, this will still be how you create on-demand shipments) and the request goes out to the on-demand network of Delivery Providers in real-time.
Scheduled - With the update, you will now be able to schedule gigs ahead of time. The two gigs you can do this with are Charters and Shuttles. Typically an auto parts store will know if they need coverage for 8 hours per day for the next three weeks or that they need a Delivery Provider on Tonquin to handle their Saturday Shuttle for the next two months. So we made that possible.
With the Schedule view, once a Charter or Shuttle is created, you will see it appear on this calendar picture above. It will tell you if your gig has been accepted or other statuses relevant to the gig. You can click on the gig inside of the calendar to show details, edit or cancel.
This is incredibly powerful because it will give a clear picture of your coverage for whatever Charters or Shuttles you have requested, going out two weeks, so that you can remove all the uncertainty of not having someone show up.
2. Providers tab
The tab furthest to the right now says, "Providers". Clicking this tab will show you all of the independent delivery providers in your area. Now you can see exactly who the people are building delivery businesses to serve you on the Tonquin platform. See purposeful information like the last time they worked with you, delivery performance or their total earnings from having worked with you. Use this information to make decisions about how you use the platform and rely on certain Providers.
Most importantly, this is where you can request someone to be your Preferred Provider. By clicking "Request Preferred Provider", you will be able to choose from all of the Providers you worked with and send them a request. But remember, they have to accept it on their end because it will be giving you the ability to assign them orders while they're available to work. Read more about that here.
If you successfully create a relationship with a Preferred Provider, you'll see in the last major change how that works.
3. Review & Confirm Screen
When creating a shipment, the enhanced Review & Confirm screen will now allow you to choose a Delivery Provider. There are two ways that will trigger Delivery Providers being available to directly send your shipments to.
You have an active Charter - if you have a Delivery Provider doing a Charter for you and it's within the block of time that you have them scheduled for— this is where you will be assigning them the deliveries you want them to do.
You have a Preferred Provider - if you went through the process of getting a Preferred Provider, when they have their app switched to open for deliveries, you will be able to assign them deliveries here by clicking their name (indicated by the gold status and blue checkmark).
If you don't have an active Charter or any Preferred Providers, you will see that your shipment requests will be sent out to the on-demand network.
As always, our support line will be open for any questions and feedback once the release is live.
Major platform update coming January 3rd
We're excited to announce a major update coming to the Tonquin platform to kick off the new year. On January 3rd, both Vendors and Independent Delivery Providers will notice some changes to their dashboard and app. Along with multiple additional features and enhancements on both sides, we're adding two new major capabilities that we're calling Charters and Preferred Providers. These new capabilities are a part of a continued effort to bring more ways for Vendors and Delivery Providers to work together on the platform.
Vendors:
Charters will allow Vendors to request a delivery provider to work for their location for a block of time. We created a seamless scheduling process for the Vendor that allows their request to be sourced out to all of the independent delivery providers in their area. Need a Delivery Provider today at 2pm for 4 hours? Make the request in minutes, see when it's filled, and deliveries placed on the Tonquin platform will go to your Charter Delivery Provider during that block of time. And don't worry, you'll still be able to seamlessly schedule on-demand deliveries before or even during an active Charter.
The Preferred Provider capability will allow Vendors to send on-demand deliveries directly to a Delivery Provider that has opted in to their request. In the instance that you have made a good relationship with a Provider or you know of someone that services you really well, send them a request using the new Providers Tab in the dashboard and when that Provider is online, you will be able to assign your delivery directly to them instead of sending it out to the Tonquin on-demand network.
These two new capabilities will offer a truly controlled and more stable experience for the Vendor as they begin to augment more of their last-mile operations through the Tonquin platform.
Delivery Providers:
Charters will be a new way to earn on the platform. Instead of the typical on-demand delivery, a Charter will allow you to do deliveries for a single Vendor location for a block of time. This block of time will earn you a fixed hourly rate and will be a great way to earn predictable income.
The home screen will now display location pins for all Tonquin Vendors on the platform. If a pin is red, that means the Vendor has an available Charter or Shuttle. Since Charters and Shuttles can now be scheduled in advance by the Vendor, they will appear within the location pin that has one available. Because on-demand deliveries are... on-demand, we left those in the "on-demand delivery request tab" at the top of the app so when you're switched to on-duty, you'll still have easy access to do these deliveries whenever you choose. You will be able to filter and sort through scheduled gigs on the home screen based on your desired availability for the week (this doesn't affect seeing on-demand deliveries). Lastly, Vendor location pins will also act as a stats screen! Click on a Vendor location pin and swipe up to see that Vendors info, activity stats and your stats for the specific Vendor.
If you find yourself servicing a Vendor frequently or you're looking for an edge to get more opportunities to earn, become a Preferred Provider for a Vendor and allow them to directly assign you on-demand shipments! Either get requested by a Vendor or send a request to a Vendor that you like or would want to do more business with to trigger this status. Once accepted by both parties, the Vendor will be able to directly assign you one of their on-demand deliveries when your status is on-duty. If you're a Provider that is looking to grow their business with a customer, giving them this option and piece of mind that you are there to service them will dramatically increase their use of your service and therefor your total earnings potential.
We'll be sending out more detailed breakdowns of the update and improvements to look forward to over the next two weeks so keep a lookout for more!
Announcing our new announcement feature!
If you are a Tonquin Vendor at a Napa Auto Parts, Advance Auto Parts, or any of our other Vendors on the platform, you are reading this first announcement from our new announcement feature! If you're anyone else, you're most likely just reading this from our blog... which is fine too :)
This tool will be used to communicate important info relating to anything Tonquin. New features, last-mile tips, training/walk-throughs, real-time updates, and much more will be displayed to you in this pop up. It will always display the most recent information so please see below for directions on how to access more. We know your time is valuable and that you come to our platform to do a task (usually quickly), so we will use this tool wisely and always make sure the info going out is valuable.
Here are some quick tips on how to use it:
If you closed out of the window by clicking the "X" in the top right corner, you can see the most recent post again by clicking the "news" icon in the top right corner of any screen to open up the window again (next to the "Providers available" icon). And if you would like to see any old news or read more, visit our blog at Tonquin.com/blog. Feedback welcome!
The Next Generation of Service Marketplaces
Online service marketplaces have now existed for over two decades if you consider companies like Craigslist to be one of the first. A simple online classified ad that helps an everyday person find someone willing to do a task (or vice versa) can be argued to be the first example of an online service marketplace. Fast-forward to the end of 2021 and it’s clear that just like products and eCommerce, services have found a more substantial place online.
In this article by Andrew Chen, he goes through the eras of service marketplaces and what key elements have changed over the decade. This breakdown sheds light on two main ideas that we believe will cause the next generation of service marketplaces to surface.
1. Tools
When looking at the lifecycle of a service between a customer and provider, there are many phases (or stages, as Andrew calls them) for which decisions are being made and actions being done. Based on these stages, it can be seen clearly what was iterated on over the decades and makes you question deeper about what comes next. Companies creating tools to facilitate these interactions on their platforms such as discovery, quoting, the actual fulfillment of the service, and feedback can all be traced back to the race to “own” more of the experience and increase retention. This can be seen in the eras of “Uber for X” companies and continuing into the most recent era of managed marketplaces where the only way to accomplish such a goal was to focus on a single service vertical. It’s much easier to build for a service’s one major use case when you’re also building to facilitate the lifecycle (stages) that span so far horizontally. We believe the next generation of service marketplaces will be defined by the viability of the tools supporting these stages and how well they match the expected outcomes of customers.
2. Aligned Incentives
We now understand that the major difference between Craigslist era marketplaces and the past decade of giants like Uber, DoorDash, Instacart is more of the service lifecycle stages coming online. This need for complete control, while it creates an incredible experience for customers, has providers like delivery drivers wondering who they really work for. We believe this causes high churn and highly competitive situations for attracting the demographic of supply looking to take part in the incentive structures that are now clear working for “Uber for X” and managed marketplace companies. To replicate the natural economic incentives in the ideal capitalistic scenario, current marketplaces would have to make certain pieces of their model transparent and give the ability for providers to control more of the experience. More can be said about these dynamics in this great podcast with Ried Hoffman and the founder of Shopify, Tobi Lütke.
Making these significant business model changes would be incredibly difficult and sacrifice a lot of the core infrastructure that these companies holding the market share to date within their verticals have put together. This is why we think it will reinvent itself in the next generation of service marketplaces that somehow pull off combining both key elements that we stated here. By realigning the provider incentives of ownership, predictability, and growth (almost all as it relates to financial opportunities) and the combination of tools to support the whole lifecycle with all of it’s variability , we will see an era of truly innovative marketplaces.
Provider Dashboard Launch
We're proud to have finally released the Provider Dashboard! This dashboard will be updated as we roll out new features to support and empower our delivery providers to take control of their business! We're very excited to allow our delivery providers the opportunity to view an in-depth analysis of their service on the platform.
Currently, the Analytics and the Customers sections are available to every delivery provider. Each of these has different data points that one can use to improve their earning potential and their customer's experience. On the Analytics tab, you will find both Revenue metrics and Shipment metrics. Revenue metrics give providers insights into how they are earning on the Tonquin platform over time. Delivery providers can directly compare these to the Shipment metrics on the second tab of the dashboard, which shows them the different shipment key performance indicators (KPIs), associated with their service. These KPIs, like Average Pickup Time and Average Delivery Time, can help a provider better service their customers by showing them exactly what their numbers are and comparing them to what their customers expect.
Existing providers and newly onboarded providers are able to access the website here (https://provider.tonquin.com)! We look forward to feedback, please email any feedback to support@tonquin.com and we will happily take it all into consideration!
The Tonquin Blog
The Tonquin team has been quietly building behind the curtain and we've gained vast insights and knowledge regarding the many spaces a niche last-mile delivery marketplace touches. We're excited to begin sharing everything from industry insights to real marketplace experiences, and cover topics like new feature releases and enterprise-specific analysis.
This will be the central hub for all content. There will be a range of experts inside Tonquin weighing in on certain topics and providing thought leadership within their domain.
Our mission with this information hub is to provide useful content meant to drive the common mission shared between each side of our marketplace.