So, you’re ready to start your customized CSA on GrownBy. This article will help you get organized to communicate with your customers and make sure they get shares they love!
Whether this is the first time you’re offering a customized share or you’re transitioning your shares from another platform to GrownBy, there will always be a bit of a learning curve for you and your customers. Don’t worry, we’re here to help! To start, here are some places where you might want to communicate about your GrownBy shares:
Your Website
- Your Share:
- Layout all of the details about your custom share on a page on your website and link directly to your GrownBy shop for ordering.
- Prominently display the day and time when customization opens and closes.
- Communicate what happens if members order less than or more than their share value (this is different for each farm and depends on your settings).
- Communicate your Vacation Week policy (do you allow them? how many per season?) and inform your customers about how to claim them. Here's a customer-facing article on how to claim a vacation week that you can share: https://support.grownby.com/portal/en/kb/articles/claiming-a-vacation-week
- Link to our FAQ for customers about customized shares: https://support.grownby.com/portal/en/kb/articles/customization-from-a-customer-perspective#When_to_customize_your_share
- Add links to articles or videos that we’ve provided. You can even make your own with Loom.
- Add a link to the section of the helpdesk for customers: https://support.grownby.com/portal/en/kb/shopper-account-support
- Add a link to this video about share customization: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjsD2FnbenQ&t=27s
- Share our support@grownby.app email. Tell your customers when you want them to reach out to us and when you want them to reach out to you.
- Encourage members to download the app; with frequent ordering and customized shares, using the mobile app is the easiest and provides push notification reminders. They can search for it on the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.
Email/Newsletters
Similarly to the information on your website, you should send an email to all members with detailed information about how the share functions. In addition, you may want to develop two or three sentences to include in each newsletter throughout the season. Or, you could include the links to
How to Claim a Vacation Week and
How to Customize your Share in each newsletter.
- Do:
- Add link to the articles above
- Add jazzy text about how great customizable shares are
- Include reminders about the timing of the share customization window.
- Link to our FAQ https://support.grownby.com/portal/en/kb/articles/customization-from-a-customer-perspective#When_to_customize_your_share
- Don’t:
- Link to your private CSA group if you are using one–members will receive this link directly from GrownBy.
Sample Language
Here’s some sample language for customer education. You are also welcome to pull any language from our helpdesk articles articles.
It is best to use the GrownBy app (link to app store and android store) or desktop app for customizing your share. Using a browser window on a phone is not recommended for frequent orders like you’ll be doing.
Your customization window opens on (DAY OF WEEK) at (TIME ) and closes on (DAY OF WEEK) at (TIME). When customization opens, you’ll get an email with a link to click to customize your share. You can also simply login to GrownBy once customization is open and you’ll see a pop-up and banner that tells you what to do!
If you order outside of the customization window, your credit card will be charged as if you’ve placed an independent order. Similarly, If you have a biweekly share but place an order during a week when you don’t have a planned pickup or delivery, your order will be charged to your credit card.
When you open the customization, GrownBy will automatically create a suggested share that you can edit. To save or edit your season-long preferences click on “Change Preferences.” You can type instructions here like, “I love tomatoes, carrots, and root vegetables. Or “no greens, please”. These preferences will be used to build all of your shares throughout the season and you can change them as you go.
You must Check Out to confirm your order. You can either click “Looks Good to Me” or swap items, but either way, you need to finish checking out. If the end of the customization comes and you haven’t logged in to complete your order, GrownBy will build you a share using your preferences and the farm’s inventory. The suggested share might change at any time during the customization window based on other orders, so if you see a share that looks good to you, be sure to complete the order by checking out. When you check out, a discount code will deduct the value of your share.
GrownBy will work to make a share as close to your value as possible. But when you swap out items you might end up a little over or under your share value. If you’re over, no problem, GrownBy will just charge the remaining balance to the payment method you have on file. EITHER (Your unspent value will not rollover, so add an item to get to your value.) OR (Up to $X in unspent value will be added to your farm credit balance to be used for your next invoice.) [note: this last part depends on how you’ve asked GrownBy to set-up your custom share]
Farming can be fickle. If you order an item, but we attempt to harvest it and we’re short or the quality isn’t good, we will (swap it out for another item that is similar)/(refund you farm credit for that item and you can use it to buy something next distribution.)”
What happens when you buy a share during the customization window: If someone buys a share AFTER the share window has opened, they won’t have a chance to customize for that week or enter their preferences until the following customization window. They will have a GrownBy-built share created for them.
Still have questions?
We have answers. Email GrownBy support directly at support@grownby.app, or schedule a one-on-one call with one of our team members. A real human with farming experience will get back to you as soon as possible!