SmartSense acquired Jolt in 2025. The two teams now operate together, combining SmartSense's monitoring solution with Jolt's task-management and operations software. The result is a single service, equipment, and software offering built on both companies' technology. The story below originally described this customer's experience with Jolt, which is now part of SmartSense. Learn more about the SmartSense platform.
Jen Moore ran a busy Tropical Smoothie Cafe, and behind the friendly counter was a daily fight against disorganization. Paper checklists went unfinished. Messages piled up in random corners of the store. Training materials lived somewhere separate from everything else, and her staff wasted time hunting for basic information.
"There were paper messages all over the store. Day dots were making a mess. Training materials were in a separate place. My staff had to look 10 different places to find the information they needed."
She knew the paper system was failing her. "The problem with paper checklists is they don't get done, or the items are checked off carelessly." So when Tropical Smoothie Corporate reached out with a possible fix, Jen was ready to listen.
"When the corporate office found Jolt, they came to me and said, 'Will you be a test store? You keep talking about how you want something like this.' And I said, 'Absolutely!'"
The change showed up fast. Her store grew cleaner and more consistent. Her employees became friendlier and more accurate with customer orders. And Jen got a piece of her week back.
"Jolt cleans up and organizes my business. The kitchen is visibly cleaner. I don't have pieces of paper all over the place telling people to do things. Everything is in one place. It's personally saved me probably 3 hours every week."
With one central hub for tasks and training, Jen's team finally had a clear picture of what needed to happen and when. Better still, she could adjust things in real time.
"When I notice something isn't getting done properly, I change the list and require them to add a picture and track who's done it."
The days of finger-pointing were over. "Now when people say 'it wasn't me,' I can say, 'Actually you checked this off at 8:27.'" Onboarding got easier too. "For new people, it's great, because I can literally say, 'Here, do what the iPad says.' If they need to clean this station, they just follow what it says on the iPad, and they understand the process better."
Her crew liked it so much they started talking about it outside of work.
Jen expected pushback. Big changes usually bring some. Instead, her team embraced it.
"Whenever you implement a large change, people usually push back. But my crew really liked the switch to Jolt. They adapted fast."
Because her employees were younger, the software felt familiar right away. Word even spread to a nearby cafe that didn't have it yet.
"It was interesting: another Tropical Smoothie down the road from me didn't have Jolt. Some of my crew members went to school with some of her crew members. They started asking her, 'Why don't we have Jolt? We want this iPad thing they are talking about at the other store. Now they have it, too."
For Jen, the biggest change was peace of mind. She no longer had to be on-site to know her store was running the way it should.
"It's so great that I don't have to be in the store and I am not relying on crew members to pay attention to all of the details, like temperatures, and give me a call when something is wrong. Now when something is out of range or incomplete, I get a text to my phone about it automatically."
The end result was a team that knew its job and felt good doing it. "Jolt makes crew members more knowledgeable, which in turn makes them happier. They know exactly what they are supposed to do."
Tropical Smoothie Cafe relies on:
Digital checklists and automated temperature monitoring also support food safety compliance in line with the FDA Food Code