Tommy John replaced scattered privacy request handling with a workflow the team could keep up with.

"Without TrueVault, there would be chaos. It would take away our peace of mind." — Ayush Mittal, Director of Engineering, Tommy John.

Before TrueVault, privacy requests were scattered across systems and people

Tommy John already had pieces of a privacy setup in place.

Their stack included Shopify’s Customer Privacy API, Google, GA4, RudderStack, and Tealium. Each tool played a role in privacy and consent management, but the team still didn’t have a proper workflow for handling requests.

Requests were handled manually and depended heavily on certain team members to keep things moving.

“It would take days,” says Ayush Mittal, Director of Engineering at Tommy John. “Only certain people were getting those requests. We didn’t have a place where anyone could see what was outstanding.”

The process depended heavily on institutional knowledge. When someone knew how to handle a request, things moved forward. Otherwise, the team had to stop and figure it out manually.

“There was dependency on certain people,” Mittal says. “If they were out of the office, it was challenging.”

For a lean ecommerce team managing privacy alongside everything else already on their plate, the approach wasn’t sustainable.

Requests kept coming in, and the process became harder to manage over time.

The problem wasn’t one big failure. It was an ongoing operational drift.

There wasn’t a single moment when the process broke.

The bigger issue was realizing the team didn’t actually have a repeatable workflow in place. Requests were difficult to track, and the team didn’t have a reliable way to manage them consistently.

“We didn’t have a proper process to handle or track these requests and had to opt for something more manageable,” Mittal says. “That’s where TrueVault came in.”

Like many ecommerce teams, Tommy John had already implemented tools and privacy components over time. The harder part was keeping the process manageable as systems and vendors changed over time.

A workflow built around how ecommerce teams actually operate

After implementing TrueVault, privacy requests started flowing through a centralized process instead of email threads and manual coordination.

TrueVault gave the team a centralized platform for managing privacy requests.

The team now has a documented process for handling requests across the vendors in their stack instead of relying on someone to remember what to do.

“Setting up the integrations and establishing the workflow for all the vendors was very easy,” Mittal says. “The steps to take were already there.”

That mattered for a lean team already balancing ecommerce operations, customer experience, engineering work, and ongoing site changes.

The goal was to reduce the manual coordination and privacy work required day-to-day without adding another complicated system for the team to manage.

A process the team can actually keep up with

Before TrueVault, requests were difficult to track and heavily dependent on a small number of people managing the process manually.

Now the team has a centralized workflow, documented processes across the vendors in their stack, and a system of record that didn’t previously exist.

“It’s spontaneous now compared to before,” he says. “We were missing a lot of requests before because we didn’t have a proper workflow. Now we have automation and a system of record. That’s been great.”

The team also moved away from relying on one person to keep everything moving.

“Initially, we had only one key member,” Mittal says. “Now we have cross-trained members and documentation in place.”

That shift reduced the dependency on one person to keep things running.

The process no longer depends on one person being available to keep things moving.

Support became part of the rollout experience

Like many TrueVault customers, Tommy John cited the support experience as a major factor in the rollout's success.

“TrueVault has been a great partner with exceptional customer service,” Mittal says. “Jillan is great and is always available. The timely product updates are really helpful.”

The rollout stayed pretty straightforward for the team.

The team tested workflows in staging, validated the setup, and then rolled it into production as part of their normal deployment cadence. Walkthroughs were shared internally, and additional team members were trained as part of the rollout.

That support mattered because most ecommerce teams don’t want to become privacy experts. They want workflows that make sense and confidence that requests aren’t quietly slipping through the cracks.

Privacy operations that no longer depend on tribal knowledge

Today, Tommy John has a centralized privacy workflow, cross-trained ownership, and visibility into requests that didn’t previously exist.

What used to depend on scattered processes and individual team members now lives in one shared process that the broader team can actually manage.

For a lean ecommerce team already balancing constant operational change, that peace of mind matters.

“There will be chaos, and it will take away our peace of mind,” Mittal says.

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