Operating a business means a near-constant cycle of the decision-making process. Whether it’s your business location, website design, or product inventory, there seems to be no shortage of vital elements of your business to solidify. We understand that researching and choosing the right POS system for your business is probably a little daunting. After all, there are a wide range of choices on the market these days. Card Market is here to help guide you through this process!
A high-quality POS system is important for many reasons, aside from accurately and efficiently processing customer payments; POS systems affect almost every aspect of business management. Your budget, business industry, and specific needs, all affect the type of POS system you are looking for. However, one element that is important for all POS systems to provide is improving the customer experience.
Don’t miss these five features of a high-quality POS system that you should consider while either replacing your older system or making a first-time POS system purchase:
1. User-Friendly
The foundation of excellent customer service is equipping your employees with the tools, resources, and training to provide efficient and knowledgeable service to your customers. One thing that can quickly hinder this is a POS system that is difficult to use. This can greatly impact the quality of employee-customer interactions while also resulting in a much longer average transaction time.
A high-quality POS system will have a dashboard where employees can easily navigate and simultaneously monitor important elements. A live support option can also be very useful!
2. A Shopper-Friendly Interface
Your POS system does not only need to be easy for employees to operate, but it should also improve the shopping experience for customers. A great feature to look for (depending on your budget) is a customer-facing display. This enables the customer to view their transaction while they are checking out, allowing them to ask questions and preventing any miscommunication regarding prices and promotions prior to payment.
3. Cloud-Based Mobility
Again, depending on your business’s specific needs, size, and budget, a cloud-based POS system might be a great choice for you. There are many benefits to incorporating a cloud-based POS system for your business, but one excellent feature is that your customers (and management) will be able to access the POS system from outside of the store.
This means that you can monitor sales from another location, while also allowing customers to complete online orders. In the age of curbside ordering, this is a huge advantage!
4. Promotions and Loyalty Rewards Capability
Every retail business knows that regularly running special purchase promotions and rewarding your regular customers through a loyalty program, are vital components to establishing (and retaining) a customer base.
In order to do this successfully, you will need the technology that supports these efforts—a high-quality POS system that allows customization. A POS system such as this must allow users to create customer profiles which track and monitor purchased items and frequency. This component is also vital to running promotions, otherwise forcing the user to manually enter special prices during each transaction.
5. Inventory and Reporting Features
Another feature of a high-quality POS system we recommend you consider is inventory management capability. Throughout the day, while purchases are being made, the POS system will automatically log changes to inventory and record this information where you can easily view at the end of the day. This is especially important if you’d like to avoid counting your items by hand at the close of each business day (we’re assuming you do).
Lastly, your POS system should create a close-out report at the end of each day. Ideally, your closing employees should be able to generate this report with ease through automatically-populated information.
Need Help Choosing a POS System?
Card Market can help your company choose the perfect POS system for your needs. Contact us today to schedule a consultation!