Just a few decades ago, the humble point-of-sale system (POS) was a cash register. It is now far more sophisticated.
While some businesses still use cash registers, payment remains at the heart of any POS system. Modern point-of-sale systems have evolved far beyond being just an accounting and payment system to include service features. These features drive highly personalized interactions between a business and its customers.
Retail associates, for example, are using POS systems to save sales—and upsell—because they can provide real-time insights into a customer’s browsing and purchase history.
POS systems are also being used by hospitality employees to improve the guest experience in a variety of ways, including the seamless application of loyalty programs, faster delivery of personalized orders, and more.
However, modern point-of-sale systems are beneficial to more than just retail and hospitality businesses. Today’s POS systems include a plethora of features that can be tailored to any type of business.
These features enable you to perform multiple tasks per your company’s needs, reducing errors, staffing costs, and increasing efficiency.
Reasons Why Every Business Should Have a Point-of-Sale System
Now, let’s take a closer look at some of the main advantages a POS system can provide your company.
1. Access to Real-Time Data
In today’s competitive business landscape, data is king, and those who have it and use it stay on top. The reason is simple: In order to run a profitable business; you require accurate data and numbers to help you develop successful strategies and make better business decisions.
Real-time data capture capabilities are built into POS solutions, allowing you to make quick and smart business decisions to help increase profit and sales.
A POS system’s analytic features can provide you with useful information such as your company’s peak hours, worst-selling products or services, best-selling products or services, and more.
2. Improved Customer Management
As previously stated, POS systems come with features to store all types of data, including that of your customers’ phone number, name, email address, and more.
This data can provide you with detailed insights into your target market’s purchasing habits — what drives them to become repeat customers, and which parts of your company’s sales funnel need to be improved. You will be able to make better business decisions if you understand what makes your customers tick.
3. Better Employee Management
Employee management is difficult. Especially if you own a small business and have a lot of other things that require your attention. However, without tangible data, optimizing employee time can be even more difficult.
The good news is that a smart POS system, with its employee management feature, can assist you with this.
You will be able to track the number of hours each employee works, the number of sales each employee makes, manage employee information, and much more. Also you can optimize staff schedules, particularly during your busiest business hours, and identify top-performing employees for rewards in this manner.
You can also use a POS solution to customize what access each employee has to the system, which is an excellent way to prevent fraud and control access to any sensitive business information.
4. Enhanced Company Organization
According to reports, most businesses invest roughly 70% of their operating costs in human resource management. This portion of their budget is dedicated to welfare, employee wages, and related taxes, among other things. As a result, it is prudent to adopt technological innovations that can assist you in lowering labor costs.
In this case, a workforce management system is usually the best bet, but a POS solution may be a better option.
Today’s POS solutions include features that work well with payroll systems. Furthermore, these POS systems can automate a variety of manual tasks, such as disparity checks. Freeing up valuable time for your employees to focus on critical business functions such as customer service.
24/7 Detailed Business Reports
Point-of-sale systems include reporting capabilities that allow you to keep track of profits, sales, and expenses. What’s more, if you select a system with cloud integration, you will be able to access this information to make data-driven business decisions even while on the go.
POS systems also give you access to a variety of customizable reports that you can use to track key performance indicators (KPIs) like sell-through rate and average customer sales. You can identify areas for improvement and make the necessary changes to improve business performance while maintaining profitability and competitiveness.
6. Fast and Secure Payment Process
An integrated POS solution can help simplify your business’s credit and debit payment processes and eliminate potential human errors while saving your company time and securing its payment processes.
How?
Many POS systems are integrated with trustworthy payment gateway providers like Apple Pay and PayPal, and they only accept verified cards. As a result, customers can complete their transactions with the click of a button.
Furthermore, modern POS systems can support contactless payments.
How to Select the Best POS Solution for Your Business
Now that you are familiar with the advantages a POS system can provide your company, it is time to purchase a new one or upgrade your current one.
The POS solution you select for your company will have an impact on how it operates. As a result, you must devote time and effort to research before deciding on one.
As a general rule, you should do the following:
Select a Good Provider
When you purchase point-of-sale solutions, you enter into a long-term relationship with the vendor. And, because there is no such thing as a fail-safe application, you will be in constant contact with your chosen provider for support, application updates, consulting, training, and hardware.
Therefore, it is critical to buy from a reputable company. Spend time evaluating your preferred providers to ensure that they are customer-focused and provide excellent services, which will save you time and money in the long run.
Articulate Your Business Needs
The best POS solutions are those that tailor to your specific business requirements. If you own a restaurant, for example, you will need to purchase a restaurant POS system. Therefore, articulate what business problem you intend to solve using a POS solution. And then look for one that meets all your requirements.
Once that is out of the way, don’t forget to ask for a demo. Check references and consider the scalability features of the POS system you are considering before you make your purchase.
