Retail Point of Sale (POS) Blind Spots That Can Kill Your Sales & A Lot More
By Mercy Antony · PUBLISHED July 10, 2020
When you meet your customer over the point-of-sale (POS) terminal, you hope everything goes right. However, there are several things that can go wrong. And sometimes, when sudden glitches happen, your customers get frustrated. Having an unreliable problem could lead to a ripple effect of negative impacts including higher attrition ratios, consumer dissatisfaction, lost sales and negative reviews in various social media platforms so will your online reputation and Net Promoter Scores. It’s best to spot the dead angles before things more complicated
How can you avoid these 5 deadly point-of-sale pitfalls?
1) Hardware failure – POS systems have several pieces of hardware that rely on each other for the entire system to work properly. There are computer monitors, keyboards, barcode scanners, credit card processors, check readers, receipt printers, and more. If one of the hardware devices fails at the point of sale, it could cause your entire system to crash. If you don’t fix it quickly, your customer could walk out the door and you might lose that sale. If it happens too often, you’ll lose customers.
2) Software glitches – Not only do you have hardware to maintain and keep up to date, but retailers also have to ensure their operational software functions correctly. In addition to your retail operations solutions, you’ve got computer operating systems, servers, and software applications for many of your hardware devices (credit card processors, check readers, etc.). If something isn’t working right, it can cause issues at the point of sale, even if the software problem is somewhere else.
3) Network challenges – Besides hardware and software, you’ve got the wider network infrastructure that connects you to the rest of the world. You’ve got your local internet connection, WANs, mobile data networks, and other connectivity channels that can put a huge kink in your customer relations if they cut off your POS interactions. Imagine what could happen if your credit card payments don’t transmit or your inventory counts don’t update due to connectivity challenges.
4) User errors – On top of the hardware, software, and network challenges, retailers rely on humans to ensure POS transactions are processed quickly and efficiently. If your employees do not know how to operate your system, that could cause customer relationship issues.
5) Customer data collection – If your CRM solution and your POS do not play well together, that can cause serious customer relationship issues. If you find yourself asking the same customers to update their contact information multiple times, or you send out incorrect marketing materials based on false purchase histories, or you face other data collection challenges, then customers could end up shopping with the competition. POS problems can cause many thorny issues with your customers. It’s better to avoid them ahead of time than putting your sales team under pressure during hectic times
How to avoid these POS Shortcomings?
To avoid these errors at any cost, every retailer should choose the right POS system for their retail business operations. ChainDrive is an intuitive, smart, predictive, agile and mobile friendly POS. It reduces your work pressure, maximize productivity, improve efficiency and optimize retail processes across all channels. Both in real time and seamlessly.
So why jeopardize your business with pre-packaged software tools, when you can get a personalized and worry-free POS solutions that can meet and exceed your overall performance expectations. If you have more questions or want to know more about how Chaindrive can help you step-up your heavy-duty retail operations, contact our retail management experts or log on https://chaindrive.com/free-live-demo/ to book a live demo.