An Example of the Benefits of EPoS

Recently a fast food home delivery service, installed an EPoS system and within a few weeks deliveries had trebled purely down to the control that the system allowed.

The benefits of the system are many; caller recognition – customer details appear instantly on screen alongside the shop menu when the phone rings, postcode look-up – new customers are added quickly and accurately and fast touch screen ordering with (optional) selling prompts. In addition, meal deals, offers and delivery charges are calculated automatically.

The system eliminates human error at the counter and the caller recognition saves time for the user and the customer. Order taking is faster – so customer throughput is much quicker and far more efficient.

After a customer has placed an order for delivery and the food has been prepared and is ready to go, the screen is touched to tell the system which driver is taking the order. At this point, a map is displayed to help the driver. Payment can be taken from drivers after one order, a few orders or at the end of the night.

The business has 3 services to offer – these are Takeaway, Delivery and Collection. The EpoS system co-ordinates everything and the delivery service is now 40% of the business and growing. Collection orders are increasing too – but not at the expense of the takeaway business. Collection orders are bagged and waiting at the front when customers arrive – staff just need to touch a button on screen and we can have a separate and fast moving collection queue.

There are also touch screen terminals which are wall mounted in the food preparation area. One of the terminals displays pizzas, baked potatoes etc. to be made as they are ordered; the other displays special orders for frying. The screens relieve employee pressure at busy times and enable the users to check on orders and not continually look around for scraps of paper with hand-written notes.

The EpoS software is not just intended for order-taking, kitchen efficiency and driver management – it is an invaluable tool for customer relationship management. Every time that a new customer is added to the system or a customer orders again, the customer database is updated. This creates effective local marketing allowing the marketing of the business to customers by mail, by e-mail, or text messages. The system also makes it easy to send special offers and coupons to customers. The results can be monitored and the home delivery service found that they had a 65% return on their first mailing.

Many small businesses today view EPoS as an unnecessary expense, but the real benefits are seen both by the customer and the business itself. Customers have a more efficient experience at the Point of Sale, and the business tracks and records everything through the EPoS package which in turn improves stock management, margins, purchasing information, and customer information.

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