There’s no getting around it: At one time or another, something will go wrong with your point of sale system, and you’ll need to arrange for it to be fixed. While some restaurant owners and retailers dread point of sale repair, it really doesn’t have to be a nightmare—providing that you’ve chosen the right point of sale vendor. Here are four areas to investigate in selecting such a partner:
1. Reputation
Before signing on the dotted line with any vendor, ensure that the company has a solid reputation for doing business the way business should be done. For example, the vendor should be known for employing knowledgeable, experienced service personnel, and for quickly addressing customers’ problems long after the sale has been made. The vendor should also have a reputation for being financially stable (so you aren’t faced with the headaches that come from seeking point of sale repair for a system whose manufacturer no longer exists) and for investing money in R&D to improve its products. There is no substitute for experience—and a good vendor possesses at least five years of it.
Speaking of products, the reputation of any prospective vendor’s point of sale offerings must also be taken into consideration. Are these offerings known for being easy to install and operate? Is it difficult for employees to learn to use the equipment and/or software? Is the equipment durable? Unless the answer to these questions is “yes,” you run the risk of problematic point of sale repair.
2. Installation
Another signal that a vendor is worth considering—and won’t let you down when the day comes for point of sale repair—is the caliber of its installation services. Deployment should be completed on schedule, and all components and functions of the point of sale system should be tested to assess and confirm proper functionality. As with investigating the reputation of a prospective vendor and its products, you can find out whether this is the case by checking with other retailers or restaurant operators that have worked with the company in question.
3. Training
The breadth and quality of a vendor’s training services is as important as the breadth and quality of its installation services. This is because if a vendor isn’t vested in providing comprehensive training, it likely won’t be any more inclined to go the extra mile when it comes to point of sale repair. The proper training is hands-on, and those who execute it should ascertain that management is comfortable with the point of sale system before the training interval has ended.
4. Support
The vendor should have qualified systems engineers and support personnel on staff, as well as a formal team and organizational structure to ensure that all service needs—for point of sale repair or otherwise—are handled quickly no matter what. Having separate trainers, installers and support teams is a must; otherwise, if an individual who functions as an installer as well as a support staff member is handling an installation, you could be out of luck.
Additionally, vendors should provide support and service 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. This is important for all restaurant operators and retailers, but it’s particularly critical for those with locations in different time zones where operating hours may extend into non-standard work hours. Again, the absence of “24/7/365” service could mean problems down the road with point of sale repair.
No restaurant operator or retailer likes to find himself or herself in need of point of sale repair, but it’s going to happen sooner or later. With the proper vendor partner on board, however, the repair process can be a painless one.
