Category: POS Features
Tablet Point of Sale Systems
Tablets. It seems that we hear about tablet ordering every time we turn around. There are a number of companies jumping on the tablet bandwagon. Is this just fad? I don’t think so. I think the issue with most of the tablet POS systems is that they are focusing on the hardware and “cool” factor and don’t really have any substantial product from a software standpoint.
Does a tablet have a place in coffee shops and restaurants? Yes! Can they add value to a store? Absolutely! What is required is to have a stable, reliable and full featured POS software to integrate in the right way with a tablet.
SelbySoft has been working on a tablet based system for our customers for a while now and we are happy to announce that we have it ready!
This is a complete handheld unit with a 10″ screen that is perfect for mobile orders, table service and line busting or drive thru lanes.
Please call us to learn if a tablet is right for you and to see how we can help!
Posted in Hardware, Marketing, Order Entry, POS Features, Uncategorized Tagged with: tablets
2 Things about SP-1 you might not know!
There is so much that SP-1 does it’s challanging to be aware of all of it! Here are a couple of things you might not be aware your system does! Both of these came up recently with current customers so I thought I’d present them here!
1) Color coded buttons. A great feature in SP-1 is the ability to color code and highlight modifier buttons. This provides you with a way to visually break up the on screen menu as well as aid the eye in finding specific groups or items.
SP-1 supports ten different colors to choose from for these buttons so you can easily create different groupings of items.
Some examples of different groupings might be using a specific color to separate your milk choices from other items, using two colors to distinguish between meats and veggies and so on
Posted in Order Entry, POS Features Tagged with: color, deferred orders
5 Cool Features in SP-1
I thought it would be fun to list the top 5 things you may not know SP-1 is capable of!
1) Text Ordering. . . Yes it’s true. You can setup a text message ordering system to allow your customers to order through SP-1. $10/month and the orders go right from your customers cell phone to your SP-1 point of sale! By the way – it works with Facebook & Twitter as well. We call it Social Ordering.
2) Time Keeping. . . Included as part of our software and not an extra charge. This allows your employees to clock in & out, send custom messages to employees and track multiple wages per employee. You do use this to help track your Labor Percent right?
3) Gift & Loyalty cards. . . Ok, you know we do that. But it’s pretty cool that they work as gift, loyalty, prepaid and customer tracking cards!
4) Lazy Customer list. . . People sometimes stop coming to your store. Use this feature to send customized messages to people that no longer come to your store! Remember we track TEN email addresses per customer!
5)Forced Modifiers – this is the best way to help your staff communicate with and help educate your customers. Not to mention it’s a great way to up sell effectively.
Posted in POS Features, Uncategorized Tagged with: features
Why do you need a POS anyway? The Cliff Notes Version
I get it, you don’t have a lot of time. So, here is the cliff notes version. . .
- It will make you money. Really, it’s that simple. Using SP-1 can provide an ROI (Return On Investment) of at least 1% and as high as 7%. Average customers see 3% minimum.
- Stop making mistakes. We both know that your staff prices things wrong. That’s bad. It’s bad for your customer, your consistency and your business. SP-1 will stop it.
- Theft controls. We don’t like it but people steal. Not all people – but some of them. SP-1 will help you catch them and put a stop to it. Everything is tracked. Voids, free items, discounts, double punching, coupon theft.
- Reporting. Do you like sitting at home entering numbers into Excel or Quickbooks? Stop doing it. Put SP-1 in and let us take care of that for you. Get back to what you love.
- Gift & Loyalty. If you are paying a swipe charge or monthly fee for this, then you are most likely getting ripped off. It’s FREE. Stop doing handwritten gift certificates that are a pain, stop using punch cards that are cheated on. Stop hoping your staff uses the right discount. Make it professional and fool proof.
Posted in POS Features, Technology Tagged with: pos, technology
“New” Old Stuff
Recently I have read a number of articles about “new” POS products and features. I love to hear what others in the industry are doing as it helps push us to make sure we are staying on top of the latest technology and features.
For us, our biggest challenge is how to let people know about all the things we sometimes take for granted. Here are some of the top items that people are surprised we have already in the software:
Text Ordering – Yes – a customer can TEXT an order into your store and have it show up on the SP-1 POS. We took that a step further and allow your customers to comment on Faceook or Twitter and place an order as well! Seriously, this is one of the coolest new things you probably are not using yet!
Cloud based backups – Surprisingly we have been doing this since 2007! SP-1 automatically backs up all of your data every night at 3am. If you are on a support plan with us, then this is just one of the free perks. If you are not for sure if your system is backed up, call us.
Remote access – We have multiple ways to handle this! Our back office license allows you to connect to the POS from the office. Or, you can use various FREE remote connection software to connect to the POS. Finally we have three different corporate options that allow you to do everything from receive reporting at a central location to locking down the stores menu. You don’t have to do everything from the store!
Posted in Order Entry, POS Features Tagged with: features
Catering? We can help!
Over the last year we have seen more of our customers look at catering options with their products. Obviously that leads to more calls to us asking how we can help. Fortunately, we already have a number of wants to help with this.
It starts with creating a catering menu. Talk to our support about creating a specific menu group with your catered items. This allows your employees to have one button access to the items you cater and the prices you charge.
When a customer calls in, make sure you use our Customer Tracking system to add the customer. Often these customers
are already in your database and may simply be having you delivery items to a different address. They may even use a different contact number when calling you. In SP-1, we track up to 10 phone numbers per client.
In SP-1, when you add (or edit) a customer, you can select the phone number / email address button to update or add information for the customers profile. In catering this is advantageous because you now can get hold of the direct person that is placing the order if there is a question.
The next step is to use the Additional Addresses button to enter the customers catering address. This is important because you might be providing the items to a different location than what you have on file as the main address.
Once we have the order placed, we have two more options available to us. If you have done catering before then you know that sometimes when the customers calls, they are not actually placing the order right? Sometimes, it’s an office manager or assistant that is calling around to check on pricing. We handle this as well! At the ticket completion screen, you can convert any order into a quote only. What this does is save the order under that customers phone number for future reference. When (if) the customer calls back to place that catering order, you will have all the details laid out in front of you! This allows you to easily and quickly duplicate the previous quote and then turn it into an actual order.
Once the catering order is ready to finish, we can use our Deferred Order system to schedule this order for a future date and time. SP-1 will automatically print your order on the day and time that it is due. We even allow you to set the default time the order should be printed. If it needs to be ready at 4pm the order can print at 3pm! 
So the complete catering options look like this:
- Add customer with multiple phone numbers and addresses
- Take order and turn into a quote
- Duplicate the quote and mark it as a deferred order
- The order then prints automatically at the time it is ready
- Reporting for the manager and owner on all future orders
SP-1 can make this type of coffee shop or restaurant catering easy by implementing the built in features of our POS!
Call us for more information!
Mike.
Posted in Delivery, Employees, Marketing, POS Features Tagged with: catering, coffee shop, ordering, pos
WiFi Campers – Starbucks covers electrical outlets
More on the on-going fight between coffee shop owners and people that want to camp in the store working on laptops etc. This news Grid Lock: Starbucks Covers Electrical Outlets to Curb Laptop Lingerers – TIME NewsFeed illustrates the frustration.
The issue is not that people want to hang out in the store, it’s that the customer doesn’t continue to buy product while sitting there. Heck, I’m guessing that you want people in your store – the catch is you also want them buying product!
The best way I’ve seen to approach this without a confrontation is to use a product like WEBbeams. WEBbeams helps eliminate the whole issue by requiring a login code to access the WiFi connection.
When the customer orders product, SP-1 prints a unique, one time code. That code is then used by the customer to log on to the WiFi system in the store. The great thing is that the code can be for a limited amount of time. So, if you have campers that want to sit, surf the web and stay all day, they will be forced to buy more product.
Give us a call to learn more about WEBbeams and SelbySoft!
Mike.
Posted in Hardware, Order Entry, POS Features Tagged with: campers, webbeams, wifi
Burger King introduces oatmeal to breakfast menu or How to revamp your thinking about POS
I saw this post online about how Burger King is introducing oatmeal to their breakfast menu. BK is trying to compete with McDonald’s in breakfast sales. To me, the most interesting part of the article was the comment by an analyst that Burger King needs to revamp and remodel their stores. At least BK is thinking about ways to compete and change their own status quo.
That comment reminded me of our own struggles with customer perceptions in the past. A few years ago we realized that we had to “re-skin” our software every so often to keep it fresh and new to our customers. We had gotten to the point where the software just didn’t “look fresh”. It doesn’t matter if it was true or not, it’s a perception.
It made me think about the way people use SP-1. Honestly, when is the last time you really thought about all the reasons you bought a POS for your coffee shop or restaurant in the first place?
Think about doing a remodel on your perception of your POS! Treat yourself like you are about to do some research and look for ways our POS can help you with your store. It’s easy to get caught up in a rut and use SP-1 as a cash register but we can do so much more.
Look over the following and think about the last time you looked at these:
- Customers who have not ordered in the last 30 days report. You don’t have to do a mailing or email blast. Just run the report, look them up and call them! Tell them you know they have not been in for a while and offer a discount to get them in. Want to set yourself apart from your competition? This will do it!
- Have you looked at an employee time keeping audit report? No? Are you sure your manager is not changing the clock in time for that cute girl / guy employee? Really, your sure?
- Look at a list of your specialty coffee drinks or food items for the last year and see which account for less than 3-5% of your total sales. Get rid of them or promote them differently.
Posted in POS Features, Uncategorized Tagged with: features, reporting
How to help your coffee shop manager out!
Want to make your coffee shop manager happy? Get them a POS system. Sounds simple doesn’t it? I know, it sounds like a sales ploy to get you to buy a POS – That’s true as well. The fact is that we believe with all our heart that a POS will absolutely help you and your staff (including your manger)!
If you have taken the time to hire and groom a coffee shop manager to help manage your business, then a POS makes a lot of sense for you. Why? Because we know, through experience, that you rely on your manager to maintain the store, monitor employees and report back to you (along with dozens of other things). Without a POS system, your manager will spend part of their time focusing on putting together spreadsheets and emails so you get what you need. There is a better way.
Automate a good chuck of those tasks and allow your manager to focus on the things that are really important. Let them spend their time on coffee education, customer service, training of your staff and generally helping you make more money. With SP-1 as your POS in your coffee shop, you will see that your manager can provide the business information to you with less time wasted. Better than that is that they will have the tools available to them to monitor for themselves what is going on.
For example, your manager can see which hours are peak for sales by touching a few buttons. They can run reports to compare sales by employee to identify where training needs to be spent. You can use up sell suggestions to help not only make more money but also to open the door for customer education on differences between different coffees.
Finally, let’s not forget that YOU, the owner, have to stay on top of the manager and insure that they are doing their job right? Hourly reporting and void tracking are the best ways to do this.
Call us. See how we can help you and your coffee shop manager!
Mike.
MobileDash
Posted in Employees, Marketing, POS Features, Reporting, Uncategorized Tagged with: reporting
Why you SHOULD NOT buy your own equipment
Buying hardware on your own is a bad idea. . .How is that for a starting point? It’s true though, it’s not usually just a bad idea, it’s a potential recipe for disaster.
I know that many of you feel that you should be able to buy the cheapest computer you can find at Costco or Best Buy and be up and running in minutes. I’m sorry – it just won’t happen.
One of the best reasons to purchase equipment from the same company you buy software from is the support. The crude term is “One throat to choke” but it can be appropriate. The amount of money you save purchasing a computer based on price will not justify the long term support you will have to supply. Notice that I said you in that line . . . Expecting the POS company to support equipment they were not paid for is just not realistic.
Right now the cheapest I can find a computer is about $200 less than what we sell one for. Of course that does not include:
Setup by a qualified technician.
A professional version of the OS.
PCI / PA-DSS hardening including proper Windows user setup, passwords, turning off and eliminating of the unused services, activating the required auditing.
No finger pointing when an issue comes up.
The proper port configuration and software setup in Windows to function with all the peripheral equipment.
Supporting that computer through the warranty and, in some cases, beyond.
So for an extra $67 a year you get all of that and more. And, let’s not forget that we have to agree that talking to one of our technicians is way less frustrating than the kid behind the counter at a box store or the guy on the other side of the planet when buying over the internet.
Are there exceptions? Of course, but call us before you spend the money on the computer.
Contact us at:
SelbySoft
Mike Spence
800-454-4434
Sales@SelbySoft.com
WWW.SelbySoft.com
8326 Woodland Ave. E
Puyallup Wa 98371
Posted in POS Features, Uncategorized Tagged with: equipment