Sell Hospitality POS Software On Added Efficiencies

What separates your product offering and services from your competition? Odds are, not much. Rather, as you know, it’s the small things that differentiate companies and create winners and losers. A good example of this can be seen in a recent installation performed at the Cherokee restaurant in Clinton, OK. The Cherokee contains a retail gift shop as well as a 400-seat buffet and full-service restaurant. Russell Kious, owner of Cash Register Systems – Oklahoma (CRS), had stopped for lunch at the restaurant and noticed that the manager was having problems with one of his POS terminals. Kious approached the manager, presented his card, and offered his services. Weeks later, he received a call from the restaurant manager, who was looking for a new service provider.

One of Kious’ first steps was to uncover all the needs of the restaurant. In doing so, he discovered that the restaurateur was unhappy with his current POS service provider. “Not only was the service and support they were receiving poor, they were spending $7,000 a year on a maintenance agreement,” says Kious. “In addition, some of their POS hardware was reaching end of life.” Kious also uncovered that the wait staff was spending too much time in the kitchen waiting for food to be ready, rather than being on the restaurant floor with customers. There were two reasons for this. First, the floor space was so large that the wait staff didn’t want to waste time walking from end to end to check on food status. Also, the wait staff was concerned that ready food would sit and get cold if they weren’t immediately present to deliver it.

CRS was able to keep two of the existing four POS terminals, the restaurant’s back office server, and receipt printers. The VAR replaced two POS terminals with 3M CT150 touch computers, wiped the software from the existing terminals, and installed SoftTouch POS software on all the units. For security purposes, CRS also installed fingerprint readers on each terminal to provide biometrics-based access control.

To solve the problem of wait staff hovering in the kitchen area waiting for food to be finished, Kious recommended and installed a paging solution. The solution makes use of one of the options available from SoftTouch POS. The ISV (independent software vendor) has a component named INFORM (Intelligent Notification For Operations Real-Time Management) which, in the Cherokee restaurant’s case, works like this. An EPSON thermal printer in the kitchen prints two tickets when an order is placed. On each ticket is a bar code. One  ticket is for the cooks, another is for the server. When an order is ready, the cooks scan the bar code on the order ticket using a Honeywell Voyager bar code scanner. The scanned bar code initiates a paging mechanism within the SoftTouch POS software whereby the appropriate server is notified via alphanumeric pager that the order is ready for pickup. When the server comes to get the food, they scan their bar-coded ticket which turns the paging mechanism off for that order. Not only can servers spend their time more efficiently while waiting for food to be prepared, the paging solution allows management to track how long it takes for food to be prepared and how long it takes for servers to deliver it. The total cost of the solution was $19,000.

In addition to hardware and software, CRS also switched the restaurant’s card processing over to Mercury Payment Systems. While CRS expects to earn residuals on the processing business, Kious says that Mercury’s free gift card processing was a feature that helped sweeten the overall POS deal and help land the business.

Kious explains that ‘go live’ began one evening after the restaurant closed for business. All equipment was installed overnight. Training of the servers began first thing in the morning. CRS stayed with the customer throughout the first two days to address any questions or problems, as well as help make menu changes in the system.

Today, the servers are able to be more attentive to customers, a fact supported by a reported increase in tips. In addition, the restaurant manager says that the restaurant runs more fluidly, with meals being served promptly after being prepared.
In the coming months, Kious expects to integrate the restaurant’s existing video surveillance system with the new POS system. He also plans on enabling the online ordering component of the SoftTouch software to allow customers to place take-out orders via the restaurant’s website.
www.crsokc.com
www.softtouchpos.com