If the current F&B POS system or electronic cash register does not provide you anymore with what you need or is causing some issues because it is outdated, then it is time to scrap them and get yourself a new POS system, especially if you are running a restaurant. What are the signs that tell you it’s time to replace your old POS system?
Sign #1: If the only consistent experiences you have are its technical difficulties – mostly due to outdated software, then you need to replace it.
- If you are seeing blue screens on your restaurant POS terminal, then it’s a candidate to go to the recycle bin.
- Regular crashes or instances where you have freezing moments with your POS system.
- It just is not running well as it once did.
- Rejects payments or gets delayed.
- Authorization of payments is hard to obtain.
- Customer transactions take a long time to complete than it was once before.
It is not advisable to endure or tolerate these glitches as it will not improve. Investing in a new POS technology is better than losing sales – or worse, your business because of bad transactions due to a defective POS system.
Sign #2: Receipt printers of your POS system break down often and always needs to be repaired.
Having frequent occurrences of hardware malfunctions that may seem to be minor like the printers that do not print or the monitors that won’t just switch on indicates that there is a system-wide malfunction. It is strongly advised that purchasing a Restaurant POS system before this occurrence happen will greatly help you as well as prevent your business from suffering some losses because of system failures.
The problem is, if you try to tolerate this problem, you’ll end up losing the business because of a simple equipment failure that could have been avoided. Not only would you lose your business, you also would not be able to handle major problems that comes with a bad system, which is a corrupt database not even if you are very familiar with your existing POS system. You need to ask yourself, are you willing to face these types of problems and take a chance with your defective POS system? Without the help from experts that are able to perform complicated remediation processes, you’re better off buying a replacement.
Even if POS system components can be fixed and replace the defective parts, but does that equal to the lost business that you’ll end up with? It’s just not worth the hassle!
Sign #3: When the business needs more functionality that your old restaurant POS software could not handle.
The food and beverage industry is caught in the middle of a rising competition, ingredient and labor costs, which makes it a must for every restaurant owner to adapt to a full-featured restaurant POS system to help them with the following:
- Improve check averages
- Enhance customer satisfaction
- Leverage the human resources through online orders, mobile devices and through self-service methods
- Support the use of loyalty programs to help increase customers and to improve customer retention
- Also give the businesses the chance to reduce food costs with portion controls, tracking of inventory
- Minimize labor expenditures through employee scheduling and overtime restrictions
If your old restaurant POS system doesn’t have these features, then you better be prepared to brace for a negative impact towards your business.
Sign #4: Out of warranty POS system and the provider is not giving you any support.
As soon as you run out of warranty and you have been trying to get ahold of your POS system provider. What good does that do to your business if you ran into some technical issue, and you get no help from the provider or experts? Are you willing to have all this stress? You are better off with investing on a new restaurant POS system than wait for a miracle to happen.
Although buying a new POS system just for the sake of technology, it’s a frivolous thing to do and a waste of the business money, but if your POS system are displaying these signs mentioned above, then it is time to make that positive leap for a brighter and better future for your business.