For several weeks now we have been sending daily updates to our POS software customers, at 7am AEST. The updates are short and succinct, offering COVID-19 related advice designed to help our customers through their day. We share links to trusted state and federal government websites as well as help on trading through for the many of our customers permitted to be open.

We have also been running regular web conferences to help retailers connect.

Plus, we have eliminated pricing on software options that make countless and other trading easy in retail.

These moves from our company with is at more than 90% of staff working from home is helping small business retailers.

We are grateful to all who support us.

3 years ago we established infrastructure to serve online live demonstrations of our POS software as well as line online training for new and existing POS software customers. Today, we are well advanced from those early moves and it is paying off.

Retailers are loving online live demonstrations of our POS software – timed to suit their needs. They love that each demonstration is live for them, about their business and genuinely interactive.

When it comes to remote installations, retailers love that they get to save money, schedule the training as and when they want and can have training recorded for later play back. These and other innovations are standard to the way we serve our Tower Systems POS software user community.

We are grateful to the whole Tower Systems team for helping us adopt this online / video technology years ago and evolve with it over time as it is paying off today as business changes fundamentally.

With people working from home, we remain a connected team, working together, welcoming new customers and serving existing customers. Thanks to a solid tech infrastructure, we are resourced and skilled to help our customers no matter where they are.

Footnote: our reference to online training is different to the weekly online workshops that we have been running for more than 10 years.

Our head office is closed today for the Labour Day (8 hour day) public holiday.  We have other offices open for help desk support – all our usual numbers are live.

We’re here helping indie small business retailers while many businesses are closed for the summer break. We take our service of small business retailers seriously and the best way to show that is to be here taking calls, answering questions, providing training and helping resolve any issues that arise.

We make it easy for our customer to contact us by phone, email, text message, chat and social media. This variety is especially helpful over summer when business owners can be away from the shops. We can bring several phones together into a conference call to help answer queries.

Our motto is we’re here to help and especially in this slow summer period we are embracing opportunities to live that.

While our head office is closed today for the horse race that stops the nation, we are here taking calls and helping our customers. Our after hours numbers are active too as we know that many retailers are open today.

It is a holiday today in beautiful Melbourne on account of it being the day before the AFL Grand Final. While most of the companies y is closed, our help desk is open and helloing customers with queries.

We are thrilled to welcome two new voices to our small business POS software help desk. The new new team members, Minh and Rachael, bring wonderful life and technical experiences to our team.

Having shops of our own is useful for them to learn our software in a real life setting. Stru8ctuired training in the office helps provide them with foundational knowledge.

We take customer service seriously. Having a well resourced team its critical. Equipping them with the right tools is vital. Supporting them every day is what we do.

Here at Tower Systems, the best way we can help our customers beyond our software is backing it with helpful, skilled, help desk team members.

Our motto is we’re here to help, and we really are!

Our Hawthorn (Melbourne) office is open right now with our POS software help desk helping small business retailers. There is nothing unusual about this. We have offered office based Saturday support for years. Customers love it.

Our help desk was busy yesterday afternoon helping small business retailers deal with the consequences of the Telstra outage that cut off access to EFTPOS processing for many.

We helped by ensuring our help desk team members had the facts early, that it was identified as a network issue and nothing to do with our POS software per se, although using the software was affected.

By offering a calm voice about the issue and sharing facts as known helped some retailers realise that they were not alone and that parties responsible were public about the issue and working on it.

Being able to help small business retailers in a situation like this is something we are grateful to be able to do.

We have this morning reminded our customers about the need for a disaster plan in business, something a business can turn to in situations like this. A good disaster plan is a roadmap for all manner of situations., It can provide consistency and calm to an otherwise challenging situation.

Our latest new hire for our national help desk started with us yesterday, Friday. Training has started. This will be followed is in-field experience, peer review, more training, and more.

We have a structured process we follow for bringing new help desk team members online. We take our time, releasing them for standalone call engagement when we and they think they are ready.

Customer service matters to us.

Here is our short-form end of financial year advice for small business retailers:

1. Take a backup at the close of business on June 30 and store this in a safe place.
2. Produce a year on year sales comparison report – for your management benefit.
3. Produce a report of stock not sold in the last six months so you can kick off the new year with a mission.
4. Only do a stock take if your data management though the year has not been structured and consistent.

Yes, it is that simple. No longer does June 30 have to be crazy or stressful.

Here at Tower Systems we have been helping our POS software retail customers for months through free live online training workshops, regional user meetings, training videos and on on one support and advice, to be ready and to eliminate the need for a stressful June 30.

We are proud to offer our customers easy access to POS software support when they need it.

24/7.

Professional.

Engaged.

Human.

Serving small business retailers.

Because small business matters.

Supporting shop local.

#Proud.

We’re celebrating today’s public holiday but have ensures that our after hours phone network is available for urgent customer service queries. Plus our awesome knowledge base is live and accessible.

We are closed today for the Anzac Day public holiday and remembrance. Our after hours support numbers are live for urgent calls.

We received a terrific email of appreciation from a customer for help through the Easter break:

Mark, a personal note of thanks for your after hours support team. I had a major hardware crash and, of course, my hardware person was away. Your guys were terrific even though I didn’t buy the hardware from you. The help during Easter was truly above and beyond. Please thank the Tower Systems team.

As our motto says: we’re here to help…

We are closed for the next four days for the Easter long weekend break. Our after hours support team and our emergency escalation numbers are live throughout.

In addition to our after hours small business retailer POS software support, for many years we have offered Saturday support.  This is office based support delivered by folks expert in our POS software.

Our service is unique and loved. Most Saturday calls are from users seeking advice on better use of the software – not your traditional Help Desk call.

We are open today, here at the office, now.

By providing the office based service, we are able to provide better quality advice and access user systems to more quickly deliver the outcome they seek.

Accessibility is key in any software support situation.  This is another reason we commit considerable resources to our Saturday support service as well as our regular after hours service.

We are grateful to our customers who enable us to offer this service in addition to our after hours service.

Our offices are closed today for the Australia Day holiday. Our online services and our after hours help desk services are operating as normal.

Small business retailers using our POS software have a structured process working for them, serving them, to deliver access to customer service quickly, efficiently and with certainty.

We have a documented escalation process to serve 0ur customers. Were do this with pride and clear focus as we know that good customer service on the POS software help desk is appreciated.

Our customers can contact us in myriad ways:

Calling our help desk – we have contact numbers in each state and NZ.

1. Emailing,
2. By Facebook message.
3. By website message.
4. By dropping in.

Accessibility matters to small business retailers. We understand that and ensure we are resourced for it.

We back easy access with terrific service and an escalation process on which our customers can rely. We’re human and mistakes can be made. This is why we have a transparent, structured and useful escalation process for our POS software customers.

Here is what we include in every weekly email we send our customers about help desk escalation:

If you any reason you are unhappy with customer service:

1. Email support@towersystems.com.au with a subject of: Escalation.
2. Please provide as complete a description of the issues as possible.
3. If you have multiple points, please number each.
4. If your concern relates to a specific employee, please include their name.

We handle escalations in a structured way. On receiving an e mail it goes to point 1. If you are unhappy with that, please escalate to the next point in line.

1. CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER: csm@towersystems.com.au.
2. CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER: Gavin Williams. 03 9524 8000. Email gavinw@towersystems.com.au.
3. MANAGING DIRECTOR: Mark Fletcher. 0418 321 338. Email: mark@towersystems.com.au.

We have had this process in please for years. Feedback from o7ur customers is they love it’ll even though escalation is rarely called upon. Having the service there is a demonstration of good faith. It reflects the professional approach we provide. That our leadership team is easily contactable shows that we back ourselves with our POS software customers.

When it comes to POS software help desk access, accessibility matters. Knowing you can reach beyond the help desk matters and small business retailers understand this. It demonstrates our commitment to customer service for those we serve in this business.

May 2019 be bright and prosperous, fulfilling and wonderful, healthy and relaxing … for all of our customers and those who rely on their businesses for income and more.

We appreciate your support through 2018 and recommitment to be here for you in 2019.

Together, we can make 2019 a wonderful year!

These days between Christmas and New Year are terrific on the POS software help desk in that call traffic is not high and some customers take the opportunity to learn more about their software, to improve their businesses.

Our free training offer for all of our customers is loved and appreciated and this is the time of the year people can find time for learning more about the technology they have in their shops.

Our customers can book in for their free training by calling us or emailing bookings@towersystems.com.au. One of our POS software experts will provide one on one training tuned to the specific business, using data from that business. This makes the training more useful and beneficial.

While the free train ing offer is all year, this time of the year it is leverages more and we like that.

Here are our Christmas / New Year office. hours. Our comprehensive after hours phone network will remain available throughout for any urgent issue as well as email and our private customer Facebook page:

1. December 26. Closed.
2. December 27 Open 8:30am Close 5pm
3. December 28 Open 8:30am Close 5pm
4. December 31 Open 8:30am Close 2pm
5. January 1 Closed
6. January 2,Open 7am Close 5pm
7. January 3, Open 7am Close 5pm
8. January 4, Open 7am Close 5pm

As noted, after hours numbers will be live throughout, for urgent situations, along with our escalation process.