The POS Software Blog
News from Tower Systems about locally made POS software for specialty local retailers.
Tower Systems embraces a range of touch points for connecting with small business retailers. One such touch point is Facebook. We have a private group where our users can ask questions and talk through opportunities. We use this platform to share support and other announcements.
The Tower Systems user private Facebook page is proving to be a useful touch point, transparent too.
Customer service today requires change and here at Tower Systems we embrace change happily.
We are excited to be a couple of days away rom showing off new-look POS software. This will be at the Reed Gift Fair in Sydney this coming weekend.
The result of extraordinary effort by our development and design teams, this new look software is fresh and exciting. It provides small business retailers a new experience.
For us, the new look software is like a retail business doing a shop fit. The result is similar.
We are excited to be bringing this to the marketplace.
This latest refresh continues our commitment to keeping it fresh for o8ur customers.
One of the things that separates Tower Systems aside from other retailers is that we are retailers too, and have been for many years. We walk in the shoes of our customers in a way that other POS software companies don;t and can;t This video is an example of the value of on show as we speak about sales growth at one of our retail stores:
Our Tower Systems POS software system is very configurable. Users have the ability, if they wish, to run without being hosted. This solves any Internet stability questions, particularly for rural/regional Australian where this may be an issue.
The other challenge with cloud is the costs. Our experience is some small business owners are not happy with the monthly hosting cost for a cloud service.
These are the reasons we have configured our software to suit whatever situation a customer prefers.
Alternatively, if users want, we can host the system in the cloud. This can be hosted on our secure dedicated infrastructure (additional costs will apply) or on infrastructure of their choosing. We will provide guidance on the configuration so the ideal environment is created.
If hosted on our infrastructure customers are charged on a per user per month basis.
If the user runs in a hosted environment and the internet drops out the user can switch to a facility we call Outpost Mode.
Outpost mode allows for basic trading, scanning sales, until such time as Internet access is restored.
This is another example of the help we provide to our customers for a broad variety of situations in which they find themselves.
We have been covering software support on Saturdays using our after hours team since Christmas as we have done every year due to less call traffic. Today, the office based Saturday service restarts – though all our office numbers. We are open now.
For the first time since 2014, Tower Systems is increasing its software support fees. The increase will be less than 7%. The 2014 increase was the first in four years.
Following the fee increase, Tower Sys6ems customers will be paying considerably less for software support in real terms than seven years ago.
This is an extraordinary saving for thousands of small business retailers.
We announced to our customers the plan to increase fees a month ago and provided them an opportunity to lock in the old fee prior to the increase taking effect at the end of this month.
This advance notice of a support fee increase is rare in the POS software marketplace. We did it out of respect and appreciation of our customers.
We are proud to be in a position to help our customers save money year on year on software support coverage.
We had another dog day in the head office of our POS software company on Wednesday of this week. Plenty of team members brought their cute pooches in for the day, mixing with each other and with our team members. It was a thill.
Here are some of the cuties we hosted.
We love dog day for the opportunity to play with the dogs and be reminded of the pet retail marketplace, an important marketplace for us.
While we are closed for the Australia Day public holiday today, our after hours help desk numbers are live as is our escalation team supporting them. With plenty of retailers open today we are ensuring we are here to help.
Software user manuals are out of date. Years ago Tower Systems switched to a user searchable online knowledge base. This resource is regularly enhanced, along with the software.
In our weekly email we let our customers know about the enhancements. Here are some of the POS software knowledge base enhancements from a week ago:
We publish a list like this most weeks in ur weekly customer service email.
When a small business retailer or staff member calls the Tower Systems POS software help desk they get to talk with a human. There is no automated phone system.
The human they talk with engages in a conversation. There is no script for them to follow.
They listen to you. There is no set of hoops to jump through as they navigate a computer system that controls the call.
The Tower Systems help desk is a personal service help desk. It offers personal service to small business retailers using the Tower Systems POS software.
The approach by Tower Systems is considerable in the POS software space. The people answering the calls have personal experience using the software in retail. They have context. Their prime job is to listen to the customers and from listening to gain understanding. This is the start of every good support call.
The personal and human approach by Tower Systems is unique. It is another advantage offered by Tower Systems to small business retailers.
Being able to get help in using POS software outside usual business hours is vital for any small retail business.
Tower Systems makes tis easy. The company has a network of mobile phones that are accessible. There is also a layer of management phone numbers and email addresses for escalation if necessary.
The ultimate demonstration of customer service commitment is that the personal mobile number of the owner of Tower Systems is readily available to all customers.
Here is a copy of a recent support card posted to all Tower Systems customers. This is customer service best practice.
May 2017 be a year of new traffic, higher GP, less stress and more enjoyment in your small business shop.
Here at Tower Systems we will work hard to support and help you achieve your goals.
Plenty of small business shops are closed this week which makes for a quieter week on the help desk. We have been taking the opportunity to attend to some housekeeping here in the office. It is always good to have time to work on your own infrastructure. This is especially exciting given the plans for 2017. We are excited and 2017 is still a couple of days away.
Today we close at 5pm. Based on past years the help desk traffic will be minimal by this time.
Even though Christmas holidays are in full swing, the Tower systems customer service team is on deck and helping retailers.
One retailer about to sell their business needed help yesterday to finalise data prior to the settlement with the new owner in less than a week and we were able to help. In this case the help was in the form of business advice more so that POS software specific advice.
We are grateful for the opportunity to help our retail business owner customers beyond the software. It is what we are here for. As a POS software company with practical retail experience, our help often goes way beyond what people expect from a POS software company.
As our motto says: we’re here to help.
Thanks to our cloud based small business retail BI platform we get to see comparative sales data for a range of independent retail businesses.
Christmas 2016 has been strong from what we see. Good businesses marketing themselves well outside their four walls are seeing good year on year growth.
The BI platform we have developed helps our customers track key performance indicators remotely and easily. This is a wonderful benefit to help these retailers see trends, represented visually.
We are thrilled to be helping retailers achieve this.
Fast access to POS software support is key this week. Retailers are busy. retail employees are under the pump. Every question to any POS software company help desk this week is urgent. This is why we are all hands on deck, making sure every query is treated with priority and resolved quickly.
From the first calls early in the morning to the last calls late at night, our help desk team is here helping small business retailers have a more enjoyable Christmas trading period. This is part of our customer Christmas gift.
The types of calls our POS software help desk receives in the week before Christmas changes. This week, calls will all be about quick resolution, the calls will be about the now rather than with an eye to the future.
Retail businesses will be busier this week than any other week of the year in most situations.
To serve the needs that we know will be unique to this week we have our help desk team focussed and our processes tuned to serve our customers, to provide the best possible outcome as quickly as possible.
We understand time is especially short this week. We have structured our approach to ensure we meet the expectations of our customers.
We have a fully staffed help desk. We back them with our escalation team and senior management.
We want this week before Christmas to be happy and valuable for everyone!
We are thrilled to be personally helping retailers this very busy Saturday with easy access to POS software customer service through our office based help desk and backed up by our after hours team. They are all backed up with easy access to the leadership team of Tower Systems.
We take providing easy access to good customer service seriously.
Tower Systems is planning its free weekly live POS software training schedule for 2017. This process includes considering the engagement for 2016, talking with customers about training they would like to see and planning sessions on topics we anticipate will be hot to serve the changing needs of retail.
Training is more important that ever as small business retailers seek to get more value from their technology investments.
We are grateful to all of our customers who have engaged in the free training this year. The 100+ sessions we have run have been a wonderful opportunity for direct customer contact and through which we can add value to the customer relationship.
Our training program is a point of difference for us. But more important, it is a point of difference for our customers since it helps our customers to leverage the training for delivering better outcomes in their own businesses.
Every one of our customers has access to the training. Better still, every one of our customers can guide the development of the training topics – ensuring we serve broad needs and not just those we think are important.
Our fist workshop topics will be announced prior to Christmas.
We are thrilled with the announcement from our EFTPOS partner Tyro on the release of their dynamic surcharging facility, a facility that makes it easy for retailers to charge a surcharge appropriately. This is good news for retailers. especially small business retailers where some card fees are a serious post on small margin products.
How often have you struggled with surcharging? The new RBA regulations will make it even more complicated.
That’s why we have upgraded all Tyro EFTPOS terminals with a dynamic surcharging option, it will recommend surcharging rates to you based on the RBA’s regulations and your card transactions in the last 12 months. You can easily review and alter these rates at any time. Check out Dynamic Surcharging and see how it works.
This announcement from Tyro to our customers is part of a broader communication strategy from the company and supported by us in educating small business retailers about greater flexibility thanks to tyro.
Xero skilled accountants are loving our free service of listing them on our POS software website as Xero accountants.
This service is another way Tower Systems is helping small business focussed accountants with Xero skills to connect with potential clients looking for help with managing the accounting requirements for their software.
We are grateful of the opportunity for differentiation.
We are grateful to have the resources to be of service to small business retailers and accountants who serve them.
The latest version of ur small business POS software is gaining a terrific reaction from our customers. We are getting calls, emails and messages from customers grateful for the update and that we have introduced enhancements they have suggested.
Here are some of the feedback notes we have received:
Our process of determining the content of software updates is transparent and inclusive. From online forums to calls to emails to face to face user meetings around the country we talk with our customers as we develop each software update.
We are grateful to our customers for their engagement in the crafting of each software update.
We are thrilled to have shared with our customers another update to our POS software in time for Christmas. This update contains some bonus facilities, previously unannounced.
Surprising customers with unexpected enhancements has been common this year as we have delivered more valuable retail focussed tools across each of the specialty marketplaces we serve.
Our customers received a comprehensive email yesterday with details of the latest fresh retail software for: gift shops, jewellers, bike shops, toy shops, fishing/outdoors businesses, garden centres/nurseries, pet shops, produce stores, firearms businesses and newsagents.
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