The POS Software Blog
News from Tower Systems about locally made POS software for specialty local retailers.
Tower Systems has begun an education campaign for small business retailers in Australia in selected specialist retail channels outlining how they can benefit from the immediate asset write-off opportunity announced in the federal budget last night.
Retail businesses turning over $2 million a year or less can immediately write off the purchase of our Point of Sale solution.
Our software delivers the productivity benefits the federal government is keen to see small businesses access.
POS software can do more for small business retailers than they may think. Good POS software, like that from Tower Systems, goes deep into the business, away from the sales counter, helping in many ways.
Help with avoiding and clearing dead stock.
POS software can do more for small business retailers than they may think. Good POS software, like that from Tower Systems, goes deep into the business, away from the sales counter, helping in many ways.
Help with managing employees.
POS software can do more for small business retailers than they may think. Good POS software, like that from Tower Systems, goes deep into the business, away from the sales counter, helping in many ways.
Help with lease negotiations.
Landlords want facts when negotiating new leases, especially if a tenant is seeking a change in terms. Thanks to the metrics in our POS software, our customers have ready access to accurate data such as shopper traffic, basket depth, shopper efficiency, space efficiency among others. These and other data points help retailers to be more informed in landlord negotiations.
Thanks to our retail experience we also help retailers assemble information from the POS software so retailers can put forward the best case possible. We have done this many times working with retailers in different channels and different retail situations and even talking directly to their landlord to provide certainty and confidence as to the accuracy and value of the business data.
Sometimes, POS software help desk advice is not right. It could be they did not understand the question, that you did not completely explain the question or that they got it plain wrong.
A good POS software help desk will offer a structured escalation process where you can take any concern and have it considered away from the help desk. Such an escalation process will involve senior management and have at its heart good communication.
Tower Systems has a structured escalation process with three points of escalation outside of the help desk function. Customers can use this or they can bypass a step as all contact points in the escalation process are published regularly.
Tower customers can speak directly with the owner of the business, Mark Fletcher, on 0418 321 338.
We encourage customers to challenge help desk advice to ensure that the advice is right for the actual question or problem. This can be done in a respectful way with the outcome always on ensuring the best possible customer service experience.
Retailers who actively engage with the POS software help desk process usually achieve a more meaningful and valuable outcome for themselves and their business.
We were thrilled to be able to catch up with a Tower Systems POS software customer some months after their installation so see how things were going.
I love your training, just love it. What they did in the shop was fantastic but it’s the videos I really love.
I love that I can get my staff to watch them and track their progress.
I know the importance of training and thanks to your videos I am seeing improvements in performance.
Better still, these videos help me make more money.
Tower Systems offers access to more than 130 professional videos for use by customers at any time and from anywhere. These videos significantly enhance the Tower customer experience.
Our video training library is part of a comprehensive training program of in-store, over the phone, group and local workshop training. Our offer is comprehensive and constantly evolving based on customer feedback.
Tower Systems CEO (and newsagent) Mark Fletcher speaks about the magazine supply rule changes small business newsagents are facing. This video speaks to a passion and support not only for newsagents but all small business retailers:
Demonstrating its commitment to innovation, the latest release of POS software from Tower Systems offers a completely new stock take facility.
Completely re-designed from the ground up, this new stocktaking facility works as well with tablets as it does on your traditional desktop.
Packed with new features, this new stock take facility is available for the end of financial year stock take retailers will undertake over the next two months.
Tower Systems is committed to providing its small business retail partners a continuously improving POS software experience through considerable investment in software development.
Tower Systems has had an excellent three days this week at a major pet industry trade show where our software was presented on the trade show floor as well as from the conference floor where the business benefits of the Tower software were discussed explored.
A big thrill of many or those representing Tower Systems at this important event was the enduring friendships made. What a wonderful experience.
Preorders are important in several specialist retail businesses. They can help you lock-in shoppers long before product is available. Offering the service is often appreciated, especially by collectors who want to be first with a new product in their area of collection.
Using smart facilities in our POS software, retailers are able to easily manage preorders from payment to order tracking to customer communication.
Our preorder facilities are all about helping retailers grow their businesses and ensuring they do not lose sales.
The more structured your processes around special orders and preorders the more support you will achieve from customers.
Developed with retailers specialising in preorders, the Tower POS software serves this need well.
Software is only as valuable to a business as the contribution it makes. This contribution can be measured in time and money for its from these two that all other benefits flow. Here are ways our point of sale software will help gift shops, jewellers, bike retailers, pet shops and more make more money and free time
Newsagency software company Tower Systems has advice for newsagents wanting help with the out of cycle special issues of Woman’s Day and New Idea this Thursday. First to market, best practice … as always.
Tower Systems offers retailers using its POS software free access to a video training portal where the software can be learned at the pace of the learner.
Retailers love this training resource. They love that they can tap into training anytime anywhere. They also love that the training is arranged by curriculum. They love that they can track employee progress.
With more than 130 professional videos, the owner training resource is valuable and extensive – with new videos added this year.
This resource alone is a reason some retailers join our community.
We have a sizeable team flying to Hobart today for the national Just For Pets conference. Just For Pets is a pet retail buying, marketing and management group. We are proud to be their pet shop software partner.
We will have our new Pet Shop software on show at the conference along with insights and assistances to help the Just For Pets retailers get more from their Tower Systems software.
Our involvement kicks off tonight at the welcome function which we are sponsoring.
How do you know which software company is the best? beyond the software itself, after sales service is the key. Tower Systems is a leader in the field of consistently good, engaged and valuable after sales service.
For years, Tower Systems has offered free weekly live training workshops – accessible online. They continue today.
Hot topics soon book up. Tower Systems responds by adding more sessions. Our customers love this. We love it too!
Measurement is key to the success of any retail business. This is especially true for small retail businesses.
Measuring sales, stock, employees and suppliers is mission critical.
Without accurate and consistent measurement, you are not able to make good business decisions or to hold others to account for their actions.
By measuring you can make better decisions.
Here are some simple rules for accurate measurement in retail:
If you are not tracking it you cannot manage it.
By making your business data driven you are better equipped to take the emotion and gut feel out of business decisions. This will improve decision quality and accountability and, hopefully, the return you achieve from these decisions.
Businesses which do not measure stock, suppliers, employees and sales accurately often find themselves faltering without knowing why – because they have no accurate data on which to base research.
Tower Systems earlier this week contributed to Oxfam’s Nepal earthquake appeal. This financial contribution is outside our usual giving commitment through the year. We selected Oxfam for their low operating overheads (10%) and the nature of the work they undertake.
In another part of our business, outside of software development activities, we help support a family in Nepal.
Tower Systems is funding Newsagency of the Future workshops for more cities. These sessions will explore changes which will affect the newsagency channel in the next few years, new traffic opportunities and changes newsagents can make today to improve their future. They will also spend time on the magazine supply model and open discussion about the proposed magazine supply rule changes.
Each session is free and open to any newsagent. The dates are as follows:
Click on the link for each city to book or book by emailing bookings@towersystems.com.au.
There will be more locations and dates added including TAS, WA, Cairns and Newcastle.
Our goal is for you to have practical steps you can take right away and new information to consider in your business planning.
The Tower Systems software for jewellers is unique in a number of ways. here are some of them:
Coming soon to capital cities and regional centres: The New Loyalty, a FREE workshop on an innovative approach to loyalty in retail comparing, points, BOGO, 2fer, buyXgetY and other shopper loyalty programs. This is an EXCLUSIVE event from Tower Systems for any retailer.
This workshop will take retailers being the scenes and share data from a range of businesses, showing how a good loyalty program is helping retail businesses grow in highly competitive situations.
Tower Systems has been represented at the Hong Kong Gift & Premium Fair this week meeting with Australian gift suppliers and Australian gift retailers. This has been an excellent opportunity to spot trends and explore fresh opportunities for our gift retail partners back in Australia.
While we are not gift products wholesalers, we do work closely with them on a range of fronts and participating in this fair again this year has been a helpful experience in developing stronger relationships with suppliers for our customers.
The fair had more than 4,000 businesses in booths and it attracted over 100,000 retailers visiting these booths.
Serving hundreds of retailers using our Gift Shop Software, Tower Systems innovates through its software and the retailer / supplier relationships it supports. This is why being at this fair in Hong Kong is important for any software company which wants to ensure its offers are relevant to today’s gift shop.
Thanks to the safe drop reminder in our POS software, retailers can expect their staff to act to protect cash in the business. This is another retailer thoughtful facility in our software.
A preset amount can be set on a per register basis to remind staff to remove excess cash from the till for security reasons. This is only a cash figure and does not take into account EFTPOS and nor should it.
Sometimes it is the smallest of facilities retailers love about software which encourages them to use it.
In our case, we have a wonderful and engaged community of users encoring us with ideas regularly.
Here at Tower Systems we follow a professional and structured approach to switching retailers from POS software they no longer wish to use.
We extract all data we can get access to. Unfortunately, some POS software companies restrict this as if they think it will reduce the number of businesses moving from their software.
We provide training reflecting the software they are switching from.
We provide senior management access outside the help desk to manage the transition.
We prove that not all POS software companies are the same.
It can be challenging moving from one POS software package to another. we try and make it as easy as possible. With years experience moving many hundreds of retailers to our software we have practical knowledge on which to draw. This helps us help small business retailers make the transition.
We are grateful for these opportunities.
We recently were interviewed by email about after sales service for retailers purchasing our POS software for an article to be published shortly. Here is our response.
What kind of after-sales support is available with your POS software?
Our Australian based help desk is available Monday through Friday from 7am AEST to 6pm AEST and on Saturday from 7:30am AEST through 3pm AEST. We also offer 24/7 after hours support at no additional cost.
Our help desk services (office hours and after hours) are backed up by escalation to senior management of the business. Every customer is given the direct mobile phone numbers of our national management team including the owner of the company – as a measure of transparency and commitment to service.
Each week we host a live online training workshop covering a part of the software. This includes a Q&A session. Access to this online workshop is free.
Via our website we provide access to a comprehensive and constantly evolving knowledge base of articles and documentation. This is accessible 24/7 and can be searched using regular English terms. It is 100% non-technical, user friendly and designed for self service.
Our customers also have free access to one on one training.
Plus our customers have access to a FREE backup check service and a FREE theft check service.
Do you charge on-site servicing fees?
If a customer wants additional training then we may charge for that but our experience is that it is not necessary given the free services they have access to.
More than 200 retailers are using our recently launched employee roster software. Even though the software is only in beta release, plenty are using it actively i their businesses to manage rostering of employees and managing the labour costs of the business.
This cloud based FREE roster software from Tower Systems is another way the company is reinvesting into small business retail channels – to provide tools retailers can use to better manage labour costs.
The Tower Systems POS software has had roster software for many years. This latest facility reflects a next generation approach. It is available to any business regardless of the POS software they use.
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