Keeping up with your customers is one of the greatest challenges for retailers in the digital era. As online sales continue to increase, it puts added pressure on brick-and-mortar stores to find ways to maximize their POS software to provide a seamless customer experience.
While your customers’ needs haven’t necessarily changed, their expectations certainly have. More than ever, they are demanding:
- Quick, efficient transactions
- Personalized service
- Instant access to product information
When you consider a customer can get this with a few taps on a smartphone, you can see why storeowners are looking for ways to up their game. Fortunately, if your retail outlet uses advanced point of sale software, there are things you can do to improve the in-store experience.
Bring the Checkout Counter to Your Customer
If you were to ask your customers what they like least about shopping in stores, you’d probably get some of the following responses:
- Long lines
- Complacent cashiers
- Unavailable product
One way to overcome this is to equip your team with mobile POS software devices. By sending staff members onto the showroom floor equipped with these powerful devices, your customers get the best of both worlds:
- They get to interact with a real human
- They have access to extensive information
This approach indicates to your customers that you’re encouraging your staff to be engaging. It also enables them to make sales on the spot, while customers focused on making the purchase.
Loyalty Customers Are Repeat Customers
Gaining customers is a good start. Retaining them is the bigger prize. As the competition among retail outlets increases, more businesses are turning to loyalty programs to entice customers to stick with them.
It’s an effective tactic and POS software makes it easy. That’s because it allows your front-end workers to enroll customers on the spot. Once their information is in the database, you can personalize customers’ shopping experience by:
- Making exclusive offers and incentives
- Keeping them informed with email newsletters
- Sending them a note wishing them a happy birthday
- Performing customer satisfaction checks
If you’re operating a points-based loyalty program, your point of sale software will track their progress, making it easy to redeem points and manage their account.
Self-directed Browsing
With the Internet at their fingertips, it’s not surprising that customers visiting your store will use their smartphones to:
- Compare competitor prices
- Read product reviews
- Find similar products elsewhere
Known as showrooming, this trend is viewed as a threat by many stores. Others view it as an opportunity, and are countering this tendency by using their own mobile-optimized sites to:
- Recommend products
- Make special online offers
- Learn more about in-store products
To learn more about the capabilities of point of sale software, check out our post: 4 Things Your POS Software Should Be Able to Do.
Are you looking for way to improve your customer relations? Call Windward Software to learn how our POS software will keep your customers happy and increase foot traffic to your brick-and-mortar store.
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