Regrets. Many of us will no doubt have a few in the aftermath of the festive season. A little too much indulgence, a little too much extravagance, and of course the January blues to follow.
Regret also seems to be a theme that dogs retail tech procurement. In a study carried out by influential IT analyst Gartner, half of retailers who made software purchases in the past year said they had regrets about it. Just under a quarter (23%) said they weren’t entirely satisfied with multiple purchases.
Some of these regrets centre on the products themselves. In particular, it’s telling that 29% of retailers who regretted purchases said it was because the system they’d invested in wasn’t user-friendly enough.
But the survey found bigger concerns over a lack of training and onboarding (36%) and poor technical support (31%). So not so much the product, but who it was purchased from.
This underlines something fundamental about POS procurement. Choosing the right supplier is as important as picking the right product.
In fact, in many ways, it’s far better to view things in terms of selecting a POS partner rather than a one-and-done product purchase. POS performance is integral to your business. There’s a degree of technical complexity in staging and configuring a new POS system, no matter how good the actual product is. And then there’s long-term maintenance and upkeep to factor in.
It’s perhaps also telling that a noticeably higher percentage (60%) of younger businesses under five years old said they had regrets over POS purchases. A case of learning from experience, perhaps. But POS represents a significant investment. Feeling as if you’re not receiving enough support to get the most from a system you’ve spent heavily on is a hard lesson to take.
How to pick the right POS supplier
It doesn’t have to be that way. There are lots of great POS providers around who not only offer great software, they focus on building effective long-term relationships through effective support. At AURES, we work with many such companies, who supply our hardware (and hardware expertise) as part of the package.
For us, the key to POS satisfaction is looking beyond the product as you shop around. Yes, you want software that is user-friendly, efficient, with features that are tailored to the needs of your business and the ability to integrate multiple processes in one place. You also want reliable, high-performance hardware on which to run it all, that won’t let you down through the hard slog of daily use.
But the biggest mistake businesses make when buying new POS systems is making it all about the features and technical capabilities. Any good salesperson can wow you with specifications. A better way to get the measure of whether you’ll really be getting a solution that makes a difference to your business is to ask about the kind of support you’ll be getting post-purchase. What are the supplier’s SLAs for service and maintenance? How long do warranties last, and is there an aftercare package to follow?
POS suppliers that take support seriously base their business model on building long-term relationships. Sustaining a reputation for being reliable matters to them. That means supplying a POS solution that delivers for your business in the first place, and following that up with effective support.
Pick the right POS partner in 2024, and you won’t have to worry about those post-purchase blues anymore!