Maintaining a great customer experience.
The pandemic has revealed a need for the retail and hospitality industries to adapt their offerings and services to meet consumers’ changing requirements and expectations. It’s time for you and your business to look forward and anticipate these changing needs, or customers may disregard you as an option. You need to make it as easy and as seamless as possible for them to buy what you’re selling in this new era.
Your customers will be looking for a familiar experience that makes them feel safe. Cleanliness, personal space, and ease of seamless online and real-life experiences will be prioritized, along with enhanced e-commerce and pick up in stores. Because of this, it’s now more important than ever to ensure the POS system is up to par with the new normal.
This ‘new normal’ for the retail and hospitality industry post-pandemic has forced some businesses to accelerate their digital transformation, explicitly ensuring they have the best POS system for these evolving needs.
Do you have the right POS solution for your business needs?
With so many POS systems on the market, picking the right one for your business can be overwhelming. Now, more than ever, leaders in the retail and hospitality industry must ensure they have a POS system that works for their specific requirements. Furthermore, the POS system should integrate with existing platforms, like click-and-collect systems, in-store or restaurant pickup, delivery, and current API and eCommerce platforms.
Other considerations include how the POS might work with subscription-based services that reduce shopping trips and interactions, and even how a POS may connect to electronics and other devices that support home-based transactions and experiences.
At Olive, we aim to bridge the gap between buyers and sellers, and it is our mission to help you find the best POS software solution for your unique and evolving business needs. We believe the secret to finding the best POS is to lead with these business needs.
Unfortunately, current software procurement practices fail to deliver on their expected returns for many retail and hospitality industry CIO’s seeking POS systems and other technology solutions. The pandemic has undoubtedly increased the urgency to find the right solution. Many are learning that the POS system software they have relied on before the pandemic does not meet the business’s new needs, and might be costing sales and creating less than ideal customer experiences.
How to find the best match POS software for your business
1. Identify your needs and goals
Googling “Top POS platforms 2020” will not deliver a specific result based on your needs. What works great as a POS for a grocery store chain may not be the best POS for a Hotel chain. With an endless collection of POS systems to select from, it’s essential to examine your business goals and objectives, know your customer’s needs and behaviors, and use this information to define what you need from a POS system.
2. Define and Rank your POS requirements
Now that you have identified your needs and goals, the next step is to define your specific POS requirements and rank these needs against your business objectives. The more stakeholders engaged at this point, the more complete your list of POS requirements are, and you will be more precise on what “best-fit” means for your organization.
3. Explore the available Options
Now that you have clearly defined the POS features and integrations you need, with the input of essential collaborators, the next step is to look at that long list of vendors and narrow the choices down to a shortlist of solutions.
Traditionally, this is done by reading and finding testimonials from other organizations, or searching for POS reviews on Capterra or G2Crowd. Still, it’s essential to consider that these vendors pay to play in this space, and there may be some bias attached to the options presented. With Olive, we don’t charge vendors, so you can be confident that there is no bias on the shortlist.
4. Evaluate vendors
Now that you have a shortlist of 3-5 vendors who meet your goals and requirements, it’s a good idea to ask for a use case example and a demonstration of the product.
5. Make the best choice for your business needs
When making the final decision in securing a POS System, it is imperative to do your due diligence in ensuring that you are choosing a POS based on your business’s needs and goals, without bias, with plenty of input from various stakeholders.
Finding the best POS for your business’s needs can be an efficient and collaborative process.
Olive has helped companies like Freddy’s find the right POS for their needs. Olive takes the best process for procuring software and makes it easy for you to collaborate with your stakeholders to identify and rank your requirements. With Olive, you can anonymously review all the POS systems and integrations available in the space, within the context of how these POS systems meet your evolving business needs. Olive takes this long list of vendors and boils it down to a shortlist that is assured to meet your needs. Searching for POS reviews on Capterra or G2Crowd, can deliver biased results, but with Olive, we don’t charge vendors, so you can be confident that there is no bias on the shortlist.
With Olive, you can check out various project requirements ahead of time and easily filter out vendors based on these requirements. Easily filter out vendors who don’t meet your needs, and ensure the POS addresses new business concerns.
With Olive, you can make better decisions faster.
Learn More about Olive
Acknowledgments
Do You Have the Right Sales Channels for a Downturn?
Planning for the Post COVID-19 Retail World
