Tips to help you choose your POS Software and vendor partner.

• Does the prospective vendor provide insight into how the POS can help your operations run better? POS vendors are professionals and should be able to provide sound professional advice specific to your retail business. Specialty retail is complex as no two businesses operate the same way, your POS vendor should have experience with your retail model and be able to easily justify your ROI.
  
  
• Does the vendor have a project team assigned to your installation? A Project Management team is critical to mange your expections through implementation and provide business process recommendations. A qualified trainer to teach your staff the features of your new system in terms that you can relate to. A dedicated support staff to help you through your installation. A customer service manager to take care of your ongoing needs and a competant technical staff to implement and integrate the technology into your business.
  
  
• Does the vendor have customer references specific to your type of business? It is important they are willing to list clients that have benefited from their expertise. References can tell you more about the vendor than the vendor can. Ask about service and support received, response time, after hours responsiveness, integrity and professionalism. You may even ask for references who have had some issues – issues do occur in the real world and it is beneficial to hear how the vendor responded.
  
  
• Does the vendor provide a turnkey solution for equipment, maintenance, software, support and training? This demonstrates the vendor is capable of providing support for all of the Retail Management Solution, eliminating a need for separate support call for each component. When you need help with a problem you dont want to hear its not our problem, having a single number to call in a crisis is priceless.
  
  
• What is the vendor's focus? Does the vendor understand your business? The vendors focus should be in your industry . POS is available for many unrelated industries and you want the partner you choose to specialize in your business focus. A true retail solutions provider should be able to know your "hot buttons", terminology and issues.
  
  
• Is the vendor able to customize special requests that you may have? (i.e., custom modifications, reports, accounting details etc.) A POS system should be attuned to your business focus and enable you to improve operations, while decreasing costs. The dealer should be able to assist you in customizing the POS to meet your specific needs. A ggod test of this may be customizations already developed for your type of business.
  
  
• Does the vendor understand accounting? When the month is over your financial statement should be ready for you to review, timely and accurate finacial information is critical to running any business. When integrating your POS System there are many ways you can save time like reconciling credit card charges to bank statements, controls like verification of inventory receivings and costs, and the payment of vendor invoices.
  
  
• How many years has the vendor been selling and supporting the proposed software? It takes at least 5 years experience to effectively support a comprehensive retail POS product. You want your vendor to be able to assist you in resolving the problem as quickly as possible and there is NO substitue for experience. Ask about the vendors complex installations to ensure they can meet your needs down the road.
  
  
• Does the vendor offer toll free 24x7x365 support? Lets face it, you run a retail business 12 hours or longer. Your problems need to be fixed immedialely.
  
• Does the vendor have qualified Systems Engineers and Support personnel on staff? The dealer should have an established team and organizational structure so you are able to have response to any of your service needs. You vendor needs backups for all support and technical staff in case of an emergency, you cannot have you key support person being your trainer, installer and support team all rolled into one, what are you going to do when they are on another installation.
  
  
• What are the offered hours of support? Are you able to choose the support and service contract you need for your business ? 24x7x365 is a support option you must have available with a fully manned support desk. As your business grows you may have locations in different tiime zones and stores hours may extend into non standard work hours. To help you decide the support you need, sit down with the vendor and thoroughly discuss the options they offer. Support can be as simple as a phone call to fix or may require a site visit or equipment replacement. Make sure you are aware of how each of these levels of support impact your business operations and your cost. Ask to see a copy of the service contract and scrutinize it carefully.

From our experience, these are key questions to ask. Over 300 C&K clients have asked these questions of us over the years and we are proud to say that we are still an integral partner with most of these clients. In fact, C&K Systems' first client, First Colony Coffee, is still a dedicated CounterPoint user and C&K continues to partner with them for service and support.