Make the right decision and revolutionise your business.
For many businesses, particularly those within the hospitality industry, an EPoS (Electronic Point of Sale) system is arguably one of the most complex yet important pieces of equipment they’ll invest in. Providing more functionality than simply accepting orders, an ICRTouch EPoS solution can bring together all operations within your business, from kitchen order management and customer-facing order status displays to digital menu signage, customer loyalty, stock management and order-to-table solutions.
Making the right decision about which EPoS to go with can not only revolutionise the way your business operates, but also save you a huge amount of time and money.
With this in mind, we’ve pulled together our list of the top things you should be considering when choosing a new EPoS system and supplier to make sure you’re saving costs.
To ensure return on your investment, choose the right solution from the start.
1. Avoid hidden costs
Installation, programming, updates, credit card fees, premium versions and processing. There are so many tricks that ‘free’ or ‘cheap’ EPoS suppliers use to hide the real cost of their solutions. The upfront cost should not be the only, or even the most important criteria when choosing a new system. To ensure a high return on your investment, choose the right solution from the start. Otherwise, it can become a costly mistake, even if you paid nothing in the first place.
Many providers offer solutions that on the face of it appear to be a great deal, but in reality come with slow, low quality support, irregular updates, generic features and a lack of scalability and flexibility. Often there are multiple hidden costs relating to premium versions of the software or features, access to documentation and astronomical card processing fees.
Whilst other providers are hindering, here at ICRTouch, we’re on a mission to help. We want hospitality businesses to improve efficiency and productivity by simplifying processes and streamlining operations, all of which can only be achieved by providing transparent pricing for our solutions. Our Authorised Partner Network will work with you to establish the most cost effective EPoS solution for your business.
Don’t be caught out by astronomical credit card fees!
Your EPoS solution will require linking to an electronic funds transfer (EFT) provider, and the system you choose can vastly change the fees you’ll pay per transaction. Many ‘cheap’ online EPoS providers rely on credit card fees as a way to offset their own headline costs. This can often mean only one choice of EFT solution with extraordinarily high rates – even up to 2.75% per transaction!
In contrast, here at ICRTouch we believe in being transparent with our customers and collaborate with a number of payment providers, which could easily save you approx. 46%* on your processing fees every year!
The ICRTouch ecosystem of products has been designed with customer experience in mind.
2. Keep things customisable and able to integrate
Keeping up with too many providers and platforms can be stressful, and costly! Third party integrations each have their own service costs and they can really add up fast. So it’s important to choose an EPoS system that can perform as many of your required tasks as possible, before needing to rely on extra services.
Whether it’s managing orders digitally within the kitchen via software such as TouchKitchen, offering customer loyalty schemes, providing a webshop, or allowing customers to place orders from their tables, the ICRTouch ecosystem can be configured to include so much functionality, right from the start. We understand that sometimes, third party services can’t be avoided. In those cases, it’s important to ensure an integration with your EPoS is seamless, saving you time and money.
Automate processes to speed up your operations.
With our flagship software, TouchPoint and TouchOffice Web, the days of manually copying across orders from Deliveroo and Just Eat are over – with ICRTouch your orders will integrate seamlessly.
3. Never be left without quality, local support
As well as being incredibly frustrating, a lack of technical support can cost your business significantly. If your till system fails during a busy dinner service and you’re not able to place orders or take payments, you want to know that there’s a local support team available nearby to get you back up and running as soon as possible.
Many ‘free’ or ‘cheap’ providers won’t have your back. From not accepting support calls outside of office hours to only operating call centres outside of the UK, the result is often a significant loss of sales and hugely reduced takings, giving you hours of unnecessary frustration and stress.
Here at ICRTouch, we work closely with our dedicated Authorised Partner Network that extends across the UK and Ireland to ensure high levels of service, support and training. Don’t leave yourself high and dry with an impersonal, online EPoS supplier – instead, collaborate with one of our local Authorised Partners who are not only able to provide industry leading software, but also visit your business in person, work with you and your teams to problem solve and find the best solution for you. Better yet, they’ll have accountability to ensure you’re operating as efficiently and effectively as possible. We strongly advise that you understand your support requirements before making any decisions on a new EPoS provider.
The faster you complete operations, the more transactions you finalise.
4. Customer-friendly
Given how important your EPoS is to the efficient operation of your business, it should go without saying that the system you choose should also work effectively and effortlessly to improve your customers’ experience. A big part of that improvement is ensuring a swift solution, whether that’s fast functioning digital menus or super fast payments.
Allowing your customers to complete a transaction via their preferred payment method such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, contactless etc; giving them easy access to their order history and ability to quickly re-order; or just being able to join a loyalty programme within a few clicks, are all elements of your customer experience that are really worth thinking about. Consider what interactions your customers will have with your new system, as well as you and your staff, and ensure they’re functioning as quickly as possible to provide a streamline process for everyone involved. After all, the faster you complete your operations, the more customers and transactions you can interact with and complete.
Fast, secure payments, every time.
The ICRTouch product ecosystem integrates with only the best card payment providers to ensure you get fast, quality and secure transactions every time. With the correct payment solutions provider, you’ll be able to offer customers efficient payment options with less mistakes, using their preferred method.
5. Stay mobile
If you’re looking for an alternative to having multiple static till terminals, want to reduce costs even further but still increase productivity, mobile digital order taking devices like PocketTouch are the perfect solution.
Empowering your employees to take and send orders from a mobile device means less trips back and forth to the bar and more time providing excellent service. With hand-held PAX devices, your team can even take payment from the same device, too. With PocketTouch you can have multiple ordering devices feeding into just one static terminal, reducing your initial cost outlay and providing you with a rental subscription payment structure that helps ease cash flow concerns.
6. Save on laborious training costs by implementing an intuitive solution
If you’ve installed a new EPoS system that requires every team member to complete extensive training sessions before understanding how it works, it’s neither an efficient nor cost-effective solution for your business. Here at ICRTouch we believe that all software should be intuitive and easy to use; that’s why our development and user experience team work so hard to ensure that products such as our TouchPoint till software can be easily understood.
Installing a system that your staff intuitively know how to use saves you both time and money; letting you reduce training hours and get back to the most important thing – running your business.
7. Let customers place their own orders
Given the staffing crisis across the UK’s hospitality industry, reducing your reliance on staffing resources is a quick win to save costs and future proof your business. Software solutions like SelfService kiosks and ByTable or TouchTakeaway mobile ordering not only take the pressure off staff, but can also improve customer experience and speed of service.
Whether it’s via their mobile, from their table or via a kiosk, servicing your customers where it’s most convenient to them and giving them the choice will lead to improved customer satisfaction and subsequently, more loyal customers who will keep returning to spend again and again.
Increase customer spend and total order values.
