I was thinking of the saying that
Good is a bad choice
When better is available
while I was reading of a situation that occurred recently.
The facts are that a customer purchased at a retail store an item. It is unclear why the customer left so quickly but by the time the retailer had printed the receipt which had a free offer on it, the customer was gone. Wanting to give the customer their offer the retailer rang the customer on his mobile and told him about the offer. The customer came back to pick up the offer. So it must have been an important offer for the retailer to call and a pretty good offer for the customer to come back and pick it up.
Lucky it was not a discount voucher as the retailer would not have had the mobile number to call. A retailer with a discount voucher system and no customer information would be dead here.
Now in this case the solution proposed to fix the problem is faster receipt printing to enable the receipt to print out immediately but this is not a solution, for example; some customer grab the items and run once the sale is completed.
Now let us say that something like this occurs in a shop using POS Solutions point of sale, the customer is gone before the retailer can give them the receipt and the retailer wants to give them the receipt. What choices would this POS Solutions retailer have to give them the receipt?
Well their receipt printing is instant but as I explained this does not solve the problem, here are some other options the POS Solutions client has:
1) They could set their system to automatically send all VIP receipts though email which is free. If this option is picked they do not have to do anthing.
2) The could have set their computer system up to send automatically send a receipt though a mobile app, using their regular Internet service at no extra charge. The customer quickly waves his mobile over the dongle and when the receipt is available, it will be sent to them automatically together with the voucher and the customer does not need to wait.
This also gets over the problems of emailing receipts as you do not need an email address as if the customer does not have or more likely is not prepared to give you an email address you cannot email it to them now.
3) The retailer could have sent the offer through an SMS service at a nominal cost. This can be automatic or on demand.
4) They could have done nothing and the customer would have gotten the receipt though their VIP membership account.
5) Finally if the customer does come back, on the bottom of the receipt can be a QR code that identifies the transaction. If that QR code is scanned by a mobile, it will display on the screen that receipt such as above which they can share. This receipt is available anytime, and the retailer does not have to print the full receipt only the QR code, this saves a lot of paper.
As all these options are virtual, our retailer have another two big advantages.
1) They can make the receipt as big as they like, not just 450mm but 900 mm making it much easier to read.
2) They can put more on the receipt, for example, above say the 20% off a bike may not work, but the retailer could also include an offer of a bike pump or a new bike seat that might appeal more to the customer. Why not, it costs nothing to add? They could also add shop opening hours, etc. They are limited only by their imagination.
As you can see POS Solutions clients have many more choices.
This is an example of how a retailer using technology using our system can stay in touch with their customers and stay fresh in their customers’ mind.
