Today's cafe customers expect prompt efficient service and to do this you need an effective touchscreen cafe system

What touchscreen hardware should I use with my touch screen POS system?

For a cafe I recommend a touchscreen terminal which as the touch screen and the PC as one unit. These terminals are usually fanless, quiet and are resistant to spills

How many touchscreen do I need?

This depends on the volume of your cafe and how you want to manage your preparation areas. First if you have a high volume even if this is just over the lunch period then you may require 2 or more touch screen terminals.

The next questions is how you want to manage your orders.

The order docket approach
With this approach when an order is placed you have various thermal printer located at your preparation aras which print out the order. Your staff place these dockets in order and go about fulfilling the orders. This model has been in use well before touchscreen hardware and touch screen POS systems have been around and people manually wrote orders on a docket or pad.

The order screen approach
Rather than print out a order no a thermal print the orders are shown on a screen in your preparation araas and you store view this and fulfil the order. The benefit of this second approach is that the system can provide alert based on the time the order was placed, it can flash if the order has been waiting for certain perid of time, eveyone including the manager can see what is taking place. Basically this approach although it requires more touchscreen units can make you cafe process more efficient.

If you are a store that gets a rush of morning coffee orders and lunch orders then you need systems to ensure your staff have as much support to ensure they are efficient in their order preparation and management. Customers who have to wait will go down the road or around he corner. SO again the cost may be higher but the benefits may result in happy customers and a happy business owner who is making more money.

So lets exaplin the setup in more details to make you cafe more efficient with a touchscreen.

On the front counter you wil lhave 2 touchscreen terminals with your touch screen POS system.
At your coffee preparation areas you will have another touchscreen where you staff will prepare the orders
At your food preparation areas (1 or mroe loations) you will have another touchscreen.

As the orders are placed they will appear on these other touch screen with informaton on when the order was placed and the priority. YOur staff will be directed by the touch screen system on where to focus their energy. It is the intelligence of the system to direct you staff that will make your cafe more efficient.

For more information on running a cafe and touchscreen POS system stay tuned.

If you do not know what touch screen hardware to choose read on to find out more

When it comes to touch screen hardware the decision involves looking at

1. The usage and the environment for the touch screen

2. The type of warranty service you want 

3. Your budget

Number 1 what sort of evnironment will you be operating in. Does your retail encironment involve dust, dirt, liquids, food preparation or other preparation. The reason this is important as this determines your requirements in terms of the touch screen.

If the environment is harsh or their is a high proberbility of liquid spills or dirty fingers then you really need a robust, fanless touch screen unit. Most of these units also have different levels of spill resistant screens. Some screens with the correct seals can even take the can of coke or class of water poured directly over the touch screen. Now these units cost more but if you are running a restaruant kitchen, fast food outles or some industrial environment then you really have no other option.

If your environment is not as harsh you can consider less resistant touch screens which are lower in cost.

The other choice you have is if you want the touch screen and the PC as one unit or you want them seperated. The advantage of it being the one unit is that the space usage is very efficient. However a PC seperate from the touch screen unit can save on bench space as the screen is thinner than the touch and terminal combined and you can tuck the PC in under the counter.

What about warranty service?

Again this is where you get what you pay for. If you want good onsite warranty then you are going to pay more than for back to base. The length of the touch screen warranty will also affect the cost as well.

What is your budget for your touch screen?

Your budget is going to determine what you can actually purcahse when is comes to touch screens. If you are looking at saving the most you will go for a less well known brand name, with a back to base warranty. For example the Posiflex 6815 comes with 1GB of Ram and XP pro and this is around 2K.

Now if your budget allows for more you may go for the IBM Sure pos which is around 4+K but comes with 12 months onsite warranty. NCR is also a good option and includes a good onstie warranty.

Lots of things to think about, I hope you got value out of this blog and touchscreen hardware choices

Touch screen technology is becoming part of our lives more and more each day. The growth of iphone usage and other touch screen phones has shown so many of use how nice they are to use. Microsoft is also committed to expanding the usage of touch screens with the changes to Windows 7 and a long term commitment which will see every home having a touch screen.

At the consumer level touch screens have also come down a lot in price. These lower cost touch screens are great for the office desk although they are not robust enough for the retail environment.

So what about point of sale and touch screens?

There is still a lot of variance in the point of sale market place. If you go in to the major supermarket stores you will defintately see touch screen point of sale systems. Thne at other retailers such as clothing stores and electrical stores you will not see as many touch screens. Why is this.

Well the touch screen brings a lot of advantages to high volume sales points and where there is fresh food and integration with scanner and scales. The commercial touch screen hardware is normally fanless and resistant ot moisture.

So where is a touch screen suitable and not suitable. A touch screen is perfect when there is a simple check out process. For example in the supermarket you scan or weigh the item and move on the the necxt item and then process the sale. However if the store sales process is more complex such as the need to adjust price, the need to access more detailed information on margins, stock availability and more then a touch screen point of sale system may not be as suitable.

So what is my advice when a touch screen point of sale system should be used?

• For a store with grocery items then I recommend the touch screen as it makes the sales process very simple for staff to implement.
• If you run a restaurant, cafe, pizza store or fast food outlet I also recommend a point of sale system. Just make sure if you do phone orders and deliveries that the point of sale software has a phone orders module.
• If you run a clothing store then it is a 50/50 choice. If you like the simplicity of the touch screen then go for it, it you feel you have a more complex checkout then stay with normal hardware.

Finally in regards to hardware make sure you go for commercial grade touch screen hardware which includes being fanless, having the terminal and touch screen as one unit and ensuring the touch screen is resistant to moisture.

Stay tuned for more information in features to look out for in a good touch screen point of sale system

What makes a good touch screen

The most important aspect is "how easy is the touch screen system to use.

The image below shows you some of the main screens in the PBSA POS touch screen module.

The key components you can see are

• Large buttons
• The ability to have different color button
• Everything at your finger tips
• The number of buttons on a screen

The other very important aspect is your ability to manage the setup of all your screens. Every business is different and so you need your touch screen point of sale system (pos) to enable you to design the layout of your screen.

Why this is important is to make the touch screen system easy to use and to reduce the number of button presses/clicks to get you item added to the sales screen.

For more details on touch screens go to the following:  touch screen point of sale system page

Make the most out of every customer contact

Being successfull in retain is about serving your customer well and having them come back time and time again. If you are really organised you will also have programs that encourage them to refer their friends.

Do you know that if a person has a good experience they may tell 1 or 2 people where if they have a bad experience they tell 8 or more.

What does this mean?
You need to do everything you can to manage your moments of truth. A moment of truth is any form of interaction with a customer.

What can help me manage these moments of truth?
The key is customer information storage, systems and staff traiing

If you have a good point of sale system that enabled you quickly to recongnise the customer, know their purchase attribtes and other details about likes and dislikes and if you can know their name. These factors can make a big difference. One of the best ways to gather this information is thorugh a loyalty pogram where the customer presents their card and you swip e the card and your staff are shown all the informaiton you need to assist the customer while also recording more sales data against this customers profile.

For more information checkout all the modules and informaton on pos, touch screens and touchscreen point of sale systems at pbsapos.com.au

Have you ever walked into a cafe or fast food store and gone up the counter to place your order and seen the kaos that was happening?

We all remember the times when our order has been lost and after waiting half an hour we have to wait another 30 minutes.

How can you manage your sales and your preparation areas better

The key to a more efficient sales and preparation process is systems. When I talk about systems I am not just referring to computer systems alone but also preparation systems.

So often you see stores where the sale is done on an old cash register, then after the sale the order has to be written down and past through to the kitchen. The order then has to be passed around the various preparation areas. This creates confusion and increase the potential of lost orders and poor customer service.

So what is an ideal simple approach

1. Get yourself a touch screen computer with good touchscreen point of sale software

The reason is that sofwtare provides greater control over the sales process and also provides tools for workflow management. If you can control all the buttons on the touch screen POS and also have orders printed in multiple locations subject to what is in the order then you are positioned to improve your customer service dramtiaclly

The benefit of the touch screen is that  you do not have a mouse and keyboard cluttering the desk and getting ruined by sticky fingers. In additoin a nice touch screen with large buttons makes the sales process so easy and simple.

Additional things to look for in the work flow process is support for phone orders and deliveries. The key aspects you need is a touch screen pos that allows you to track the preparation, the dispatch and the payment status of each order. If you have a high volume of phone orders you may need a dedicated touch screen for this process.

These are just some of the things to consider to improve your customer service. Stay tuned for more tips.

PBSA POS launches new blog. We plan on keepnig our customers and potential customers up to date on everything that is happening in the world of point of sale, pos systems, touch screen hardware and touchscreen systems.