Your point-of-sale (POS) system is where you ring your customers up. Whether checking out online, walking up to your counter, or picking out an item at your booth, they’re at the point of sale.
Having your POS system up to date has become crucial as payment methods have continued to change. Your customers have adapted to the convenience of paying through chips, taps, and smartphone pay.
Not keeping up with the ever-changing technology can prevent you from serving your customers, and having an outdated POS system can cause business problems in sales, bookkeeping, inventory, customer satisfaction, and profitability. So, what are the costs of an outdated POS system?
Would you like the best POS system and services? Contact Cornerstone Credit Services to sign up today!
1. Out-of-Date Software Affects Customer Satisfaction
With many people switching to more convenient methods of paying, it’s essential to keep up. Many customers expect that the businesses they shop at will have several payment methods available to them. They may be discouraged from returning if their preferred method of paying isn’t available.
Having a newer system allows higher customer satisfaction. With older hardware, it may run slow or stop working, which causes customers to wait for their transaction to be completed or receive a receipt. Many people also like the newer options of digital receipts.
2. Security Breaches
Modern software comes equipped with cloud-based technology to help fight security breaches. If a POS system is broken into, it can cause a drastic loss of productivity and affect your company’s reputation.
Newer systems can keep up with the EMV (Europay, Mastercard, and Visa) compatibility, which have switched to chip-based and tap-based credit cards. Point-to-point encryption (P2PE) and tokenization can also help reduce card fraud, a significant loss for retailers.
An essential part of your business should be ensuring that returning customers feel safe buying your products or services. Customers want to know that their payments are safe and secure, which requires updating your system.
3. Poor Inventory Management
Using your POS system to help with inventory is now a standardized business method. Once a transaction has been made, newer systems can update the inventory number. Having an older system may not be as reliable, which could cause you to return to paper inventory and lose out on valuable time.
Poor inventory management can also cause higher holding costs, missed sales, inefficient replenishment, uncertain cash flow, or excess space utilization. This can cause unbalanced books, which will heavily affect the financial future of your business.
4. Poor Bookkeeping that Affects the Future of Your Business
While poor inventory tracking can cause significant issues, having an old system can cause poor data entry on your books. This can cause many problems for your business, including current or future financial costs, which leads to poor decision-making.
It can also cause your business to receive a bad reputation, leading to client loss. Your poor data-keeping could generate an incorrectly charged invoice, which pushes away customers and potentially leads to legal ramifications.
Newer systems have integrating capabilities that help keep your books organized and correct. This data is also backed up on a cloud system.
5. Missing Valuable Opportunities
A prominent upgraded feature to POS systems is their customer relationship management (CRM). This tool can help you know what your customers bought and when. Understanding your clientele can help you craft your service or product to their needs and boost your business’s success.
It also allows you to personalize your communications, marketing, and customer service. You can utilize this data for creating email marketing campaigns or customer loyalty programs. These personalization factors will make your customers feel appreciated and more likely to return.
POS systems are typically cheaper and offered at a month-to-month rate, so you’re not locked in a contract. You’re not required to invest in costly hardware such as huge terminals, servers, and backup servers. They will also help save you time, energy, and money in the long run.
Upgrade Your POS System with Cornerstone
Cornerstone Credit Services can help with updating your POS system to benefit your business. We provide state-of-the-art POS systems for credit card payments, debit card processing, and other tasks related to electronic payments.
We keep up with the top trends in POS software and hardware, giving you the power to make your business more productive and profitable. Beyond the systems, we provide 24/7 support to provide you with the comprehensive payment solution you need.
Is it time to update your POS system? Contact Cornerstone Credit Services today!