New Study Demonstrates That Advanced POS Systems Optimize Retail - doc

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Customer and employee experience is crucial for restaurateurs and retailers alike, and 93 percent of respondents believe that infusing digital capabilities into physical locations is imperative for improving customer experience, according to a new study. Revel Systems, a leading iPad Point of Sale management solution, commissioned the study, Step Up The In-Person Experience, conducted by Forrester Consulting, which investigated the current state of digital experiences for retailers and restaurateurs, their challenges, and the technological obstacles that interfered with optimal operations and customer experience.

“We commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct this study in order to gain a deeper understanding of our clients’ daily struggles and what is holding them back from building their dream business. We build our technology to suit the specialized needs of our clients,” says Lisa Falzone, co-founder and CEO of Revel Systems.

The study surveyed 150 decision makers representing both industries who had at least 25 locations in the U..S., and found that 94 percent of retailers “see in-store digital capabilities as important not only for customer experience but also for store operations.”

The research returned six key findings:

• Digital engagement must be coupled with empowered employees to deliver excellent customer experiences. Digital customer engagement, up-to-date digital technologies, and knowledgeable and helpful employees were the top three factors respondents cited as important for providing excellent customer experiences.
• Businesses struggle to provide excellent in-store/in-restaurant experiences. According to the findings, just half of the retail associates have a given customer engagement capability the survey asked about.
• Insufficient POS integrations plague retail and restaurant chains. Just 45 percent of retailers have a given back-end system integrated with POS, and most respondents said such integrations were too costly or too complex to install.
• Businesses seek empowering, integrable advanced POS systems. The study found that retailers emphasize the need to educate customers on the value of advanced POS and interaction with empowered employees, citing it as the second most important quality.
• Advanced tablet-based POS systems appeal to in-person digital experience decision-makers. Respondents cited empowering employees to boost customer service (87 percent); lower price points than traditional systems (85 percent); and the opportunities to collect new or expanding insights customers (86 percent), operations (84 percent), and productions (83 percent) as benefits.
• Retailers and restaurants alike see significant improvement form tablet-based POS strategies. On average, 89 percent of retail respondents saw at meat moderate improvements to metrics due to a tablet-based POS system, the study found. These include upsell/cross-sell, conversion rates, customer satisfaction, and omnichannel capabilities.

Based on the findings, Forrester has concluded that “the use of an advanced point-of-service (POS) system – an evolution of the capabilities of traditional point-of-sale systems, often manifested in newer form factors and deployment models –that mimics systems of insight and systems of engagement will improve customer experience, empower employees, and increase the efficiency and performance of operations.”  This is significant, since just 45 percent of retailers on average have integrated their back-end systems with their POS, “severely restricting the functionality that frontline employees need to service customers and optimize operations.”