Oil painting: in the morning you ran into the classic network "Malinka" for a bun or an apple. They quickly took the goods, promptly rushed to the checkout. Before the start of the working day 10 minutes. In front of you at the checkout are three more representatives of office plankton. No one has a cart full of goods. A maximum of 5-6 items in hand. But they are served so long that a whole queue has time to line up behind you. Yes, perhaps the cashier is a stupid chicken. But maybe it's not about her. Let's analyze what could go wrong?
Fakup No. 1: the retailer saved on equipment
Everyone loves to save. Store management is no exception. Therefore, IT directors or purchasing directors (if there are such positions in the network) were put in a very tight framework. Or the retailer chose the equipment himself, based on the principle “Cheaper means better”. And we are not saying that he took a completely Chinese noun, breaking from one touch. No, maybe this is a completely normal box office - cheap, but not bad. But here it is designed for a store where there are 150-200 customers per day. In "Malinka" the traffic is completely different: about 1500-2000 people daily. Therefore, the cash desk cannot cope with such a load - it works slowly, clumsily. And in the meantime, you lose patience, throw a bun on the first shelf you come across and run to work, while practicing profanity at the same time.
You can make a mistake with the performance of the device not only in relation to the POS terminal. This also applies to cash registers (CCT), barcode scanners, and commercial scales.
Summary: If you want customers not to swear at your store for nothing, consider when choosing commercial equipment whether it can withstand the load that it encounters.
Fakap #2: equipment reliability fails
So, the retailer saved on the equipment, and it does not withstand the load. As practice shows, the cheaper the cash register, the lower its reliability. And the higher the probability that it will quickly fail. And that means the checkout will be idle. Here the retailer loses in three directions at once:
- service costs;
- decrease in customer loyalty;
- loss of revenue due to downtime.
The last one is the saddest. Simple arithmetic: the traffic of an average chain store in Moscow is about 1500 people a day. If there are 3 cash desks in the store, then each one draws up 500 checks daily. The average check, according to Romir, in 2018 in Russia amounted to 496 rubles. It turns out that the retailer loses 248 rubles for a day of downtime at the checkout. An inexpensive, more or less decent cash register with peripherals can be bought for $000. At the current exchange rate (at the time of this writing) it is 1000 rubles. As a result, a day of downtime costs 65 times more than the cost of a POS terminal.
Of course, in order for the service to be prompt, the retailer and the contractor sign strict SLAs. But the sooner the problem is identified, the less money the store will eventually lose. Understanding this problem, POS-terminal manufacturers try to make the work of service specialists as easy as possible. For example, in access to all components, including the motherboard, is carried out without the use of tools (we show in the photo and video).
Summary: When choosing cash register equipment, be sure to find out how reliable it is. Find out what guarantees the manufacturer gives, what preliminary tests they carry out (for example, vibration testing, exposure to temperature and humidity, electromagnetic field, electrostatic charge, resistance to voltage surges). And, if the seller gives such an opportunity, test the POS-terminal in the conditions of your store.
Fakap #3: Inconvenient checkout layout
Not only the cash equipment itself can affect the speed of customer service. Even the way it is placed plays a significant role in this process. A simple example: if the cashier sits sideways to the cash register and the customer, he spends more time on service. It is inconvenient for him to take goods for scanning, he has to turn his head towards the buyer. Our experts calculated that, on average, with such a landing, the cashier spends 2 seconds more on each client. Above, we said that, on average, each Malinka checkout has 500 checks per day. This is about 16 minutes a day, which are wasted.
Summary: Don't neglect the little things. Even the layout of the cash register can significantly affect the store's revenue. As an example, we can show the location, as well as the placement of cash equipment at one of our clients. We wrote about special stands for cash desks .
Fakap #4: Interface and setup of cash register software
If the cashier spends a lot of time on the POS computer checking out your purchase, it doesn't always mean that the cashier is slow or stupid. Perhaps she was just unlucky with the cash register software deployed on the network. Example: in a chain store where queues at the checkout are constantly gathering, the software prompts the seller to choose a payment method each time. This is terribly inconvenient and slows down the service process. For comparison, in our cashless payment is provided by default. This is logical, because , the share of cashless payments in Russia increased to 2019% in January 50. clarifies that in Moscow, Tyumen and Ufa, citizens use cards most actively, cash is more common in Tolyatti, Saratov and Nizhny Novgorod. 58% of non-cash purchases in Moscow are made using smartphones.
You can also significantly save service time by rounding the final amount in favor of the buyer (this also increases his loyalty): the cashier does not have to wait until the client finds a change in his wallet and counts the right amount.
Summary: Cash register software should be convenient not only for employees who choose it, but also for cashiers. It is desirable to optimize basic operations for the main flow of customers and their portrait, and remove all unnecessary buttons so that the cashier does not inadvertently press anything extra. Alas, users of one of the most common cash programs on the Russian market suffer from this.
Fakap No. 5: Location of the senior cashier or administrator
Now the eyes will bleed. Remember, the cashier punched the goods incorrectly or the buyer asked to remove some item from the check. In the best case, the seller calls the administrator by phone and asks him to come in to edit the check (the cashier himself can reverse only the last position entered in the check, and even then the cash program is not configured everywhere). At worst, we hear: "WAAAAAAAAL, CALL LARIS!". And now the whole queue, who is patiently, who is not very, waiting for Larisa to appear from the bowels of the store and still resume the process of making a purchase. Horror! It is quite possible to deal with such situations. It is enough to partially entrust the function of canceling the operation to senior cashiers or controllers who are constantly nearby.
Summary: Think about who will have the right to undo actions taken and how quickly these people will be able to make adjustments. For example, in one popular chain of stores, cancellations are made by security guards who are always near the cashiers.
Fakap #6: Weighing at the checkout
Any retailer decides for himself whether to weigh goods at the checkout or install them on the trading floor. . However, the truth is that the first format increases customer service time. According to our experts, weighing on a scanner-scale increases the service time for each customer by 10-12 seconds, and on stand-alone - 20-25 seconds.
Summary: Before deciding which weighing format to implement in a store, consider how it will affect customer service times.
Fast customer service is the key to a profitable store operation. Therefore, do not ignore even the smallest details: choose productive, reliable equipment, conveniently place it on the cashier's desk, install software with a simple interface and configure it correctly, and reasonably approach the issues of weighing goods. And in this case, even those buyers who need to quickly buy something before the start of the working day will come to you.
Source: habr.com