Presentation is everything, or so the old adage goes. Although you managed to choose the right chairs, the right colors and the right lighting, you might still be missing an important aspect to your business – the right equipment. Your customers may appreciate the fancy trappings, but all the ultra-modern chairs in the world won't bring them back when your store is fitted with machines that are constantly in need of repair or that are difficult to use.
Choosing the right equipment to meet your customers' expectations is one of the most vital, and often overlooked, parts of opening and maintaining any business image.
Understanding the Role of Equipment in Customer Expectations
It seems simple enough, when you think about it. Customers want to walk into tidy shops and find that everything works – especially when it comes to machines designed for self-service, like soda fountains, frozen yogurt machines and other food displays.
Customers seeking your services have certain expectations when they enter your business, be it a restaurant, convenience store, grocery store or yogurt shop – the first and foremost of these is that your products are readily available when they want them.
By investing in the right commercial equipment, you can automate much of the process, freeing employees for other duties. A small business requires efficiency - by adding specialty equipment that can do the work of several employees with only minimal intervention and maintenance, you'll save money on labor and meet your customers expectations at the same time. Everybody wins.
Here is an example of how a self-serve frozen yogurt business can save when using higher quality equipment:
Featured Highlights
With Cafe Carel’s System you’re able to define multiple price levels for a unit/case/ or pack easily. You can even do pricing for mix and match cases, split, whole or individual bottles.
With the use of the Data Collector Scanner you can automatically create data files and upload them into the system. Cafe Cartel’s system then accounts for the additional inventory and updates your master inventory list.
Our Vendor Re-Order Lists can be set up and easily modified. Once you start using our system the data begins to collect and build. This result in several comprehensive reports that you can use to make informed business decisions. Let's say you set up a default for your re-order list at 5, but as you look over your reports you notice certain seasonal trends. or maybe there is a certain size bottle that sells better that others. Or maybe there is a rare expensive item that only needs to be restocked once it is completely sold out. This is not a problem with the CCS software. You can easily go in and modify your vendor re-order list alerts.
Our system checks your inventory count against your physical count. This helps you to gauge multiple locations and address counts of theft or loss. By regularly reconciling your inventory in the system you can report more accurate figures on financial statements, balance an accurate inventory and safeguard your business against excess taxation.
Doing the reconciliation on your own instead of outsourcing it to a manager or specialist saves you money, time and insures accurate reporting.
Our Inventory Database helps your get your liquor store off the ground. With the included inventory list you have a building point from which to begin your inventory tracking.
Each industry has it’s own inventory requirements. CCS has the modules, the staff and the experience, to deal with many forms of inventory management. From portion control, and and kit building, to inventory reconciliation and mutli-site inventory oversight. Get more details about our quick inventory solutions with our comprehensive inventory management system.
Cafe Cartel can Easily Import and Export any CSV or Excel spread sheet, making your inventory list building a breeze.
With Cafe Cartel’s system you're able to lookup exact locations of items in your store. For example your staff may have stocked your recent inventory shipment and there is a new item that you are not sure where they stocked it. With CCS software you can simply look up the location and it will provide you the aisle and shelf and row number.
Our software handles multiple liquor store locations with ease. Look up an item in your other store location or track overall inventory of you locations. We can even help you with your initial inventory list.
Use our handheld Data Collector to manage your back room AND front room inventories. Just use the scanner when you’re taking out or moving inventory and upload the data file into Cafe Cartel’s system. When the data is uploaded your master inventory lists are updated to account for single and multiple locations.
All store owners know that keeping track of inventory is an important element in running a successful business so they accept the tedious hours spent on data entry and relaying information each time new inventory comes in. This was the case for one of our liquor store clients when they came to us:
“We spend hours almost weekly doing inventory. We have had to have our employees come in early to count the new product that comes in, record it and then enter it in the inventory lists manually, calculating for the additional inventory. Our biggest need is making our inventory tracking process more efficient. We currently run all of our sales from our cash register and use paper spreadsheets to record inventory. What do you recommend to speed up the process?”
This client’s experience is common. Inventory management can not only be time consuming and tedious but costly as well. Spending so much time and man hours on counting, costs you in payroll, morale, and takes away from hours you could spend on growing your business. We were happy to help by integrating their Point of Sale Package with our Data Collector Scanner to help improve their inventory tracking:
“We tried the inventory scanner right away and were impressed with how efficient it is. It’s easy to use, takes much less time and makes it easy to update our inventory lists. Now we don’t have problems like math errors and missing bottles.”
We were excited to get the feedback from this liquor store client and as always enjoy sharing our inventory management solutions! The Data Collector Integration works with our Point of Sale system to make the inventory process easier and more efficient. Find out more about our faster inventory reconciliation with the Data Collector.
We support all major processors, EMV Chip readers. NFC Payments, Swiped, Debit and EBT.
Integrate with Quickbooks. Easily upload the information at any time.
CCS will keep track of rewards programs, and gift cards as well as store credit. No addition fees!
Integrate your POS with your DVR to increase your security and oversight
Use scanners not just for barcodes, but also drivers licenses, gift cards, rewards cards.
Used for inventory reconciliation, purchase orders. Remotely count your items, scan in purchase orders.
Integrate with payroll service. And easily upload files to your service if we do not currently integrate with your payroll company.
Increase security by reducing staff stealing yours and others codes, also make it easier to log in and clock in!
Accept Wic/EBT Payments through your POS. Properly calculate the items included
Food truck entrepreneurs have taken street food to a new culinary level by serving restaurant quality meals out of a truck. Starting and becoming successful in this venture requires a few key components: innovation, creativity, and probably the most important customer loyalty. Building, maintaining and attracting a new customer base is difficult enough but when your shop is mobile you get a few new obstacles thrown your way. Here are a couple tips from Cafe Cartel to grow your customer loyalty for your food truck with our food truck point of sale software.
When your food truck is starting out creating a customer base is sometimes tough. Make sure you're consistent to establish loyal customers.
1.) Customer Service: In many ways eating at a food truck is a very unique experience. By doing the the little bit extra your customers are more likely to leave with a positive association with your food truck. Thank them for supporting you with simple gestures:
2.) Online presence The food truck following is huge on social media, make sure your online footprint is visible and easily accessible to your customers. Twitter is how one of the biggest food trucks in Los Angeles, Kogi, started marketing themselves and effectively changed the marketing landscape for food trucks.
3.) Integrate loyalty program Reward the loyalty of your frequent customers by establishing a program in Cafe Cartel’s loyalty program feature.
Preset all of your loyalty program discounts in Cafe Cartel’s CRM feature for easy accessibility. Like customer service, figure out what method works well for you and your business and have fun with it!
The better you are able to communicate and understand your customers the better you will be able to ultimately service them. Using the Customer Relations Management (CRM) functions in Cafe Cartel’s point of sale software can help you to accomplish this. CRM is a customer database tool that allows you to track and gather all aspects of customer interaction such as spending behavior, contact info, demographics, peak hours and overall effectiveness. Collecting this information gives you a clearer picture on who your customers are and how you can better cater your service.