In every IT purchase, there is the quandary that until you know what the latest systems are capable of, you cannot begin to plan the business improvements they may make possible. Yet without having those improvements in mind you cannot stipulate what candidate systems should be able to do. It is all the more critical if, like electronic point of sale systems, things are developing fast.

It was a big refurbishment project that gave FJB Hotels the opportunity to put in the type of EPoS system they had been promising themselves at their 4-star Harbour Heights hotel in Poole,Dorset.When they started their shopping trip they had one major improvement in mind, when they finished they had found two.

Group purchasing manager Chris Duley studied the EPoS market carefully, adding to his own knowledge of such systems by interrogating – not to strong a word – various vendors about system capabilities.

“Foremost in my mind at the start,” he recalls ,”was to save legwork.Our terraces overlooking the harbour are popular – and huge. We can seat 120 people out there and another 120 inside. Those terraces look bigger to table staff as their shift wears on and they wear out. We wanted to cut down on walking and increase table attention standards. That meant we were looking for hand held order terminals capable of radioing order items back to the kitchen and bar as the table staff keyed them in. We also wanted to be sure those terminals would show how many portions of everything were left, would prompt staff about add on sales and generally give them all the information they would otherwise have had to get from the kitchen.

“There are plenty of systems that can do that now and, having arrived at a shortlist of suppliers, we found ourselves looking at another important aspect of EPoS systems – management information. It was here that we soon found which vendors took the trouble to understand our needs and which did not – and which ones knew how we would be applying their systems to our needs. I warmed to those who started asking me questions about the business that I had not expected.”
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Using individual tills, as they had before, the level of management information was basic and not always timely – because you cannot interrupt busy staff to take figures off every five minutes. Now the system provides potentially so much management information that they are nowhere near using the capability to its full yet.For instance, management at the hotel can see on the system the status of the day’s business any time they like – can see which lines need selling hard for example and instruct staff accordingly. Management at head office could also see the business status given the necessary data link but so far have kept to printout reports at regular intervals. This is not tardiness on their part, more a realization that just because information is available, it is not a licence to interfere and cramp individual local managers’ style and authority.

“The level of management information is the part that surprised us in hind payment solutions provider Dione has just announced its new Xplorer portable card payment terminal, aimed directly at the leisure and hospitality market sectors.The device sports class1 Bluetooth connectivity with a range of up to 100mand is EMV level 1 and 2 compliment and fully PIN credit/debit card enabled to all security standards.

It can be used in conjunction with a hand held scanner as a ‘queue busting’solution to increase customer throughput.Secure connections with mobile phones mean the device can take payments literally anywhere where there is network coverage.

Advice has also been taken from the Royal National Institute of the Blind and the unit was designed in line with the Disability Discrimination Act requirements

Sight,”says Chris Duley.”We chose NFS eventually, mainly because we could see that its information, used intelligently, would mean better control and more immediate reactions to any unexpected trends in sales, stock usage, supplier movements and all the rest.

“Paradoxically, the hand held order devices were just getting into their stride when the summer ended and pressure on the terrace eased.Nevertheless with a 120 seat inside restaurant, allowing table staff to remain out there among the tables instead of rushing orders back to the kitchen improves service for diners and staff alike.Our next step will be to have NFS upgrade the hand held units to accept credit card PIN numbers to augment the capability we already have at our static EPoS terminals.”

Two pieces of advice Chris passes on:

“Firstly, get front-line people involved as soon as possible.we had four key managers quizzing our short listed suppliers long before which was the finalist –and they asked plenty of awkward questions only front line people know to ask. It also makes them party to the final decision and fosters their enthusiasm.

“Secondly, test the radio coverage.We gave our supplier a problem because when the system was planned the place was a building site.Once everything else had gone in – drapes ,furniture, everything –we found data transmission was slow in some parts of the restaurant and terrace.A second aerial did the trick.”