	C.C.R. Systems (Northern) Ltd
	142 Bebington Road, New Ferry, Wirral, Merseyside CH62 5BJ
	Tel:- 07000 UNIWELL, 07000 864935, 0151 644 8296, 0151 644 7677
	Fax:- 0151 645 8981	Email:- epos@ccrsystems.co.uk

Pc communications direct on site or remote with modems.

C.C.R. SYSTEMS (NORTHERN) LTD have been operating from their premises in New Ferry since 1982 supplying, installing & maintaining EPOS systems to the Hospitality and Retail trade. We are dealers for the UNIWELL range of Cash Registers & pc based terminals. The trend in the industry is for ever more sophisticated systems and C.C.R. SYSTEMS have been keeping up with the advancements in technology. The latest Customer Loyalty database system for the UNIWELL range of terminals is supplied and supported by ourselves along with Windows point of sale systems. The UNIWELL DX895 series is already making the more traditional tills redundant. Does Epos Matter? Does Loyalty matter?

We are fully aware that the traditional cash register in the retail sector is declining as the more advanced computer point of sale systems become more accessible to the middle and lower end of the market. To take advantage of the situation along with our policy of always keeping up with advancements in technology, we are now supplying and supporting the well established CES retail software which can be installed utilising a wide range of open systems hardware and full POS terminals. The potential clients for these systems have seen the massive advantages which have been accessible to the large chains of supermarkets for many years and are now becoming more cost effective to the more ambitious retail and hospitality sector.

Epos Matters

Two Reasons Why You Need Epos.....

Time And Money Are you so busy working in your business that you don't have time to work on your business?

What could you do with another 16 hours a week? What could you do with 20% more profit a year? Sixteen hours a week, often more are typically released to the busy retail operator after installing a CCR Systems Electronic Point of Sale (Epos) system. How can Epos free up this amount of time? And what other benefits are there? Good questions which we will answer as we go through this article.
How can Epos produce such time savings?

There are many areas of retail and hospitality business operations where time can be saved. Time that can freed up to use in more productive areas of the business. Here are just some of the time saving opportunities an Epos system will give you.

Automatic Stock Re-ordering
By automatically generating orders in seconds instead of hours. Many business owners spend hours compiling orders and sending them through to suppliers. An Epos system can do this automatically by generating suggested orders based on sales data collected at the point of sale (POS). You then have the opportunity to review, accept or amend it. Clicking a button will either email it straight to the supplier or print it off for you to post.

Even more powerful is the ability to take any period from a previous year such as Christmas, or last summer and generate orders based on sales in the same period last year. Many owners would have to spend hours trawling through the invoices from the period to do this.

Faster Stock Taking
Stock takes become a straightforward procedure, they can be carried out as frequently as you desire. The Epos system generates a stock list for counting purposes, after the count the results are entered and discrepancies highlighted. Stock valuation can be done at the click of a button again saving days or weeks of effort.

Product and Price Maintenance
Product maintenance, price maintenance,margin maintenance can all be done quickly saving yet more time. In some cases product updates from suppliers can be loaded electronically saving entering product data, prices and descriptions manually. This also ensures your product files are correct and do not contain pricing or other errors.

Menus and Promotional Product Changes
If you serve food and have rotating menus, once the menus are set up on the system the menu change is automatic, no reprogramming of the POS is required once this is done from the back office system. Happy hour or special pricing can be dealt with in the same way as can any promotional offers you may have. The time saved in this area can be significant.

Automatic links to your accounting system
Many business owners manually take sales data from the till and then manually enter the data into their accounting system. This is very time consuming and prone to errors. Direct links from Epos into accounting packages are available which means no re-entering of data saving hours each week and reducing book keeping errors.

H ow can Epos Make you 20% more profit a year?

In addition to time saving Epos will give immediate direct financial savings. The % improvement you can make to your bottom line will depend upon many factors. An increase in bottom line profits of 20-25% can be expected if the Epos system is used correctly and some of the time saved by using the system is reinvested in developing the business.

Minimise Stock Holdings
An Epos system will allow you to minimise your stock holding which will reduce your working capital. It will also enable you to increase the number of times your stock turns over annually. This means less money is tied up in stock and if working capital is funded by borrowing, savings are also made through reduced interest payments.

Reduce Fraud
Sadly many owners have to face staff dishonesty. This takes various forms such as short-changing customers, passing drinks or other products across the counter without charging, and many others. An Epos system will identify such frauds and prevent them happening. The Epos system can capture every transaction, who is working on the till and when, and from the reports on the systems fraud and who is committing it can be identified.

Reduce Shrinkage
An Epos system will enable you to minimise stock shrinkage by identifying items susceptible to 'shrinkage' and take action to cut it. Following a stock take an immediate value can be put on shrinkage and a report produced which is then used for tax deduction. Interestingly when staff know each item of stock is tracked and accounted for shrinkage falls dramatically.

Economic Stock Ordering
The automatic reordering system allows products to be ordered in the most economical amounts from your suppliers so maximising supplier discounts. Options to select among multiple suppliers means you can order from those that have the best deals at the time of placing the order.

Correct Selling Price
An Epos system can be set such that discounts are not allowed, or limited discounts are allowed, or any price changes or discounts can only be done by the manager. The price maintenance facilities means items are always sold at the correct price, and required margins are maintained. This alone can significantly improve the bottom line in many businesses.

Loyalty systems
An Epos system is the ideal vehicle to run a customer loyalty program.

Loyalty Matters

Building Customer Loyalty
Is the only way of maximising long term business profits

Customers today are spoilt for choice no matter what the product and switch brands easily. This is a nightmare if you have spent large sums of money gaining new customers then find they have deserted you before you have even recovered the costs of acquiring them. There is a solution that will not only cut your defections but will attract customers to you from your competitors. It is called Customer Loyalty. Here are 14 ideas you can use straightaway to build loyal customers for your business.

1. Define what customer loyalty means to you and your organisation.
All businesses have their own views of what is meant by loyalty, and will measure customer loyalty in different ways. The first step in building customer loyalty for your business is to define what it means to you and how you will measure it. Some common measures of loyalty include the length of time the customer has been a customer, how satisfied they say they are, how often do they buy, how recently did they buy, and how much do they spend?

2. Ensure your customer data file is up to date.
Does your organisation have a good customer information file? How up to date is the information it contains? And does it contain the information you need to measure customer loyalty? Do you have the analysis tools and the internal resources to analyse and act on the data in your customer file? If not consider using an external organisation to do this work for you.

3. Identify customer types with high loyalty potential.
Are the customers you have been traditionally targeting and choosing the right ones? Do you take any customer when you really need to be selective about whom you let become customers? In all probability you have customers that range from the 'highly profitable' through to 'about breaking even' to 'highly loss making'. It is important to identify and segment your customers then make some decisions about them. E.g., Can the break-even or loss making customers be managed into profit making customers? And what programs do we need to achieve this?

4. Change your marketing and new customer acquisition programs
to focus on profitable customers.
Having analysed and cleaned up your customer information files you will have your most valuable assets clearly identified....your profitable customers. Analyse these to build a profile of the types of customers you want to attract to and retain for your business. What have they in common? Look for things like age, location, income, wealth, job types, business sector, etc. Then with this information change your customer acquisition strategies to target these types of customers.

5. How customer focused is your business?
Customer loyalty is not a quick fix to be bolted on to your existing organisation. To make it work ensure your business is staffed by people who understand the benefits to the business of building customer loyalty, and that they are motivated to do so.

6. Get the whole company including senior management geared to building loyalty.
The whole business from accounts to service must to be committed to retaining customers and developing customers so as to maximise their lifetime value to the business. Everyone needs to understand that no matter what their role they can and do contribute either negatively or positively to building customer loyalty.

7. Analyse lost customers.
Your customer information file will identify for you lost or lapsed customers. Contact them and find out why they are no longer customers.They may have moved out of the area, but you may have failed them in some way. You must adopt a 'zero tolerance' to lost customers and work towards the goal of having gained a customer you never lose them except for a valid reason like relocation.

8. Communicate with your customers regularly.
Staying in touch with your customers lets them know you are thinking about them and that you do not take them for granted. Send them helpful and useful information not just advertising material or a sales pitch, let them in on what you are thinking or planning. The objective is to make the customers want to come closer to your business.

9. Make sure your employees are enthusiastic.
If your staff are enthusiastic about your products and services and enthusiastic about building customer loyalty then that will rub off on your customers. Enthusiasm is infectious and customers will stay longer and spend more in such an evironment.

10. Personalise all communications.
Your customer information file will have full details of your customer's names and addresses so make sure you are using them. Be certain the spellings are correct. Few things undermine your customer loyalty building program more than a 'Dear Customer' letter or a letter with an incorrectly spelt name.

11. Give them a surprise.
Suprises for customers are remembered and appreciated. Give them a 'that's great' feeling. Many loyalty or CRM systems have 'Surprise Modules' or facilities that enable you to spend say a birthday greeting and an invitation to visit your restaurant where a complimentary bottle of wine may be offered. Even much smaller surprises can have an enormous effect.

12. Help your customers save money.
Don't wait for the customer to ask how to cut costs, take the initiative. They will see you as looking after their interests and a business they can trust. They will also be less likely to go to a competitor because they will know you are looking out for them.

13. Set targets for your customer loyalty programs and analyse the results.
Go back to idea 1 where you defined for your business measures of customer loyalty. Set stretching but achievable targets for your business. Then regularly analyse the results and trends making changes if needed to keep your business on target.

14. Get help from a customer loyalty specialist.
The steps outlined here will get you on the right track, they are not exhaustive, and they just highlight the basics. Each business is different and has situations, which are unique to it. You may not have enough internal resources or knowledge or IT infrastructure and may need help in some of these areas. Many businesses do not have a proper customer information file, it may be spread across the organisation in different departments with no sharing of information between them. Or if you are in hospitality or retail you may not have even basic information such as customer names and addresses. You may need to start and collect the data before you can begin your customer loyalty program.

Customer Loyalty.....The Bottom Line

Did you know that loyal customers:

Visit up to 3 times more than the average customer?
Spend between 30-50% more per transaction?
Spend between 3-4 times more per annum than the average customer?
Account on average for 55-65% of annual sales revenues?
Typically tell 5-6 friends or colleagues about your business?
Mean you can reduce your marketing spend?
Can significantly increase bottom line profits for your business?

All trade names are recognised.
Specifications are subject to change without notice.