Here's my point: What is your degree of aggravation (if any) with delays at the register while checking out due to "computerized" point of sale systems?

Depends almost entirely on the clerk, and his/her comportment during the wait.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

The thing that bothers me most are the people who wait til after everything is rung up before they start writing their check. I usually feel like clubbing them upside the head but they are usually old folks.

I can tolerate the time for each transaction. Its the 17 minute wait in line that I don't like. There's nothing to do except observe the checkout person's habits and idiosyncrasies. If they are efficient and I feel like the line is moving, I'm ok with the wait. But, if they take a phone call or I sense they are inefficient, I get aggravated. You know, like the person that tries for 3 minutes to stuff a large box in a small bag. Then finally gives up. ONLY THEN, they decide start the credit card transaction. Why not start the credit card transaction and then bag the goods while waiting, etc. Or how about someone in front of you in line that wants to return 6 items and they have no receipt? So, I guess to answer your question, I really don't mind the POS delays. I think the clerk (i.e. human delays) are significantly more aggravating.

Best solution? Window shop at the brick and mortar stores and order from the same retailer on their website when you get home. I did this at Border's Books because the checkout line was too long. The same book titles I had in my hand at the store were delivered to my home a few days later.

Amen.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

If I have to wait on line for more than 2 minutes, maybe 3 (I would say a sum total of 2-3 people), I will not buy something. I will leave and find somewhere else to buy it. I get tremendously aggravated waiting. So much so that I don't ever like to buy things in big stores, and I especially dislike them at holiday times. Patience is not my strong suit.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

At big "cattle call" checkout stores...I have 0 patience. I'll walk out rather than wait. I love giving Xmas gifts, but dread Xmas shopping...



But, I'll wait all day at a bike shop, providing I can monkey around with stuff.

I enjoyed Planet Bikes in Placid b/c they had a TV with random coverages (IM and Tdf). I think they had a video game tucked in somewhere. Perhaps not revenue generating, but made for a more comfy buying experience b/c I wasn't trying to run out the door.....

I visited a new shop (for me) in Mpls this weekend. (FreeWheel Bikes) I was amazed at their selection and attention to stock. (Watch out Gear West) Tri, track, fixed, CX...had all the boutiques covered! They had more stems than QBP's warehouse! Well...perhaps not, but you get the point. Throw in a TV with some MTB crashes or TT and I'm golden. I was so thrilled, I bought $100 worth of stuff I was going to buy online. (I already knew what I needed and wasn't trolling the store)

I'm aggravated by delays at the register no matter what the reason. I've not been in a Walmart for years, in a large part due to this aggravation.

In general I have no tolerance for stupid or slow people so ... but I would like to point that in most cases, its not the computerized POS that's the problem (its a lot faster than the guy swiping your credit card on that inky paper and filling it in) its usually the inept cashier behind it.

on that note, I'll admit I rarely show my aggrevation in front of a woman. If I'm in line for a long time, chances are most people in front and behind are pretty rude so I try to be nice, knowing that I would never be able to do that kind of job.

POS systems make checkout longer. However, how long is your customer willing to wait while one of your staff rummages around in the basement trying to see if you have something in stock? With a POS system you can tell in 5 seconds. You can also set it up to automatically reorder, which if you have several thousand items you usually keep in stock (and what bike shop doesn't) saves you boatloads of time that you can use to help customers and or build bikes.

Posted from my computrainer!

Lee Silverman
JackRabbit Sports
Park Slope, Brooklyn

Well, they are GIGO- Garbage in, garbage out. With all the hats each of us have to wear in here right now none of us have time to check crap in, generate bar code labels, blah, blah.

Some of the bigger suppliers like Trek and Quality are shipping orders pre-imprinted with bar codes, store name and pricing. That is of interest.

Problem with us is that no two transactions are alike.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

This will sound a bit dicey, but I have a problem with always waiting at the bike shop. i am a regular customer, and they 'look after me' (what qualifies for sponsorship) so i have a good relationship with the people at the store. sometimes i wander in to pick up a part or item that i have ordered and i am constantly put to the back of the line because it's assumed that i won't mind that when a regular 'off the street' customer walks in. so i stand around, shooting the breeze with the mechanics, when all i want to do is buy what i want and go away rather than wait half an hour.

i guess i should be more assertive, but i don't wish to upset the staff, and they are, in their own way, my friends. but my money is still good, and just because i wear their jersey from time to time shouldn't mean that i qualify for second class service. man, this sounds like a ridiculous bitch, but i have the nous to do most of my mechanical work, and i could just go the internet for my purchases, but i want to support my local bike store as they have looked after me when i have had a mechanical crisis before a race. i guess these are the moments when i am put way to the front of the line, so to speak.

my point then? i guess i should just shut up, and tell them when i am in a hurry.

Although Tom's cats may be cute, I really doubt either of them wear Victoria's Secret underware. What, then, is he doing there? I sense someone isn't being entirely forthright with us...

How do you guys track parts/prices/inventory?

Tom,

When my son was younger, it was nearly impossible to not take him to McDonald's occasionally.

What I often experienced and observed were incredibly long waits to get to the register and an unbelievable amount of activity behind the counter, but very little activity of taking money from customers and putting it in the cash register drawer. I came to the conclusion that this restaurant chain had discovered that the way to make money and succeed in business was to have a maximum of people running around behind the counter doing any number of things besides waiting on customers and minimizing the number of counter person's (cashiers). Perhaps the minimum number of cashiers was to hold down costs?

My point is this. Ask these employees what the store is in business for. I have done this. You will get all kinds of answers. To make a hamburger. To sell wall board cheaper. To offer a customer the ambience (Starbucks experience) they expect or that we wish them to experience. On and on and on.

Not once have I heard one of these employees tell me the business exists to make a profit! This is truly sad in my opinion. Personally, I think this is a bigger reason for customer service failures than for any other reason.

Look at businesses' mission statements. Less than half of them will mention profitability as a primary mission. Are they really being honest or is this really the explanation for their lackluster performance in their customer's eyes?

The next fault, also in my opinion, is that we have dulled ourselves into accepting this level of customer service as acceptable and so we are delivered only the level that we will accept/demand.

Have you ever got so disgusted with your experience that you make a comment loud enough for everyone to hear such as, "this is ridiculous and unacceptable" and proceed to put down what you were intending to purchase and walk out.

It is as if our culture and society has brainwashed our young into believing that to profit in business is obscene and immoral. Yes, I will accept that is true if the owner or directors are skimming/raping the business two hand deep. But even businesses that profit to grow and enrich the community, employees, and owner seem to have been smeared in the process.

By this standard, I see many retailers missing the mark, some much more so than others. Many operate at marginal profit margins or even in the red. The CEOs and the Directors seem to operate very well on the profit motive if their compensation packages are any indication. But their compensation should be tied more directly to how well they train and manage the employees that interact directly with their customers.

Now, many may argue that their compensation already is directly tied to how well they train and manage their employees that interact directly with their customers.. The profitability of the business directly reflects this. If this is the case, then their compensation packages do not reflect it directly enough, in my opinion.

This probably wasn't what you were interested in reading in the first place. I'm sorry to have hijacked your thread with my rant. Please accept my apology. I'll be quiet now.

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Ben Cline


Better to aspire to Greatness and fail, than to not challenge one's self at all, and succeed.

Delays at checkout are more often than not caused by poorly trained cashiers. I used to write POS systems, and the biggest problem after implementation was training cashiers, as most are underpaid and overworked and more often than not, have very little computer experience.
As for using computerized POS, if I had a store I'd be all over it.
A good POS could let one know exactly what's on the shelves, what's in the back of the store, which accessories people buy with $1000 bikes and which ones with $4000 bikes, and it just goes on...
Return on POS investment isn't really clearly defined, but it can be huge.

“Have you ever got so disgusted with your experience that you make a comment loud enough for everyone to hear such as, "this is ridiculous and unacceptable" and proceed to put down what you were intending to purchase and walk out.”



All the time. Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Target, Albertson’s, Safeway. If they have 20 cash registers and only one cashier, I will give them an acceptable amount of time and than just walk out and leave my cart right there. Somebody made a decision to put only one cashier up there (not the cashier’s fault) if I stand in line for 20 minutes than I am saying with my dollars that it was a correct decision. Home Depot puts the manager’s name and phone number right up on the wall behind the registers. I will call him from the line and say get another cashier or I will walk out. It works about half the time.



Starbucks has figured out how to keep you from walking out without a purchase. They get your cash right up front. This morning I figured I would be a good husband and pick my wife up an egg nog late on the way back from the gym. I paid for the egg nog late and almost 20 minutes later when they called my name they had the wrong drink. They argued with me that I was wrong than reluctantly agreed to make the right drink. By that point I had invested 25 minutes into a $3.75 cup of coffee and just walked out.



Tom,

To your original question. Train your employees on how to use the POS system well. Most delays are caused by under trained cashiers. Than put in a back up system so you are not stuck when the system goes down, and it will. I would also keep a simple cash register around and when the line gets long start ringing people up on that. As long as I know the store is doing the best they can I will stand in line.



Dave

I have a carry out restaurant, and people come to the counter, order and wait for the food. If I take the order, or another manager takes the order, the customer is in and out and the only wait is for the food preparation. Even our best phone/counter clerks seem to take more time.

Our POS is simple, yet complicated. Very intuitive, but we use a light pen which sometimes doesn't tag the item you wanted and delays the transaction. If the customer can be engaged somehow with great interaction or conversation, or a free pop while they are waiting, it's an effective buffer sometimes. Not always.

The key is having all employees - from cooks to phone clerks - understand that time is profit, production is essential and the customer pays your rent, for your concert tickets, your make-up and cellphone bill. (How about employees on their cellphones..that's a whole other thread!) Profit is mandatory, and customers should understand that. If they don't they should shop at the FREE PIZZA STORE!! Get customers in and out quickly, but also communicate how long it's going to take for their stuff to get into their hands and get them out the door!

Good suggestions. At this stage, we have no plans for a POS system. Like everything though, that is likely to change.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

I have little paitience for line-ups. Grocery shopping is about the only time that I have to deal with any form of line-up and typically it is not that big. In other stores, if I see a big lineup at the cashier, my solution is simple - I will go and shop somewhere else, decide not to buy what ever I was about to buy or postpone the purchase to another time.

It astounds me how like sheep people really are - and we are heading into the worst time of year for this sort of thing with christmas shopping already underway. Again even during this busy time of the year, my solution is simple - seek out smaller retailers who are not busy and that care about the customer. If a store is so big that they need a POS and you are being reduced to a number, then I don't want to shop their in the first place.

Fleck

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Tom,

Long time reader, first time writer, but your question has succeeded in getting me off the bench.

I sell Point of Sale/Business Management software to all kinds of businesses (including bike shops!), and I must say that it is common concern that owners have. We have all been in the line-up at Walmart at Christmas or while a new(er) employee is left alone too soon to sink or swim, which leaves us tapping our toes and grumling under our breath.

Good point of sale software, though coupled with (as has been stated above) the appropriate amount of training should deliver the same "checkout speed" as a cash register. One still has to enter the selling price, and the quantity of each item to be sold to the customer, total it out, take moolah and give change no matter it's with rock tablet and abicus or a modern computer. The difference is that the modern computer will allow you to capture information and update records while the transaction is going on. Updating the purchase history of customers, stock levels, back orders/special orders, serial numbers of items sold (read: bikes) can all happen out of that one transaction. Now, granted one could do all of those things by paper and pen, but think of the extra time it would take the store, and all the steps where a mistake could be made? Reading through some of the "knocks" on this forum about LBS customer service, I think highlights this issue - "I ordered this from you and you forgot to order it" - OOPS! Wrote it down but that piece of paper is now keeping the dust-bunnies company under the counter.

Is Point of Sale Software a be-all-end-all-make-you-instantly-and-insanely-rich product? HELL, NO! It is a tool like your (insanely busy) bike repair stands ...could you run your business without then? Yup! Would you want to though?

Thus endeth my diatribe (and shabbily disguised sales presentation)

You will now return to your regularly scheduled program, already in progress...

Mark

http://www.sportsstorepos.com/ (NOTE: This poster sells Points of Sale/Business Management Software).

I find both the waiting in line and the checkout process to be frustrating.

Focusing strictly on POS systems, the problem is twofold. First, many of them are old and and obscenely complex. Even the newer ones are still designed off the old 'screen-scraper' look and feel, where what you see is a direct reflection of either a mainframe system or a database table(this was huge back in the FoxPro days.) Second, many of the clerks are only marginally competent to operate the systems. Therefore, when a problem arises, the clerk has to call a manger, andthe manger is invariably busy with someone at another terminal. This is largely because of apathy on the part of the clerks, and partly because if they could figure out the POS system themselves, they would probably move one to something else that paid them more.

It is amazing that, given the basic function of a checkout counter(ring up items, accept payment), it takes so much time. But it only takes one item being entered into inventory incorrectly to stop even the best system dead in its tracks. This happens at The Sports Authority all the time. They never have the sales items entered correctly, so what is a very efficient POS system turns into the checkout from hell. Every time.

Sadly, even the self-checkouts many places use do not account for the many aberrations in the system, so that is not always a viable alternative. I'd say that better than 50% of the time when I go to a self-checkout I am delayed because of a problem with an item I am purchasing.

FYI: I worked retail for 8 years at several companies. Supermarkets have it best, electronics stores are worst, and POS systems in general are poorly implemented because most of them are designed for sale to every potential customer, instead of being developed for a particular application(ex. the standardized self-checkout station.)

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I work retail and can easily sense when people are impatient (with a 1:30 checkout, and when they are not (even with a 10 minute checkout.) I have started to do the following.

Anytime I or someone else is ringing someone out, and it is delayed due to computer problems, not enough paper, finding SKU's: I usually take the time to explain the product they are buying. I will reiterate the warranty, or give advice on the installation. Maybe share a quip about how much I liked it when I bought one, or remind them abou twhat to do when something goes wrong. Or finish telling them about that other product you just couldn't upsell them to.

You can't get this kind of service in a HomeDepot or MacDonalds because the employees don't know the product, but in a bike shop the employees ought to be able to make some sort of enjoyable valuable conversation that I might even look forward to each time I check out. Sure, 5 or 10 minutes starts to get a little long. We can get people through a POS experience in under 3 minutes including taking down name, address, phone and email to add to our mailing list, putting in SKU's, and Serial #'s, and taking money and printing receipts. It can be done easily with some thourough training and some classes for your employees on the art of pleasurable BS'ing during the process.

As someone who used to work in that sector of industry (for a company selling and implementing POS systems)

It is not the system (usually) at fault if the checkout is slow. It is either (a) the cashier doesn't know what to do (maybe the system is too complicated for the level of employee, or maybe the employee just needs more training) or (b) there is some other issue - the main one I've seen is not having the correct infrastructure to handle things like credit card transactions. I've had checkouts on just regular cash registers take a lot longer than any computerized system.

Saying that you are too busy to enter info into a POS system is a specious argument. You have to keep track of your inventory somewhere. At some point someone has to write down what you've got in stock, what you ordered and what you need to order. An integrated system (inventory integrated with your POS) can save you immense time. To be honest, the first time through setting up a system like this is a whole lot of work. Just like setting up your bike shop. I bet you didn't walk in and just start selling bikes. There was some kind of building, rents/leases, floor layout, etc. etc. A good POS/inventory system is the same way. You need to spend some time up front to set it up the way you need it to work.

Also, another great feature that I've seen is a customer tracking option. You tell them your name - and then they can pull you up as a return customer. This is very nice, and makes me feel like I am a valued customer - it increases their customer service with almost no effort on the part of the store once the initial setup has been completed. It can also significantly increase store sales. At one store, I now have a lifetime 5% discount because I have spent enough money. I tend to go back to this store, even with other stores to choose from, just because I am a "lifetime" customer. Having the discount doesn't hurt either. Saving $5 on a $100 purchase isn't a very large amount of money, but just having that discount makes me prefer that store. Another example, I was shoe shopping with my sister and we went into one of her favorite stores. She asked the owner why she hadn't got any mailers lately, the store owner said that the system had died, he entered her name into their new computer. The point being, the store kept track of repeat customers (like my sister) and would send them special mailers to bring them back to the store. Good customer service on the part of the store, making someone feel like a valued customer, also a good profit strategy. The customer feels like the store cares about them, and the store makes money.

Shellee in CA

I think that you have just very effectively differentiated the difference between a clerk and a profesional salesperson. I used to love managing the crowds when my stores were very busy. People are a lot more tolerant and patient if you are engaging them.

Like I always used to say, when you come into my store, you're in my house, and one way or another, it's me and you until you leave.

I think that too many people in the business are clerks, and can't be bothered to engage people, or just don't take pride in their job.

BTW, Tom, the things I listed in my previous post are a big part of why I buy most everything online.

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