What do you do to ensure that your customers are getting the best service that you and your team can provide? Do you have set procedures in place to avoid long lines or waiting for customers who need help?

If so, do you have specific time-oriented goals designed to minimize the time a customer has to wait? You'd be surprised, but setting a specific target makes it much easier to track, and therefore improve upon. Spend a little time watching the flow of customers in your store. If the lines at checkout are more than a couple of customers deep, or if customers are wandering around un-helped, it's probably time to add some staff or encourage your employees to be more active with their customer service.

If you can't add more employees, what about putting up helpful signs and directions in your store? I know that I'd personally rather help myself when I'm shopping, so I love it when I can get myself 'unstuck' when I'm at a store. Thoughtfully placed signs and directions can be very helpful without being overbearing. Be careful though, you don't want to overload the customer and seem like a police state with warning signs and oppressive directions everywhere.

Do also try to set a target time for helping each customer, and come up with incentives for your employees to meet those goals. You'll have happier, more loyal customers, and happier, more efficient employees.

Who wouldn't want that?

Or, who's watching the door?

I've talked about security here before (and I will again, I promise!) but I've focused mainly on the POS system itself.

It's becoming increasingly important to secure not only your physical system, or your website, but your network as a whole. This means making sure that you have excellent virus and malware protection, plus good access control on your network.

Viruses and malware don't always work the same way, so making sure your anti-virus is up to date is crucial, but it also takes some common sense on the part of your users. If you don't know who sent an e-mail, or aren't sure of its intent, it's best not to click on any forms or offers therein. Cheap insurance, for sure.

That's step one. Step two is making sure that no unauthorized parties have access to your network from online or locally. Don't use default passwords and change your passwords every 90 days. If an employeed leaves, remove their profile immediately to prevent any unauthorized access.

If you have any wireless networks, keep them fully encrypted and try to monitor connections periodically to spot any unauthorized activity there.

These simple steps can go a long way toward keeping your business safe and secure, and they really don't cost much so there's no reason not to.

Cheers.

What if your store burned down? What if someone stole your data server?
What if...

It's an open ended question, but it means a lot to your business. Do you have a plan in place if some disaster befalls your business data? The term 'disaster recovery' gets bandied about a lot these days, and it can mean a variety of things.

To a large enterprise, it typically means a full infrastructure designed to swing into action should there be a catastrophic event involving the company data. The plan is designed to minimize the loss and the amount of down time as a result of the interruption. Unfortunately, full systems such as this can be quite expensive and complicated.

For a small business, it can be as simple as having a routine off site backup and a business partner that can help you restore your data once your physical system is back in place. CAP offers a very easy and affordable backup tool that allows you to store all of your data off-site on a secure server. The backup happens automatically over the internet based on a schedule you determine, and then if you have a disaster situation, a CAP technician will help you restore that data.

So, ask yourself "What if...?" If you don't have a very good answer, then it's probably time to do something about it.

Well, Fridays don't always bring good news unfortunately. Did anyone hear that we're in a recession?

I know, I know, I've spent several posts saying it's not that bad, and "we'll be fine", and for the most part we probably will be.

So, along those lines, think about this. What does a recession really mean to most of us? What about the people you know? Will it affect you directly?
Will it end in the summer time like everyone says it will? If so, that doesn't seem so bad, so let's move on. There's plenty of work to be done, and sitting around talking recession certainly won't do it.

Here's a happy Friday thought: Let's keep working and doing what we do best. Soon enough the issues facing the economy will be resolved and we'll be back on top again. So there.

Cheers,

Troubling times may indeed be here when security experts can't even agree on what all should be done to protect customer data on various levels, but one thing that is becoming increasingly clear is that the basic PCI standard as laid out by VISA and the PCI DSS is not enough.

Is it enough to protect most retailers from losing credit card data? Probably.

Is it enough to keep sophisticated and increasingly motivated hackers from getting information that they want? Probably not.

This article from RIS News may be a bit alarmist, or at least aimed at major retailers, but it does make some good points:
http://www.risnews.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=news&mod=News&mid=9A02E3B96F2A415ABC72CB5F516B4C10&tier=3&nid=AAF2562815244C90847657609C037E98


The point is, PCI is a start, but you need to keep your antivirus and network protection systems up to date and make sure they are installed and configured properly.

I've already talked about this some, but be warned, I'll be talking about it again. It may be the hot topic for 2008 as soon as this recession is over!

Well, I'm certainly not the first one to write a blog post about the Vista roll out lately, but what does SP1 really mean for retailers?
Most likely it doesn't mean much, since I expect most people haven't upgraded to Vista in the first place. But, in a more important step, Microsoft will stop selling XP after June 30th of this year.
So, if you're not on Vista now, no problem. In fact, we recommend staying on XP for the forseeable future due to the issues some customers are having with Vista.
But, long term, you're simply going to have to make the switch. Make sure that when you do buy a new computer with Vista that you get one of the Professional versions, because the Home and Basic versions simply aren't suited to retail business use and you will suffer as a result.
If you already have Vista, do you like it?
I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.

That's definitely a buzzword these days, and it can be hard to keep up with the flavor of the minute when it comes to security for retailers. Obviously it means securing your data and being PCI compliant, and it also means making sure your data is actually stored and backed up securely so that you have a disaster recovery route in case of system failure or actual disaster.
But it also means good ol' traditional physical security. The video security industry has not been sitting still while the world rushes onward. Now there are more ways to install and maintain an affordable and extremely effective video surveillance system in your store. You can also do it all using your existing network infrastructure, so it's relatively easy.

The new tools also combine true digitial cameras and storage with full web access, so you can realistically keep an eye on your physical assets remotely. Want to see what's going on at your store while you're on vacation? Simply login to your web access account and take a look.

CAP vigorously recommends incorporating this technology into your budget for the coming year. As data security guidelines tighten seemingly every month, having a good video record of what goes on with your point of sale system may prove invaluable.

How’s it going so far this year? Has the doom and gloom hit in your business? Despite all the bad news in the numbers and on Wall Street, businesses seem to be doing relatively well, especially considering the fact that we’re in all likelihood in a shallow recession.

Let me know your thoughts on the situation please. Have you noticed any different buying behavior from your customers? What trends are you seeing in the short term?
Are customers cutting back to more necessary goods rather than premium items?

The big question I have is, if there is a negative impact, is it bad enough to seriously affect retailers by the middle of the summer when we expect the recession to fade?

What are your thoughts?

For some, 2007 was the big green year, and many pessimists are saying that 2008 will see a reduction in the fanfare surrounding green initiatives. Could they be right? Will we really see a slowdown in the adoption of green technologies and practices? I don’t think so.

I think that 2007 was the year of “Green Announcements” and 2008 will be the year of “Practical Green Adoption.” Maybe it won’t be such big, flashy news, but we’ll see research continue to reduce the costs of implementing green policies and technologies, making it easier for companies large and small to get a little bit greener in 2008.

What does that mean for retailers? Honestly, probably not a whole lot. But, if you want to get on the green bandwagon, then good for you. I can’t say that there are lots of retail specific products aimed at helping store owners go green, but there are lots of little things you can do.

For example, power consumption is one of the biggest environmental issues around running a business. If you can examine all of your power consuming devices, and replace some of them, especially the older less efficient ones, with new long life and high efficiency units, that should make a difference from day one, AND, you’ll get a smaller electricity bill at the end of the month. How do you do it?

Well, the easiest things are the obvious ones like light bulbs and heating and air conditioning units, but if you have a full POS system that runs all day, it might be very useful to upgrade your equipment to newer standards. Also, make sure your doors and windows are sealed well, and that the heater doesn’t run all night when no one is there.

Smaller examples can be found everywhere though. How much receipt paper do you go through every day? Is it a lot? Could it be less? Probably so. Try reducing the size of your logos on your receipts and reduce the number of messages you include there. Also, if you’re printing two copies of every receipt for your records, keep in mind that your POS system should be storing that data, so save a tree and don’t print all those extras. Speaking of extras, I know it’s nice to print out all your reports and then mull them over, but do you really need to print fifteen or twenty pages of paper every night? Nah, just view them on the screen and leave it at that. If you need to print some reports, go ahead, but think about it before you hit ‘Print’ every time, you might be surprised at the difference it makes.

I’ll make another post in the interest of keeping this one readable, but if you have any green ideas, please post them in the comments section. There are lots of little ways to reduce our daily impact and I’d love to hear some from you.

I’ve already talked about integrated IP based credit card processing, but that’s nothing new really. It’s just something you’ll need to remain competitive. Something that IS new, or relatively so, is contactless payment technology.

What the heck is that? It can mean a variety of things, but essentially the term encompasses any type of payment method that doesn’t require the customer to hand over a credit card, or even swipe their own card with a magnetic stripe. The customer literally never touches anything at the checkout counter, but still he can pay using a credit card.

How does it work? There are a variety of ways, the most familiar being the SpeedPass that Mobil and other petroleum retailers introduced several years back. It involves a key fob or other RF device that communicates with a stationary reader installed at a counter or gas pump. SpeedPass required the customer to pass his keychain (with fob, of course) in front of the reader on the pump. The fob had the customer’s credit card account information embedded in its RF signature, so that the reader could receive the information and process the payment.

That concept may have been a bit ahead of its time, but it hasn’t gone away. In fact, you’re more than likely going to see a lot more of it in the coming year. Several credit card issuers are embedding chips in their cards that allow a customer to wave their credit card past a reader at the POS, accomplishing the same thing as passing the card through a magnetic stripe reader. The benefits are durability (the chip won’t wear out like a magnetic stripe) and greater security. A magnetic stripe is not encrypted, but the chip information is. Several card issuers are planning on ramping up their adoption of this technology, so don’t be surprised if you see an offer from your bank or another bank for something like this very soon.

The newest technology is called NFC, for Near Field Communications. This is also chip based, but instead of embedding a tiny chip in a payment card, the chip is designed to hold even more information and to be installed in your cellular phone. This allows customers to use their phones as a payment method, simply passing the phone in front of the reader at the POS instead of their credit card.

So, where can you use these things? Right now, only a few retailers and certain issuing banks are on board, but the list is certain to grow. I know I’ve been stumped by the reader hanging off the wall in the drive through at Jack in the Box. At first I thought it was there for me to swipe my card, but it’s really just a chip reader for contactless payment methods.

It remains to be seen how many retailers adopt this technology, and how quickly, but if you have one of these cards I’d love to hear your thoughts on how it works and whether or not you feel it’s a valuable service. It’s a wide open field, and 2008 is sure to be the year in which it starts to fill up. Expect to see offerings from POS companies like CAP that allow even small retailers to accept these cutting edge payment technologies.