A Guide to EPOS Maintenance

Barclays and Barclay recently conducted some research that revealed that purchases were abandoned on a regular basis when customers in Britain were forced to queue for three or more minutes. The study found that payment systems that required no contact or pin code were able to reduce the times necessary for a transaction by more than a third.

However, payments can be faster in more ways than by simply reducing contact. Transaction times can also be improved when EPOS systems are well maintained. Vista Retail Support’s Sales and Marketing Director Richard Cottrell provided five tips to help a business find the right partner for maintenance to work with.

Consult And Collaborate.

An EPOS service partner should partner with retailers as a consultant and collaborator in order to reduce the amount of downtime on EPOS using a call reduction strategy and preventative maintenance program. Potential problems can be detected and fixed before they become a major problem that reduce business revenue when a preventative maintenance program is in place.

Time For Response.

The ability and readiness to respond to a service call of an EPOS service provider should be carefully considered by a retailer. The activity of the service provider with regard to store systems inside of the store should be looked at in terms of technical screening and priority assessment.

Availability And Flexibility.

Service solutions for EPOS machines can be tailored for requirements of risk mitigation, availability, geographic location, and multi-vendor environments. To ensure that resources are correctly allocated, it is imperative that an adequate logistics infrastructure exists. The effective allocation of urgent calls combined with the ability to respond rapidly should be paired with the locations of the field service engineer and an available stock of ample spare parts.

Statistical Analysis.

Each month, the vendor should provide the time spent on each job, the reason for the call outs, and the total number of call outs. This information allows the retail to determine that the vendor is meeting its SLAs, how stores compare, and how well their hardware is performing.

The Cost Must Be Counted

In order to control long term costs such as maintenance, a discussion of the requirements must be discussed in advance by retailers in great detail. In the long run, for example, an inexpensive up front deal may cost wind up costing more. The vendor for maintenance should be able to give advice to a business on when it is time to replace, hold onto, or upgrade an item. However, most vendors provide little in the way of expertise and are made happy simply by providing the equipment with repair. Relevant cover must be chosen by retailers. They may require flexible service level agreements or mixed service delivery models to focus on during periods of peak activity throughout the year.