Today’s POS systems are much more sophisticated than the old traditional ones that were not capable of combining multiple functions. Now, they can process credit cards, use smartphones and gather customer data to share with some other softwares as well. Many even have a Customer Relationship Management CRM built within which gives it even more power.
Despite all these amazing feats there is a massive underlying advantage of a POS system that often goes unnoticed. With the help of these systems, you can study your customer and get information that is going to help you in coming up with the best possible strategy. In fact, this is an indicator of an all-rounder POS that achieves required results with maximum accuracy. Here is how you can do it:
- CRM gathers information
Gathering information is going to be super simple and fast thanks to the built in CRM that collects customer information without any need for manually feeding the data. The entire process is automated and the system collects information from every transaction and saves it. You have the ability to get all the information a traditional CRM requires like names, contact numbers, email addresses, shipping addresses or even nicknames or gender. This eliminates the need for you to manually enter information and thus saves a lot of time. Read here the many benefits of having a good CRM system.
- Customer Preferences
Through the data that your CRM with the help of POS collects and the sales data you record you can find out what your customer really want. You can easily find out about a customer’s buying history and track sales. This data goes into your CRM and you are able to find out about your customers, things like personal preferences, payment options, allergies and a whole host of other things that can prove very beneficial for taking a customer centric route with your marketing and sales efforts.
This way you narrow down your marketing tactics to where they will have the maximized effect. When you know which customer buys a certain type of product, it will be easier to target him or her for that specific line of products and all related promotions or sales. Rather than going all random, you now have a better chance at succeeding with your marketing emails or messages.
- Identify Loyal Customers
This is basically your ultimate key to success through a POS system as you can identify which customers are repeatedly buying from you. An advanced POS system can work with a CRM to find out those customers that are already buying a lot and those that are likely to come back.
Finding loyal customers is very important for a business because this is the bunch that should matter the most. You already must know about the 80/20 rule that 80% of your sales are because of only 20% of your customers. Clearly you need to focus your efforts on these 20% and bring them the best possible experience.
You can bring loyalty programs, gift cards or special discounts into the equation and you have a proven formula for success. In times of crisis, it is these offers and these customers that can save your ship from sinking. All your promotional activities get directed towards the right people who will most likely avail them.
Additionally, loyalty is also a sort of earned marketing. Your loyal customers will speak about you to so many other potential customers and help bring in even bigger numbers. It is simply a win-win situation for you as a business.
- Know a Customer’s Name
It is a good idea to smile and use a customer’s name to address them while handling a transaction. This creates a friendly environment and gauges the trust of the customer. Many POS systems now also email receipts and already know about loyal customer like mentioned before. This way you get to know a customer’s name in real time. You can also pre-program discounts for such customers on the POS and attain higher satisfaction rates.
- Create Email Lists
Almost every business opts for email marketing at one point or another either for drip marketing or when some new promotion or launch is happening. To do that you need an email list and the one that is not scraped off the internet or bought from a vendor. For any email marketing campaign to be successful, it has to reach the right inbox where it has a higher of chance of getting opened and clicked.
How do you make such a list? Your POS can help you in making the most relevant and refined lists. This list will contain the emails from customers who have actually made a purchase with you so there is relevance. These customers will respond well to your emails and the bounce rate will be very low.
Unlike a bought list, this will contain genuine emails that all customers willingly provided so there is no question about sending something without consent. It is usually not a good idea to send marketing emails to people who have not shown interest or given their consent.
Benefits of Knowing Your Customer
As a business, all your success is dependent on how well you treat your customer and in order to really do that you have to know the customer. Experts say that taking a personalized approach and making things all about the customer is the best way of doing business. Collecting customer data and identifying their interests or preferences, you can design your marketing and sales strategy that best suits their needs.
Your investments get highest possible ROI thanks to the information the POS collects. Modern POS systems are capable of doing all of that and can communicate with the company’s CRM to create personas. In today’s age when competition is so tough, such a system can help your campaigns get successful and generate revenue that is on point with your goals.