General manager Duane Owens explains: “When you have both bar and restaurant customer clientele, there are some tricky tax issues. I knew that a POS that handled sales tax well would save us several thousand dollars a year.” The Smokehouse needed a POS that would recognize when food items were added to a bar order and automatically recalculate taxes accordingly.
In addition, Owens wanted a POS with user-friendly customer loyalty and electronic gift card programs, plus the flexibility to configure menu and bar items to specifications. “We were issuing gift certificates manually in a very tedious process,” Owens explains. “Money was falling through the cracks.”
For assistance in the selection, Owens turned to his local division of US Foods (www.usfoods.com), which opened up an unexpected bonus: The Smokehouse would be eligible for a generous discount on the purchase through the US Foods Resource Advantage program.
Frequent Diner Program Keeps Customers Loyal
Owens is making use of a variety of diverse functions on the new POS. “I ran an employee contest with some great prizes, including dinner here at The Smokehouse for the team of servers that signed up the most customers for our new frequent diner program. We had 900 people sign up in the first two months,” says Owens.
The flexibility of the customer loyalty module allowed Pontiac to design a program whereby customers need not carry loyalty cards; instead, the system uses the customer’s phone number to track purchases and generate coupons. “Our frequent diner program helps us reward customer loyalty and keep our tables filled.”
With the built-in promotion and coupon capabilities, The Smokehouse is able to deliver tailored promotions to loyalty club members. Owens has discovered that customers respond best to special offers issued through Facebook and he can use Restaurant Manager‘s database to build targeted lists of Facebook users that he wants to reach.
Source: Hospitality Industry
