Sure, you use data collected by your point of sale system to see what’s selling in your store or landing on customers’ plates in your restaurant. However, there’s so much more you can—and should—be doing with it.

Information amassed by a highly functional point of sale solution, such as pcAmerica’s Cash Register Express or Restaurant Pro Express, is truly some of the most potent marketing data you can possess, and it’s literally at your fingertips. For example, this data can be used to put together a list of every customer who has ever purchased something from your store or dined at your operation, along with what they purchased or ordered and how much they paid for it. Based on such information you can, when you add new inventory or introduce a new menu item, create targeted mailing lists (email or “snail mail”) of customers who almost certainly would want to hear the news. This is much better—and far less costly from a marketing standpoint—than generating a mass mailing to every shopper or diner that has patronized your establishment.

Point of sale information gathered by a good point of sale solution can also be used to identify and send custom-tailored messages to specific patrons when you are running a sale or promotion on items they have previously bought or consumed under your roof, based on the premise that they’ll likely be interested in similar or identical products or dishes. You can share such information as customers’ brand, color, size and style preferences with their spouses and friends to make the gift-buying process easier and increase the likelihood not only of making a sale, but of cultivating repeat business. You can send personalized greetings on birthdays and anniversaries. Should a customer want to return a gift or has lost a receipt, you can quickly verify the date and price of the purchase. All of these factors greatly increase customer satisfaction and promote customer loyalty.

As if that weren’t enough, you can utilize historical point of sale information to set minimum and maximum “stock-on-hand” levels. This will prevent overstocks and, in turn, minimize the need to ever tell a customer that you are “out” of a product or menu item.  As sales trends and/or vendor/supplier lead times change, the data can be employed as a logical basis for adjusting these minimum and maximum levels. You can then keep just enough inventory or ingredients on hand to meet your requirements, reducing your own costs.

For more information on leveraging point of sale data, contact pcAmerica.