Okay, so you’re sold on the benefits of implementing online ordering in your restaurant. Now it’s time to select from among the many solutions available in the marketplace. But don’t let your excitement about the potential advantages to be gleaned from offering customers the opportunity to place orders via a Web site force you into making a rash software purchasing decision.

Chances are, you’re very excited about the benefits your retail or restaurant operation will reap as a result of migrating from a cash register to a computerized point of sale system. However, the same may not go for at least some of your employees.

In order for a customer loyalty program to be truly effective, it must be targeted to your best customers. Contrary to what you may assume, these shoppers aren’t necessarily the ones who frequent your store or restaurant most often. For example, in many instances the most regular visitors to retail stores come primarily or almost entirely in search of “bargains”, seldom pay full price and often return their purchases.

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.

Nominated for consideration by Mercury Payment Systems, pcAmerica won the award for their installation with low calorie frozen dessert chain Tasti D-Lite. For this installation, pcAmerica and Tasti D-Lite collaborated to utilize Restaurant Pro Express POS software to integrate social marketing with their customer loyalty program.

Be a ruthless reference checker. It goes without saying that VARs without a proven track record of customer satisfaction should be avoided at all costs. However, “investigations” must go beyond this point. When checking references, don’t just ask contacts whether they liked the VAR in question and if it provided “good” customer service.

Remote log-in program. Once this type of program is installed, you can access your store, restaurant, or home computer from the software provider’s Web site by entering your user name and password. This type of software can be provided by pcAmerica.

Internet security solutions, including antivirus software, antispyware software, and firewall software. The antivirus piece ensures that your computer cannot be maliciously destroyed by outside hackers. With antispyware, unwanted ads will not pop up on your screen. Most importantly, firewalls prevent outsiders from stealing your data.

It’s no secret that the key to any successful communication is reaching the right audience, at the right time, with the right message. For some retailers and restaurateurs, this means not only deploying “freestanding” digital signage applications, but running digital signage software on kiosks.

When it comes to digital signage, the times, to quote an old Bob Dylan song, are “a-changing.” The scope of digital signage is no longer limited to “way-finding” (directions to a certain department in a store, for example) and the flashing of simple messages (such as the ticket number of a customer currently being served in a deli).