Retail Observer

RETAILOBSERVER.COM DECEMBER 2022 56 L ike many of you, I was a part of a family-owned business, and my father was old school. And when I say old school, I mean really old school. Every single sales order or service call was written by hand, then typed onto an index card and filed in a filing cabinet. When it came time to look up a customer, you had to cross your fingers that it was filed properly, or you'd spend hours trying to find it. Does that sound familiar? Fortunately, in 1993 my brother and I convinced him to let us buy a computer system for the company. We chose Swiftlink as our point-of- sale (POS) system. At the time, it was unquestionably the best POS system for the appliance industry, and it served us well for many, many years. But, as the saying goes, time waits for no one, and the industry evolves every year, constantly forcing dealers to change the way they do business if they want to survive and thrive. So if you're still doing business the same way you did five, 10, 20 or 30 years ago, I've got news: It's time to change! As business gets ever more complicated, so does your job, and whether you want to admit it or not, you need more help. Everyone does. So why not let technology be your assistant? A modern POS system can do so much for you and your company – it can: • Fully integrate your website with up-to-the-minute pricing and real- time inventory to grab a larger share of potential customers. • Eliminate duplication of effort by not forcing you or your employees to enter the same information multiple times. • Save money and the environment by going paperless. • Create all your sales and service orders in one easy-to-use system. • No more illegible, hand-scrawled sales orders or service call tickets. • No more overselling of merchandise or confusion over whether you have a product in stock. • No more selling products for the wrong price or forgetting to charge for your services. • Make customer communication, invoicing and history retrieval as easy as clicking a button. • Receive payments instantly. • Increase your extended warranty and add-on attachments. • Drag-and-drop schedule and routing of deliveries and service calls. Sounds great – right? But maybe a little scary? Believe me, I understand. Overhauling the way your company conducts business sounds difficult, and I'm guessing it probably is. But isn't a couple of weeks of living outside your comfort zone worth the return you'll get on the investment? Maybe it's just the nature of an independent business owner to be skeptical about new things. I know some dealers who are downright paranoid about change. So, yes, there will be a learning curve, but once you know how to use a good point-of-sale system, you'll wonder how you ever got by without it. The fact is, change is happening all around us, whether we like it or not. The bottom line? Instead of fearing change and missing out on opportunities, you need to start embracing it. Change is critical to your long-term success, profitability and sanity. While I'd love for you to consider AVB's new SYNC point-of-sale platform, the most important thing is that you find yourself a modern, fully functional POS system to carry your business into the next decade and beyond. Rich Lindblom Service Trends Rich Lindblom is a past principal of BrandSource dealer Advanced Maytag Home Appliance in greater Chicago. He now brings his 45-plus years of hard-won retail experience to fellow BrandSource members as product manager of AVB Marketing's SYNC point-of-sale system. You can reach Rich at rich.lindblom@avb.net. RO C'MON, DO I REALLY NEED A POINT-OF-SALE SYSTEM? A fully integrated system can make all the difference

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