| Should you begin setting up your point of sale system | | | | months, at least 22.5% of that information is inaccurate. |
| or bar code application by entering your existing | | | | I would bet the number to be even higher because |
| customers and old data? This question gets asked all | | | | customers change phone numbers, email addresses |
| the time. The answer is definitely...maybe. Let us take a | | | | and other parts of their persona even more frequently. |
| look at what kinds of businesses really need customer | | | | That is a lot of useless data that someone got paid to |
| data and just how much it costs (in terms of time and | | | | enter into the system. |
| money) to enter data. Customer data is dynamic, fluid | | | | If we started using our system immediately, but kept a |
| and changing. Every day, every minute, your | | | | little notebook at the counter and wrote down the |
| customers are moving to new homes, getting new | | | | names of those customers who are not in the system |
| phone numbers, buying new cars and leaving town. | | | | when we go to ring them out - then we will benefit |
| New customers are showing up all the time. Should a | | | | from a speedy POS transaction, and STILL get the |
| business owner even bother to put in old data? | | | | value of ringing out those items and keeping our |
| Over the course of thousands of installations I have | | | | inventory accurate. We can then add those customer |
| observed businesses taking six or even twelve | | | | names during slow hours. Doing it in this manner also |
| months to put in their old customers and a bit of | | | | does not annoy the customer by having to ask them |
| information about them. That is before they even start | | | | all kinds of questions when they are just trying to |
| using the system. In other words, they delay starting to | | | | complete their business. Hint - it is really irritating to |
| use their new point of sale system to add old data. | | | | customers to have to wait on line when the sales clerk |
| We know, from the national home ownership statistics, | | | | is trying to do data entry AND ring sales. Don't do your |
| that people move every 4.5 years. If a retailer spends | | | | data entry when customers are lined up. Just ring their |
| a year putting in customer data, then by the end of 12 | | | | sales and enter data later. |