Garden centres with restaurants and cafés looking to improve their customer service and sales should be embracing new technology, according to industry experts.
The implementation and better use of EPoS (Electronic Point of Sale) systems can benefit garden centres tremendously when it comes to customer flow say EPoS experts, Easitill, which supplies three systems to the industry.
Managing Director Rob Gardner explained: “These days it’s quite uncommon to visit a garden centre that doesn’t have its own restaurant or café but a lot of garden centres aren’t making the most of technology within them, which can help themselves and their customers.
“There are three systems that cafés and restaurants can benefit hugely from. The standard checkout service, which allows customers to serve themselves and queue up to pay at the end, the table allocation service, which is table number driven and the waitress centred table service.
“By linking them directly into the kitchens where orders are printed out, service is much quicker, thus improving customer feedback and the number of diners that can be served.”
All of Easitill’s software is created in-house specifically for garden centres and nurseries and it allows them to improve their efficiency, reduce errors, increase security and turnover and retention.
Rob added: “Restaurant EPoS systems are extremely user-friendly and include touch screen technology. We can install a real-time set up that sends accurate product data to and from tills and master/back office as and when it happens. It can record accurate sales data using simple screen layouts, programmable touch screen keys and multiple button sets/layers.
“They will make the running of the restaurant or café much more efficient and we can arrange installation and staff training too.”
Easitill can also link EPoS systems with its various loyalty card schemes, which encourage customers to keep coming back. With the schemes restaurants and cafés can benefit from increased customer retention and spend.
The Easitill Loyalty schemes can also be used in the rest of the garden centre so that customer’s points are earned not only in the restaurant but between the various parts of the business as a whole.
Easitill, which is a family-run business, has assisted garden centres with their EPoS requirements since 1988.
It helps small to medium-sized garden centres and nurseries with EPoS, website, mobile and mail order solutions to improve the profitability and quality of their business operations.
For further details, please call Easitill on 01604 882030, email support@easitill.co.ukor visit www.easitill-horticultural.co.uk for examples of the systems in use.
