Located on the Peninsular area of the New South Wales Central Coast, Everglades Country Club is widely regarded as one of the region’s finest clubs. Along with an 18-hole golf course and three lawn bowling greens, the Club features a wide range of facilities within its 3,400 square metres of clubhouse. In 2008, the Club’s focus on providing members and guests with the best possible experience was given a boost with the introduction of a Toshiba TEC retail POS solution.

Challenge: Identify a total and robust retail POS solution

In mid-2008, the Club’s Secretary/Manager, Mr. Wayne Dean, selected a group of five specialist solution providers to submit proposals for the supply, implementation and support of a new retail POS solution. “We were looking for a solution that would give us a robust hardware platform, proven software, greater accountability, and partnership with a company that was committed to working with us.

“Importantly,” Mr. Dean continues, “we wanted a retail POS environment that could be readily built on to take advantage of new technologies and innovations in retail POS.”

Solution: Toshiba TEC

As the five responses came in, it soon became quite apparent to Mr. Dean that the solution proposed by a leading Toshiba TEC partner, which featured the partner's own software and Toshiba TEC WILLPOS A10 touch-screen terminals, was well ahead of the rest.

Taking the rough

High on the list of operational benefits the WILLPOS A10s afford the Club is the units’ ability to withstand the harsh wet bar environment. “A fact of this environment is that liquid spills are par for the course,” Mr. Dean says. “Aside from those spills that occur normally during service, there are also liquids involved in the day-to-day cleaning. Essentially, the terminals are constantly subjected to liquids, which are of course electronic equipment’s worst enemy.”

Regardless of that, the design and engineering of the WILLPOS A10s have ensured the Club’s new POS terminals will easily withstand their ‘worst enemy’; and this is crucial in a bar environment where rapid customer service is a key requirement. “Even during peak periods, bar customers expect to be served with a minimum of delay,” Mr. Dean explains. “This means that the POS hardware must be able to stand up to rough treatment at every level. In this, the Toshiba TEC hardware delivers on that requirement hands down!”

Twice the support

While specific on-site support requirements were only broadly detailed in the Club’s initial request for interest document, evaluation of the responses soon showed that it was the Toshiba TEC hardware which took line honours in that regard. Where all the other responses ‘boasted’ on-site warranty support periods ranging from three to twelve months, it was only the Toshiba TEC-based solution that carried a full 24 months!

“Aside from the fact that it gave us at least twice the on-site support period that anyone else was offering, it demonstrated clearly that Toshiba TEC was providing us with equipment they knew was going to last the distance,” Mr. Dean stated.

Getting the extra sales

One of the main goals of any business in the food and drinks industry is encouraging customers to purchase additional items; and with the WILLPOS A10’s integrated customer facing 15-inch LCD screen, Everglades is achieving just that.

Taking advantage of the software’s in-built advertisement display option, full-screen custom advertisements for the Club’s bottle and gift shop are continually displayed on a rotation basis on all nine WILLPOS A10s. “In this type of operation, you want customers to consider discretionary purchases,” Mr. Dean explains. “Given that our bars mainly serve drinks, we’re keen for the customers to be reminded of any bottle shop specials that may be on offer.”

When asked if the advertising being displayed on the customer-facing screen is helping to drive sales in the bottle and gift shop, Mr. Dean is quick to point out that while the current economic downturn is effecting sales in many hospitality industry areas, the Club’s takeaway sales have held firm. “If we hadn’t opted for the customer-facing display, then there’s a very good argument that we may well be losing sales.

“Interestingly, when we asked the various solution providers about second displays on their POS terminals, the WILLPOS A10 was the only one presented to us as a fully integrated POS terminal with dual screens. The rest? They did not include such generous and flexible customer display options as part of the standard package.”

Keeping the options open

Having been in the hospitality industry for many years, Mr. Dean is only too aware of the importance of the WILLPOS A10’s industry standard architecture. With that, the Club has implemented a broadly scoped POS environment that can take full advantage of the best in hospitality POS technology. This includes RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), which is a key feature of the Toshiba TEC partner's software.

With RFID, the details of each transaction is recorded along with a unique bar staff member identifier, which is picked up by a third-party RFID reader that reads the RFID information contained in a wrist band worn by bar personnel. “Features such as this give us a POS solution that is quite simply one of the best available,” Mr. Dean states. “And this is where having a non-proprietary POS terminal pays enormous dividends both to the Club and our members and guests.

“Over the years,” Mr. Dean continues, “I’ve seen far too many instances of companies being ‘held captive’ by proprietary systems, essentially locked in to the one platform, one vendor and one solution set. “In selecting the WILLPOS A10, we’ve given ourselves a robust and reliable POS terminal and total freedom for the future.”

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