January, 2006

POS World, Inc. makes Business Solutions Magazine January 2006 Cover

Point of sale & Barcoding reseller, POS World, makes Business Solutions January 2006 Cover Story featuring our free, expert technical support

Source - Business Solutions Magazine, January 2006. Online Here

Boost Web POS Sales With Support

Joe Bushéy has only traveled to customer sites about four times in the past four years to install the POS equipment his company, POSWorld, Inc., sells on its Web site. It’s not that Bushéy, the company’s president/CEO, doesn’t want to travel, nor is he sending other staff members to do this type of installation work. It’s his customers — they don’t want or need anyone to install this equipment. Instead, they often have an employee or friend who has the installation/integration know-how, or sometimes they are willing to try doing it themselves with phone support from POSWorld. It’s a trend Bushéy predicted would happen when he started his company seven years ago at the age of 24. That’s why he launched www.posworld.com and targeted smaller customers seeking replacement equipment and start-up POS systems for the retail and hospitality markets.

But label POSWorld as a “catalog reseller” or “box mover” simply because it primarily generates business via its Web site, and you’re likely to get an earful from Bushéy. “There are a lot of do-it-yourselfers out there now who aren’t willing to pay for integration services,” he comments. “So, if a customer isn’t asking for those types of services, I don’t think I should apologize for filling their needs via the Web. Unlike the so-called catalog resellers, there is no call center experience with us. All of our employees have extensive product knowledge and can field most level-one and some level-two support calls. To put it in perspective, I’ll wager that our accounting department can provide better tech support than any catalog reseller’s tech support department.”

Hire POS Veterans You would think a company that has approximately 39,000 customers and receives nearly 125 orders per day would hire inexpensive order-takers trained in nothing but asking for your credit card number. Not so at POSWorld. Bushéy insists on employing a staff that has worked in the POS industry for years and has a history using POS products. His current staff’s average tenure in the POS industry is six years.

Bushéy’s desire for a seasoned staff comes from his personal experiences that demonstrated to him how important product knowledge can be in this industry. As early as his first job in high school at a McDonald’s, Bushéy found himself using his computer programming skills to integrate two of the restaurant’s disparate software applications. As his programming knowledge grew, he also became interested in POS hardware repair, often watching over a technician’s shoulder to see how products were fixed and maintained. Soon he was competently performing complex circuit board-level repairs. This hardware/software knowledge led him to quickly rise in the ranks of the retail and hospitality companies he subsequently worked for, ultimately attaining titles such as IT manager. In these positions he gained real-world experience designing and troubleshooting POS systems. It’s that type of expertise — his own and his staff’s — that he touts as being one of the keys to his company’s success. Because without that experienced staff, POSWorld wouldn’t be able to offer the type of technical phone support that not only helps its clients complete installations themselves, but keeps those customers coming back for more business. “Our customers know that our technical support isn’t provided by general IT people; these are POS experts,” says Bushéy.

How Far Does Your Technical Support Go? Bushéy’s plan has always been to provide free technical support for life to his customers. In comparison, he notes there are countless companies selling POS products online that have no intention of supporting those products. “When I click on the support button on some of these companies’ Web sites and just see a list of manufacturers’ phone numbers, I think, ‘What’s the value in that?’ I don’t want our customer experience being handed off to the manufacturer, if I can help it.”

The extent of POSWorld’s technical support can be exemplified by its experience with 99 Cents Only Stores. This customer had special requirements for its monitor arms, but there were no arms on the market that met these requirements. Bushéy designed a custom monitor arm that had to be painted the same color blue as the stores’ counters, and then had the arms manufactured in Japan through one of his vendors. He also had to coordinate having the other POS peripherals sold for the project painted the same color blue. He estimates he sold at least 2,000 of these monitor arms to this client.

Free software development consulting is part of the value of POSWorld’s technical support. For instance, the company may show a client how to control an Epson receipt printer with Visual Basic .NET, or explain how to have an application open a cash drawer before the receipt starts printing. Another example would be adding a command to print (on a receipt) the signature portion of a credit card purchase sooner in order to speed up the transaction. Recently, Bushéy received a call from a client who needed help developing his own dry cleaning software in .NET. Bushéy worked on the project himself and eventually sent the client some code he wrote for the application — and he didn’t charge the client a cent. For another prospective hospital client, Bushéy designed a custom prescription drug demo application that ran on a Symbol PPT8800 handheld. The application displayed a big stop sign on the terminal’s screen when a patient’s ID bar code and prescription didn’t match. For the same client, he presented a custom MCL (Macro Command Language) application running on a Symbol P370 handheld. He didn’t charge for either application.

“Some people think doing business this way is insane,” admits Bushéy. “But I don’t think most VARs understand what value really is or what relationship building is all about. Creating goodwill means you’re freely giving something away, especially knowledge, and that can help foster long-term relationships.”

In addition to software and hardware support, POSWorld offers online test utility tools that can troubleshoot common technical issues. The company also has a new 2,000-square-foot lab for product staging and testing. Bushéy himself tests every new product the company sells, often providing vendors with feedback on prototypes.

Grow With More Staff, POS Bundles, Business Applications POSWorld’s success proves that not all companies selling POS products primarily through a Web site are simply box movers offering no additional value. Indeed, POSWorld’s 2005 sales of $13 million demonstrates that combining e-commerce with a thorough product knowledge and all levels of technical support is a lucrative business plan for a VAR. “I have never viewed POSWorld as a Web-based business, so maybe that’s the secret of our success,” comments Bushéy.

To ensure that business success continues, Bushéy is making investments in his company. At the end of 2005, he invested approximately $75,000 to upgrade POSWorld’s entire business system infrastructure with SAP Business One. Bushéy says this software will give his company more WMS (warehouse management system) types of features (e.g. managing in-house inventory, assemblies, product returns) that it needs to grow. He also wanted the application’s CRM (customer relationship management) capabilities. POSWorld will also be adding more pre-configured/bundled solutions that will reduce implementation times and provide faster resolution to technical issues. “This year I plan to double our staff size and conduct more outbound marketing and sales activities,” Bushéy concludes. “In fact, I think that we would have done much better in 2005 if we had staffed up sooner.”

About POS World, Inc. POS World, Inc. is a leading value added reseller of specialty technology products, including automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) and point-of-sale (POS). POS World provides these products to virtually all markets using these technologies. POS World has tens of thousands of customers ranging from small businesses of all types to all levels of government to Fortune 100 companies. POS World also provides software development assistance and other value added services to companies wishing to integrate these technology products. # # #

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