While some days it feels like bad news outweighs the good, an unexpected silver lining of COVID-19 has been a wave of business ingenuity and customer support.
As restaurants adapt to online ordering, delivery and takeout, customers are jumping on board to order meals and purchase gift cards. Beautiful displays of human goodness are happening everywhere. Don�t take our word for it; just ask the owners of North Side Pub & Grill.
Point of sale technology has come a long way in the last ten to fifteen years. Before the ultra-simple and sleek, plug-and-play systems that we have available today, there were typically only a couple of big companies that provided POS systems, which were far more expensive and had to be installed by professional technicians.
A new POS system like Clover, on the other hand, costs far less, has a lot more features for small businesses, and can be installed and set up by just about anyone within a couple of hours.
Clover has this down to a science, and a wonderfully simple science, at that. Check out this breakdown of how it works and see how friendly their system is to small businesses.
There is definitely no deficiency in the payment capability of Clover POS. To ensure that there will never be an instance when a customer is unable to pay, due to an unaccepted payment type, they can use any type of payment.
Accept any credit, debit, or gift cards, as well as checks or cash if needed. Not only that, but the system also supports contactless, chip, and mobile payment types. Clover POS is set up for NFC, so there�s never an issue with those types of payments.
If you interface with customers at the counter, on the floor, or out in the field somewhere else, they will always be able to pay simply and quickly because you can have a counter POS device installed and also one when you�re mobile. Tipping and receipt options are built-in, and those options are accessible to the customer either at the main POS interface, or on your handheld device.
For additional security, you can also allow PIN entry and customer signatures at the time of payment. Last, but not least, when you order the POS system, it comes �payments-ready�, making it quite literally a plug-and-play system.
One of the greatest advantages of getting a cutting-edge POS system like this is that you can build the one that you need for your specific business.
You won�t be forced to buy some full standard package that comes with all kinds of hardware and services that you won�t even use, but instead, you simply select the devices that you need and only add the apps you�re going to use. Once you�re up and running, which won�t take long, you can manage every aspect of the system and do it from anywhere.
Managing Orders
To manage your orders, just bring up the dashboard on any of your devices. Whatever you decide to offer for your customers, you can set up for in-store, pickup, or deliver orders and monitor them all in real time, as well as review them later at any time.
For restaurants, track all your tables and tabs, manage open and closed orders, split up orders easily, or combine orders as needed.
Maintain relationships with your customers
One unique feature that can be extremely useful is the ability to create personalized profiles for customers, so that you can use that information whenever you interact with them to show that they�re important to you. You can add things like birthdays, purchase history, phone numbers, and email addresses.
Set up loyalty and rewards programs, too, to encourage repeat business. You don�t need to be pushy about it of course, but once you have some unique information about each customer, you can send out occasional promotional materials to them, or even just wish them a happy birthday in an email.
The same POS can be used for managing staff
Employee shifts and schedules can be organized and viewed via the POS. Administrators can also set up users and permissions for each employee to segregate access and functionality for them as needed.
When you get everybody in the system, admins can then track activity for employees, including things like daily sales, tips, refunds, and other items.
This is the feature that arguably makes Clover the best POS provider because you can run so many different things on one centralized system. There are a great variety of apps you can use with the Clover POS, and here are descriptions of a few of them.
�Feedback�
As feedback from customers is so vital to growing and improving your business, this is a fantastic app to have because it lets you ask for feedback from customers directly at the point of sale. This is a great way to keep negative feedback off the public review sites because they�re instead giving it to you, directly. You can also add any comments they give you as notes that are attached to their order, to make sure none of them get lost or forgotten.
�Shifts�
An essential app for staff management, Shifts adds a time clock feature, so employees can clock in and out right from the POS, which you can check anytime from your dashboard. Also report and track cash tips and print reports for the day�s shift information, sales, tips, etc.
�Rewards�
Rewards is a completely free app that is designed to help you optimize your loyalty and rewards programs. In a very short time, you can create custom loyalty programs that cater to your customers. The feature works through email, text, and the Clover app to make sure your customers get their discounts as soon as they earn them.
So, those are some of the main apps that you�ll probably end up using, but there are also quite a few more available with the Clover POS. Some others include, Register, Happy Hour, Promos, Clover Dining, and Customers.
Track every bit of revenue that comes into your business by viewing easy-to-understand reports from your dashboard. Analyze specific metrics (automatically compiled from your POS data) such as busy times of each day of the week, and broader metrics like monthly sales trends.
Do all your tracking and analysis from wherever you are, either using the online dashboard or via the mobile app.
Clover POS is one of the most user-friendly, fully-featured, and competitive systems available today. If you do decide to order one of these systems, you will certainly not be disappointed because you can essentially accept any kind of payment instantly, from the counter in your store, or anywhere else when you�re mobile.
Not only does the system have every feature that your small business needs, but the devices also look beautiful and function possibly the best of any similar system out there.
59% plan to use the money to pay household bills like utilities, cable/internet, rent, mortgage and mobile phone; mangopay breaks down what stimulus checks will actually cover.
WEST CHESTER, OH, March 18, 2021 mangopay, the innovative kiosk, web and mobile bill pay service, today released new insights data that looks at consumer sentiment toward the U.S. government’s $1,400 stimulus checks. With more than half of all Americans believing that they will receive a stimulus check, the latest mangopay insights shows that the majority of Americans (59%) plan to use the money to pay household bills, with utilities; cable/internet; rent; mortgage; and mobile phone bills topping the list. While 90% of consumers believe the funds will help their financial health in the new year, recently released data from mangopay’s 2020 US Bill Pay Market Size & Category Breakout report revealed how much consumers pay per bill each month, suggesting that the $1400 checks won’t last very long.
While more than half of all Americans believe they will receive a stimulus check, many are unsure:
While the vast majority of Americans believe that the stimulus checks will help improve their own financial health, they are less optimistic about the greater picture:
The majority of Americans plan to use their stimulus check as soon as they receive it:
For those who plan to use their stimulus check to pay household bills, below are the top five bills they plan on paying:
According to mangopay’s recent report, and taking into consideration the $1,400 amount, this is how far the check will go, per the 11 primary bill pay categories:
|
Bill Pay Category |
Average Amount Paid/Month | Amount Stimulus Check Will Cover |
|
Mortgage |
$1,268/month |
~2 weeks |
|
Rent |
$1,023/month |
~2 weeks |
|
Auto Loan |
$374/month |
~1 month |
|
Utilities |
$290/month | ~2 months |
|
Auto Insurance |
$181/month |
~3 months |
|
Cable & Internet |
$110/month |
~5 months |
| Health Insurance | $94/month |
~6 months |
|
Mobile Phone |
$88/month | ~6 months |
| Life Insurance | $76/month |
~7 months |
|
Alarm & Security |
$76/month |
~7 months |
| Dental Insurance | $25/month |
~24 months |
It is very encouraging to see that nearly all U.S. consumers believe that the government’s latest round of stimulus checks will help them improve their own financial health in the coming year, said John Opoku VP of Marketing and Consumer Services at mangopay. However, with more than half of Americans planning to use the money to pay household bills like utilities, cable/internet, rent and mortgage, it is also discouraging to see that according to mangopay’s data unfortunately, the $1,400 checks won’t get them very far.
mangopay provides simple, secure all-in-one bill payment solutions for convenient stores and merchants, with any payment method, on any device. Our patented self-service solution allows customers to pay with any payment method, in-store, on-line or on mobile. Through these options, mangopay brings easy access to payments to 50 million customers in the mid-west. Merchants receive a commission and customer bill payments are instant. mangopay has access to over 50 thousand service providers and mobile phone operators. mangopay is based in West Chester, OH. For more information visit www.mangopayco.com.