When is the choice of a system supplier relevant? When your company, hobby club or event you organize needs practical solutions – i.e. functional systems for receiving payments, access control, online shopping or building a mobile application. A good system supplier can fulfill your needs comprehensively and versatilely, offer support and necessary integrations into existing systems.
In this blog post, we go through the most important things to consider when choosing a system supplier. Whether you are purchasing payment terminals for a summer cafe, an online shopping solution for a sports club or a comprehensive technology solution for a public event, take these things into account.
The scope of the service selection
Especially when looking for a broader system solution, it’s good to make sure what the service package includes. For example, at a large public event, you need a payment system, access control solutions for different visitor groups, employees and volunteers, visitor counting, and many other systems.
Can you get all or most of these from the same place? The more solutions you find from one system supplier, the fewer parties you have to make agreements with, combine schedules and organize meetings with.
What can you expect from a system supplier? For example, do you need:
- payment system
- smartcards or wristbands to speed up payment transactions and transit
- access control
- visitor count
- data connections
- online store
- mobile application
A comprehensive service package has all the parts you need. So first carefully map out your own needs and then see whether the potential system supplier offers some of the services you need or even all of them.
When the payment terminal doesn’t work, on-call services during the event are a big help.
Equipment support and on-call personnel during events
For example, when acquiring a cash register system, you should make sure that you have efficient customer service and technical support at your disposal. Make sure you can quickly get the needed support personnel on the phone and, if necessary, to your event venue or premises.
Especially in a hectic and fast-paced environment, where there are a lot of customers and everyone is in a hurry, it is important to quickly fix a faulty device and have more devices available if necessary. There is no time at the bar counter at the festival to find out who to call to fix a dysfunctional payment terminal – instead it must be easy to get in touch and find help quickly. So make sure that your system provider also offers emergency services or on-call personnel during events, regardless of the time of day.
Scalability and flexibility
Whether it’s a payment solution, your own application or an online store, make sure that the solution serves you even when your business grows.
With a new event, restaurant and hobby club, the operation starts small and can grow quickly. When choosing a system supplier, you should make sure that they are ready to deliver more devices and expand their services according to your needs, even on a fast schedule.
Often enough, you will want to also expand from one function to more. Let’s say you first get an access control system for your event attendees. In the middle of planning the event, you notice that you also need drink and food tickets for different customer groups. A good system supplier rushes to the rescue and also offers the possibility to add new payment methods to the smart bracelets you have already ordered.
A smart wristband makes it easier to arrive at the event and make purchases at the event.
Integrability
When choosing a system supplier, it is also important to consider how well the systems work together with your other software and business functions.
For example, the integration of the cash system with inventory management and accounting systems facilitates and speeds up several processes. On the other hand, combining event access control with your own application and the services of ticket retailers improves the customer experience and streamlines arrival at the event.
Flexible integrations are an essential part of a functional system solution. At CoreGo, we consider it important to enable flexible integration of different business functions, so that it is easy for both employees and customers to use different systems smoothly together.
Data and reporting
To develop your operations, you need sufficient data and clear reports. This requires efficient data collection and its presentation in an understandable form.
The system provider can offer both data collection and reporting. For example, a modern cash register system produces sales data that can at best be seen in real time in visual form. Access control and visitor tracking produce data that you can easily use when making future plans. Visitor tracking based on camera surveillance reveals traffic jams, popular routes, spaces that are often not used, and waiting times.
CoreGo offers a cloud service from which you can monitor the cash flow of the event, the number of visitors or the occupancy rates of the facilities in real time. This way you can monitor sales, usage spikes, preferences and habits of customers, members or employees, and plan your operations based on well presented data.
Professional skills and resources
When choosing a system supplier, you should also make sure of the supplier’s resources. It is important to find out that the maintenance of the service does not depend on one or two people, but that the supplier has sufficient capabilities to react and offer support, should something unexpected happen.
Sometimes it is also worth contacting the system supplier’s references and asking other users of the service for their experiences. It is also good to be aware of the professionalism of the supplier’s personnel; a competent system supplier can assist in decision-making and planning.
Values and responsibility
What values does your company have? When deciding on a system supplier, it is also good to make sure how responsibility is taken into account in the company, from personnel well-being to information security and environmental issues.
A system supplier operating on the same value base develops its operations and service in a direction that also fits the future of your own organization – shared values are a base for cooperation to develop into a long and fruitful partnership.