A new Epos system has been installed at a fast food company, giving a 65% return on direct mailing.
The Coatbridge-based fast food company wanted to achieve shorter working hours and higher turnover, and realised it was essential to add home delivery to their business.
After 30 years of operating busy fish & chip shops in Glasgow city centre, 24 hours a day, and relying on 95% passing trade, the fast food company was opened to include home delivery.
To control its home delivery service, the award-winning company installed an EPoS system; a point of sale integrated screen terminal and an order-taking system. When they first opened, a single screen order-taking system was installed for their delivery business only. Within 3 weeks of installing the system, Saturday night deliveries had tripled.
The benefits are many; caller recognition - customer details appear instantly on screen alongside the shop menu when the phone rings, postcode look-up - new customers are added quickly and accurately and fast touch screen ordering with (optional) selling prompts. In addition, meal deals, offers and delivery charges are calculated automatically.
The new system eliminated human error, saved time, and made order taking much quicker.
After a customer has placed an order for delivery and the food has been prepared and is ready to go, the screen is touched to tell the system which driver is taking the order. At this point, a map is displayed to help the driver. Payment can be taken from drivers after one order, a few orders or at the end of the night.
Two months after opening, the company added a second screen to its order-taking system to handle the increase in its delivery business. Then six months after opening, the business added three all-in-one touch screen terminals to the system, allowing them to run takeaway, delivery and collection. This made the whole process much smoother.
The other two touch screen terminals are wall mounted in the food preparation area. One displays pizzas, baked potatoes etc. to be made as they are ordered; the other displays special orders for frying.
Point-of-sale/point-of-service integrated workstations have been developed from industrial PC technology to withstand the rigours of modern hospitality and retail environments and incorporate features such as spill-proof LCD touchscreens, lockable disc drive/power switch, wall-mount fixing and enclosed cable management. The Intel™ chipsets provide a stable, flexible platform. In addition, future protection is ensured through standard expansion features including compact flash card technology.
The order-taking system is not just intended for processing orders, kitchen efficiency and driver management - it is an invaluable tool for customer relationship management. Every time that a new customer is added to the system or a customer orders again, the customer database is updated. This creates effective local marketing allowing the company to send special offers and coupons to customers by mail, by e-mail, or text messages.
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Occupation: Director
Andrea Percival is managing director of Maxa Technologies. Andrea’s career with Maxa Technologies started in the early 1990’s as marketing manager, where she was extensively involved in the successful positioning of DH Technology, (acquired by Axiohm in 1997), as a major player in the European Bar Code Printing sector .She was promoted to the position of general manager in 1998, where she oversaw the Company’s rationalisation into an efficient, compact organisation focusing on customer service, service and repair, and technical support. In 2001 Andrea also became a vice president for ATSI (Axiohm Transaction Solutions Inc).
In 2003, Andrea, together with Steve Berry (vice president of EMEA Sales for ATSI), successfully secured a management buy-out of Maxa Technologies.
Since the management buy-out Maxa Technologies has positioned itself as a major distributor of products for the POS, Auto ID and Mobile sectors within the UK, Europe, Middle East and Africa. The brand ‘Maxatec’ has become synonymous with value added services and good quality products. Recent developments have included the brand Maxa Solutions, providing bespoke solutions to very specific vertical markets, and a joint venture with SDP Belgium delivering a labelling, kiosk and EPOS solution to the garden centre and nursery sector.
Prior to joining Maxa Technologies, Andrea worked in several industries, including the industrial valve sector with German company Gebr. Mueller. In her role as distribution manager at Mueller, she was responsible for the successful expansion of the distribution network within the UK. Subsequent positions included commercial manager for SED Valves and marketing manager for a European construction company.
Andrea holds a CIM PG Diploma in Marketing and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
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