Ouch! My POS Hurts!

A recent survey of POS end users by Vertical Systems Reseller (VSR) showed that 26% of those surveyed listed “Poor Support Maintenance” of their POS systems as a major pain point.

Poor support maintenance was right at the top of the pain points and, according to the survey, is a major reason behind some companies push to refresh their POS systems in the upcoming year. Poor support maintenance was a bigger problem for those surveyed than some more obvious pain points, such as having outdated POS systems or customer dissatisfaction in the store.

When selecting new POS hardware little or no consideration is often made of future support issues. The manufacturers will obviously support the hardware through the warranty period, but what then? Most POS systems are expected to function well past their initial warranty.

Manufacturers will support out of warranty hardware but the repair costs can be very high. Although the revenue stream for manufacturers is quite lucrative for these out of warranty repairs, by charging high repair prices they hope to push the customer into choosing to buy new hardware rather than fix what they have.

This is a win-win for the manufacturer. Either they get the lucrative repair revenue or the customer is pushed into buying new hardware.

The solution for the 26% with maintenance issues is to look away from the manufacturer. Most POS hardware can be properly and cost effectively maintained by third party repair companies. Sometimes the repair savings can be hundreds of dollars per device! So, if poor hardware support is a problem for you then look around. The OEMs are not the only game in town!