POS System Support

[ehojr]

I have a new I/T unit. We use Microsoft POS and hp hardware, cherry keyboards, epson receipt printers thermals etc. We have about 36 retail stores with most stores about 3 hours round trip and a few about 8 hours roundtrip... The support is eating our lunch. I have no outside help at this time. We are looking at purchasing equipment etc.. I am looking for the most cost effective way to deliver the pos support and service to my company. Is replacing everything every three years a viable plan , outside vendore support? All in units etc.. I would really like to focus on other things than store level support. Is the Microsft POS system viable for software? What is the most reliable hardware? My client tells me he just wants fast check out.


Help!

Thanks

 

[postech777]

What is your relationship with these stores? Are you the IT manager for a chain or are you the guy who sold it and trying to support it? Either way it sounds like with the round trip time involved that the stores, that they need to have extra equipment around so that they can ship problem hardware to you. What about remote support? Do they not have a broadband connection to solve software issues?

If you are indeed the company in charge of support than you need to figure out a yearly onsite support contract, which will depend on the number of terminals and distance from your company. If you aren't billing them now for support they'll treat you like a crutch for every little I.T. problem.

 

[buck2506]

The POS software company I use does support using PCAnywhere from Symantec. They do this with all of their clients to provide training and support(software and hardware). On the initial purchase they helped to install PC Anywhere and then the IMS/POS software and the hardware that I purchased seprately. It was a fairly seamless operation.
Now if I have a problem with the system the phone call is very short with tech support looking directly at my computers.

From the size of your operation I might look to industry specific solutions. My impression of the MS POS system was that for small operations,single store to 3 or 4 locations it would work, but for a larger operation that other options were better.

 

[DTSMAN]

Do they use hight speed?
Use logmein. You can even call each sotre after you set up your website and talk them through setting it up in about 5 minutes without going to the site to install software and there is no portforwarding or firewalls to worry about.

http://www.logmein.com

We use logmein for one restaurant chain and GotomyPC for another because that is what their IS dept set up for us and pcanywhere for the majority of our local stuff.

Bo

Remember,
If the women don't find you handsome,
they should at least find you handy.
(Red Green)

 

[ehojr]

I am the I/T manager. This is currently an all in house operation. We can support software remotely. Problems usally are related to hardware. My observation is we grew into this situation from a lack of equipment replacement. We are a little unique in that we do not track and have no interest in tracking the item level detail..just departments..this makes a lot of the software solutions irrelevant..I think our microsoft pos software is okay..just support and hardware.