Posted by Let’s establish a certain, new-age, truth. An observation that can’t be done away with. An experiential pointer that any repair shop owner would only deny at their own – considerable – expense.
I’m referring to, of course, our contemporary necessity for business process automation.
Rendered by one too many software interfaces often attainable for free.
A requirement made solid by the unprecedented complexity of the modern workflow routine.
From this standpoint, I’d argue that computer repair store software is totally worth the hype. Because the working ease it manifests, in concrete, simply cannot be ignored.
An Assessment Banked on Experience
And I say this with experience.
As a 20-year-long repair shop manager, I remember the time when digitized working wasn’t a thing. The sights and sounds of screaming, complaining customers still give me nightmares. Now, I’m not stating that these instances have completely disappeared. It’s their frequency of occurrence that’s significantly gone downhill.
My computer repair store software, for one, takes care of all the POS payments hassle. No more scrambling for different swipe terminals and their elongate wirings. No more putting up with pesky, perennially irritated banking executives. No more customers waiting with hastily scrawled repair ETAs by the counter, scowling away at your efforts.
All thanks to the professional repair shop software convenience distilled by the suites’:
- End-to-End, Synced Inventory/Tickets Management
- HR Resource Conduits
- Automatic Accounts Management
- Commissions Management
- Customer Outreach Modules
And what have you!
I’d like to go over these offerings – typical to most category interfaces – in detail.
Inventory and Tickets Streamlining
No repair store – no business, for that matter – can function without a reliable, consistent supply chain. Oftentimes, this consists of multiple vendors supplying parts/raw materials to the venture in either regular deportment or needs-based orientations.
Now, in the old days, these concerns were managed by pen, paper, and telephone. Overseen by business managers who recorded every exchange by hand.
A computer repair shop software, studded with a decent inventory management plug, takes care of all this heavy-lifting. With one click, it allows you to take stock of your store’s current parts/tangibles reserves. Another command input, and your order is placed and documented for a new contingent.
IMS’s are particularly good at keeping inventory reserves in just the right range. Parts shortages are dangerous – they can paralyze the entire business workflow. At the same time, excess material figures increase storage and other logistical expenses. Both extremes are detrimental, putting either a dent in a company’s service reputation or its bank balance.
Many POS software applications these days also come equipped with intuitive tickets management. These frameworks allow you to generate detailed, customized tickets on the go. Alleviating the need, as it were, for resorting to separate printing interfaces.
For repair shops, tickets make for important customer-business communication links. They are part (estimated) invoice and part ETA note. Distilling, in brief, when a fix-order would be completed.
Human Resource Management
Human resources modules are normally only deemed relevant for company HR departments. But as many business owners would tell, this is a conceptual fallacy.
All organizational employees need to have access to this interface. They need to know, in particular, their up-to-date performance indicators. Exhibitors of service competency that signal the output of the entire venture.
In repair settings, shop management utilities that come equipped with this add-on are worker-enabling. They allow them to self-correct without the threat of supervisor censure. Their prompts on low attendance, good working sprints, and fulfillment of individual KPIs are behaviorally effective.
Even individual worker salary and commission accounting can be maintained on these adjuncts.
Financial Accounting Record
I don’t know of many corner repair shops that boast the luxury of a hired accountant. Many, for tax and profit/loss reporting purposes, have to outsource these calculations to various firms. I, myself, am forced on occasion to rely on third parties for my brand’s annual auditing runs.
But there is an out these days from this quagmire – not that I’ve had the opportunity to take up the offer. The accounting plug-in solution.
What these interfaces do is display the store’s real-time financials in graphical relief. The aim here is to allow users to take snap overviews without getting bogged down into excessive detail. In this way, shop owners can course-correct if the business trajectory is going off-route.
Commissions & Tips: The Incentivizers Par Excellence!
It’s no secret that the offer of commissions makes any merchant’s day. Motivating them to work harder – to even put on the marketing robe to lure new prospects.
Now, commissions processing has traditionally been a taxing endeavor. It necessitated the use of lengthy grid sheets and calculators. Today, computer repair store software deals with all this morose automatically. It calculates the commissions due based on the hours worked by a merchant. Any other payments criterion can be loaded for calculations purposes, of course; the default evaluation benchmarks list extended.
Tips are an altogether different affair. They require the operating merchant/repair tech to repeatedly take the initiative. Their receipt, however, is totally dependent on customer goodwill. I’d argue that the ease of tip payments consciously engendered by the discerning merchant also has a role to play. Because the parting of currency from the client to the shop rep comes intrinsically mired in some embarrassment. Even when little, a sense of reluctance, nevertheless, is always there.
Now, as a tips facilitator, you want to design and maintain systems that make the exchange effortless. Emotionally inert – to whatever degree possible.
One good way to do this is through the introduction of tips terminals. These are customer-facing POS displays where customers can enter tips amounts themselves. In the best-case scenarios, the process can even proceed in silence.
The Customer Outreach Provision
As a repair shop owner/worker, you ideally want to keep your clients constantly updated on their jobs’ progress.
Issues like:
- Is my device being worked on?
- What’s the repair cost estimate so far?
- What’s the current repair ETA?
- Am I eligible for any new parts savings?
Nowadays, the customer-contact modules integrated into computer repair store software make this process a breeze. Specifically, they allow for automated or one-click convenience for sending timely, often minute-by-minute, SMS and email notifications.
In my experience, this feature of the said interfaces proves ‘golden’ when it comes to winning favor with clients – most of whom express their delight at being kept involved in their device journeys.
So there you have it – my informed take on this pressing issue. Through this account, I hope I’ve managed to lay some long standing public misunderstandings regarding repair software use to rest.
If you’d like to add to the discussion, or maybe even diverge from it, please put your thoughts in the comments below.
I’m looking forward to standing corrected! ?