How Top POS Systems Enhance the Guest Experience at Music Venues
The top POS systems use smart technology and customer-centric features to ensure exceptional guest experiences in your music venue.
It may have been a minute since you last did the sprinkler dancing with all your best friends at your favorite music venue. But with mask mandates lifting and bands hitting the long-awaited road, guests are gobbling up tickets to their favorite concert halls.
So how do you optimize the guest experience, so listeners’ return is even better than they expected? With the help of top POS systems, of course!
Faster Lines
When there’s an intermission, guests want to get their drinks fast so they can get back to their seats and enjoy the show. Top POS systems guarantee speedy service with 3 different features:
1. Mobile POS
Mobile point of sale systems use smartphones and tablets as payment terminals, and sync all transaction information into a cloud-based system. Portable devices that all sync to the same dashboard means guests have more flexibility in how they order and pay.
Order from anywhere: Mobile devices mobilize staff, meaning thirsty guests can be serviced anywhere in the venue! Standard POS systems typically only transact on a single stationary terminal, which slows down service. With every staff member having a payment terminal in their back pocket, they can move along the bar, roam around near the pit, or even take orders in the bathroom line.
Tabs stay open: Because all mobile devices are synced up to the same cloud, all tabs are open across all devices. That means a group could open tabs at the bar by the bathroom, leave them open, and then seamlessly order the next round at any other bar in the venue. When they’re ready to close out, all the drinks they ordered for the night are on the same tab, making for quick checkout.
Variety of payment methods: People don’t want to fiddle with a wad of cash at a show. Top mobile POS systems accept credit and debit cards, digital wallets (such as Google Pay), and RFID payments on cards or wristbands. This is especially helpful if your music venue distributes wristbands at the door anyway—imagine if guests’ credit cards were linked, so all that was required at checkout was a quick tap of the wrist!
Guests love all of the options available to them with the top POS systems—both for ordering and payment flexibility—and are much more likely to order more, and come again next weekend!
2. QR Codes
Speaking of flexible ordering, QR codes are yet another tool that top POS systems provide to enhance the guest experience.
You’re likely familiar with these matrix barcodes, as restaurants and other hospitality joints adopted them during the pandemic to streamline ordering with smaller staff and allow for social distancing. Nowadays, though, the industry is hanging on tight to QR code technology because of the positive impact they have on customers.
Top POS systems allow music venues to scatter QR codes throughout their building—on the bartop, railings separating seating sections, you name it! Guests simply scan the QR code with their own smartphones, start a tab, and pick up their ordered items in a few minutes when it’s ready.
This means guests don’t even have to leave their seat to get their next vodka tonic started. Ease of ordering is key to ensuring guests have the best time possible at your specific venue!
3. Customer-Facing Mobile App
In a similar contactless payment vein, top POS systems also provide a customer-facing mobile app to music venues. All guests must do is download the app, enter their payment information, start a tab, and, again, pick up the ordered items when they’re ready. No card or device swapping is needed, maximizing efficiency and how quickly that drink gets down a gullet.
The best part? Guests can call a cab as soon as that first yawn bubbles in their throat. Closing out is a simple couple taps of a finger with top POS systems—no human interaction required.
All 3 of these features are important in curating an efficient ordering experience for guests, ensuring they can maximize the time spent rocking out, which is what they came for!
Proactive Solutions to Problems Before They Occur
Part of providing the best guest experience means planning ahead for situations out of your control. The show must go on, after all!
Offline Mode
Sometimes internet connectivity goes out, but the top POS systems set you up for success with the necessary tools to navigate that happening. One way to ease the tension of a power outage is with a beer!
Offline mode allows for the top POS systems to continue transacting without WiFi. Guests can order a drink and close out seamlessly, and the POS will sync all data collected once power is restored. No loss of data, no loss of sales, and no unsatisfied customers!
Reliable Staff & Hardware
The smartest tech in the world doesn’t stand a chance in out-dazzling the interactions with your beloved staff members. Human connection, now more than ever, is important in curating an exceptional experience for your guests. The top POS systems set staff up for success with an easy-to-use system:
- Intuitive interface: With a simple POS interface, staff are easily trained, onboarded, and prepared for a speedy ordering experience.
- Customizable settings: Does your music venue have a special combination deal? For example, maybe you offer a free side of nachos for every purchase of 2 beers. The top POS systems make it easy to customize buttons on your POS interface, so adding a popular deal like this is simple for staff, and fast for guests.
- Dynamic tab functionalities: Tab tags are one especially handy tool from top POS systems. Say your music venue hosts a pop dance party, and you notice that the group of Swifties are purchasing the most merchandise. When staff handles tabs for that group, they can tag their tabs with something simple like “Swiftie.” Then, later on, you can look back at reporting to determine the profitability of those fans. Maybe the numbers will tell you that you should be stocking up on more Taylor Swift gear for future shows!
Of course, the hardware itself used with top POS systems is just as important. You’re in a business where spills or falls are bound to happen, meaning durable hardware is an absolute necessity. Imagine if a bartender is closing out a tab for a guest, and the device simply isn’t working. You need hardware that’s just as reliable as your hardworking humans!
Customer Support
Another aspect of what-if’s that top POS systems solve for is providing 7 days/week customer support. When it’s Friday night and you have a full venue with talent stepping up to the mic at any moment, your POS question cannot wait.
And simply being available isn’t all that’s necessary. Top POS systems ensure the humans on the other end of the phone or email inbox are empathetic, understanding, and prioritize solving whatever problem you have in an efficient manner.
Accessible, Real-Time Menus
Another way to ensure guest satisfaction in your music venue is through menu accessibility and accuracy.
Digital, Dynamic Menus
With all the contactless ordering options available, your music venue will need to utilize a digital menu. Luckily, there are a lot of benefits to having an online-only menu!
One advantage is that digital menus are simple to update, and the changes are reflected instantly! This makes it easy to nix any item that is slowing down bartenders too much, or that’s simply no longer in stock. That way, no guest is referring to a menu with items on it that they can no longer order.
Digital menus supported by the top POS systems also allow for timed menus that automatically update based on the preferences you set up. This would be perfect for Happy Hour pricing, or any kind of midnight specials you’re offering for those guests that stick around for the 3rd encore!
Online Storefront
The top POS systems available also allow the ability to host a free online storefront. For music venues, this is a great option for merch sales. Guests can browse the online store during intermissions, order all the t-shirts they please, and pick them on their way out. It’s perfect for guests who don’t want to risk losing their items in a mosh pit or spilling on their new gear.
Let’s take that one step further: Out of town guests may even want to mail their merch home! The top POS systems offer the ability to ship items at checkout, making guests with a small suitcase all the more excited to stock up on all their merch desires!
Optimize What’s Working
Another reason the top POS systems for music venues are mobile is because of the plethora of data you can glean from the reporting tools available.
Inventory Tracking
Music venues move a lot of liquid, and it’s essential that POS reporting capabilities track beverage pours by the ounce. Getting this granular of data is key to assessing how popular certain beverages are, and also for accurately forecasting what you’ll need in the future.
With the top POS cloud-based systems, this ounce-level information automatically syncs with your online sales dashboard, so you can determine inventory levels at any point in time, from anywhere in the world.
Advanced Reporting
What else syncs to that same web-based dashboard? All of your sales information! Just as devices within the venue sync in real-time, so does the reporting data.
With advanced, pre-built reports that you can customize yourself, the top POS systems set you up for long term success. You can determine the top selling menu items or the acts that brought in the most revenue quickly and efficiently. This goes for merch, too!
Whether it’s deciding that you’re on the right track, or making proactive decisions for the future, reporting you can rely on is essential to building a successful business.
Community-Oriented to Foster Repeat Business
Lastly, of course, the top POS systems out there focus on building community for the guests of your music venue!
Loyalty Program
We’re all familiar with coffee shop punch cards and Costco memberships. While it may not occur to us right away, these are examples of loyalty programs: People invest (get a punch card or pay a yearly membership fee) in exchange for rewards (10th coffee free) or exclusive discounts (buying in bulk at Costco.) There’s a reason people stay loyal to certain coffee shops and go crazy for $5 rotisserie chickens!
Since 1 in 3 customers say restaurant loyalty programs influence their choice of where to eat out, who’s to say that a loyalty program wouldn’t influence their choice in music venues, too? People love to feel like a business they support is recognizing their loyalty, and collecting redeemable rewards along the way. Plus, the top POS systems support these kinds of programs, eliminating any time-consuming work on your end!
These are some examples of how your music venue could utilize a loyalty program:
- Email marketing: Because the top POS systems collect member information and store it on their profiles, it’s easy to send fun emails to engage your biggest fans. Perhaps you offer discounted drink tickets for the upcoming show, or let them know about exclusive member-only backstage passes.
- Point system: Say each concert ticket purchase is worth 100 points. You can then make points redeemable for a t-shirt or early-bird access to the next show’s tickets!
- Exclusive merch: Provide your most excited fans with a special beanie that only loyalty members can buy! If people see how cool the hats are in the crowd, they just might sign up for the program themselves.
There’s room to be creative here, especially since top POS systems make loyalty programs easily customizable!
Secure
In addition to building a music venue’s fanbase, top POS systems also build trust. After all, your POS is handling a lot of sensitive information—names, email addresses, and, of course, payment information.
By partnering with a trustworthy POS system that never compromises guests’ information, or your own business information, you can ensure that guests don’t hesitate to do business with you again down the road.
Thus, the top POS systems use smart technology and customer-centric features to ensure exceptional guest experiences in your music venue. Now, go break a leg!