It started innocently enough. Fresh from two weeks holiday, I arrived early, curious to see what has been going on in the business while I was away.
After firing up Evopos, I sat back with my coffee and the Business Summary report to be pleasantly surprised. Parts were up slightly over last month. Clothing was doing very well especially the Shoei and Buffalo ranges where we had promotions running. Bike sales were fantastic, that mail shot we had sent to customers who had bought bikes two years ago had really worked. My wife still can't believe how a one finger typist like me can produce 500 personalised letters and labels in less than 5 minutes. Best of all I could see they had been pushing to include clothing in the finance which had upped our overall margin by over 3%, and the increase in finance commission had paid for my holiday. I would have done anything for this sort of information a few years ago, and what a change from the days when sales plummeted when I was away.
My gloating was interrupted by an urgent banging on the front door. Was I ready to face the general public? Chance of an early sale won the day and I let in one of the local courier riders. 'Are my bits in yet?' was my greeting. I tried remembering his name as we wandered over to the spares counter but I am absolutely useless at names so I did my usual trick and punched in his Rego into Evopos, 'Ok Joey lets have a look' I said and watched his attitude change from tough consumer to best mate. The status of all his special orders came up with a couple of key-presses and the system prompted me to take a balance that still owed, I turned to find him drooling over an immaculate old Z1300. 'How much?' he managed to stutter, and I punched a few more keys to get the history I needed to know. I read him the important facts, broke the price to him and waited for the disbelieving look. Instead he countered by offering 500 less. I looked at the screen again and although we had bought it well, the workshop had gone to town on it, I explained exactly what we had spent on it which seemed to do the trick as he bought it for the full asking price.
Before I could lock the door I had another customer asking for some fork seals for a model I hadn't even heard of, fortunately it is a piece of cake to find the right bike and parts with Evopos's Instant Expert, I calculated the exact model code for him from the Model History and when I told him how much oil he would need for each leg I think he thought I was some kind of technical wizard, it also prompted him to buy the oil as well.
I actually used to avoid going behind the counter before we got Evopos as the part numbers were all in the parts manager's head and I found it just too hard. Now it is so intuitive we don't even have to think about it and it even gives us time for a bit of a laugh or chat with the customers while we are selling.
We've had various computer systems before and they have worked ok, albeit in a rather long winded way, but it is amazing how a system that has been designed specifically for the industry with the help of dealers themselves can make such a dramatic difference to nearly every aspect of the business.
