Simple or complex, analytics represent the future of the guest experience. The best POS analytics software should provide all the metrics and reporting tools necessary to make decisions that improve business and it should be easy to access. Ideally, operators have a platform with embedded analytics and profit center-specific dashboards. The minimum capabilities that operators seek most are outlined in today's post:

Repeat Guest Rate - Armed with data on revenue, orders, frequency of visits, average dollars spent, best-selling and least-popular items, etc., you can focus on how existing guests are affecting your bottom line. Visibility into data across multiple guest interactions and points in time helps you understand your "repeat guest rate". This is essential to making effective business decisions, ensuring you always have the most popular items for your repeat purchasers, and delivering consistent experiences that support your brand value.

What’s Selling - Goods come in and goods go out. That inventory flow, whether steady, variable or static, says a lot about your guests and their preferences. It tells you what items aren’t moving so you can determine if those items need to be re-positioned, or if it’s better to close out the item altogether. Either way, it’s important to understand which items are just sitting on the shelf. In this case, it may be wise to begin by developing an incentive promotion to steer guests to those items.

Staff Metrics - In addition to keeping an eye on overall labor costs, table turn times, tip percentages or up-sell revenue, POS analytics can help identify other employee performance trends. Maybe you’re seeing higher item returns during a certain shift, or from a certain terminal. This often can indicate an employee who needs additional training. Comparing inventory levels with revenue can also bring attention to potential theft. Gone unchecked, these guest service areas can significantly increase costs, negatively affecting your bottom line.

POS reports and dashboards offer real-time, accurate information as guidance when making the simplest, or most complex business decisions. POS data and analytics are essential to successful growth in a highly saturated, competitive marketplace. Making business decisions with poor or missing data is risky. Having this information at the ready will help you identify trends and preferences so you can make the appropriate decisions to optimize your bottom line.

Learn more about Agilysys Analyze.