Finding The Best POS System for Hospitality Businesses – A Guide

Hospitality is tough to define. Some argue that it means a warm welcome. Others say that “hospitality” is achieved when the desires of our guests are anticipated rather than articulated. 

The 18th century Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa once wrote that, “In the cherry blossom’s shade / there’s no such thing / as a stranger.” In other words, when huddling together for comfort or rest, we are all old friends. 

A complete definition may be difficult to pin down, but that hasn’t stopped billions of dollars from flowing through the American tourism and entertainment industries. With over 15 million employees in the U.S. alone, one thing’s for certain—to many of us, “hospitality” really means “opportunity.”

Leveraging 21st-Century POS Systems in the Hospitality Industry

New and established hospitality businesses need the right technology to capture opportunity and make it work for them. But when the customer experience is paramount, the role of technology becomes questionable. Even in the age of artificial intelligence and robotics, human interactions are still considered more hospitable than automated check-in kiosks. 

As with many business/customer relationships, the act of hospitality precedes payment. We wouldn’t look very welcoming, after all, if we only perked up once money changed hands. But how you collect payment can also be how you manage your email marketing campaign, how you award loyalty points, and even how you schedule staff on certain days of the week. 

In short, the right POS system for hospitality enhances the guest experience while empowering business owners to make data-driven business decisions. 

Smart POS System Features For the World of Hospitality

Imagine a POS system that remembers guest birthdays and anniversaries. Better still: picture what your net revenue would look like if you stopped paying credit card interchange fees. 

At Sky Payments Group, we specialize in hardware and software that speaks directly to the core of the hospitality industry. But our solutions go beyond mobile POS systems and curb-side payments. 

Here are just a few of the features and payment solutions that the hospitality industry needs. 

Make Service Personal with Loyalty Programs & Marketing Features

In the hospitality industry, we don’t generally hand out numbers to guests who are waiting to check in. Our guests are more than numbers—they’re people. Any suggestion otherwise risks alienating our clients or making them feel like “just another paying customer.” At the end of the day, that’s the direct opposite of hospitality.

Guests enjoy their stays more when they are treated like individuals. That notion sits at the heart of delivering exceptional service and encouraging repeat business. The best POS system for hotels, resorts, and attractions makes it easier for employees to interact with “John Smith” instead of “Guest 502.”

Acknowledge The Person, Not The Customer

Warmth and familiarity encourage guests to leave glowing reviews and visit us again. In this department, your POS system can help. Smart POS systems take a multimodal approach to communicating with customers and rewarding guests. 

You may be falling short of excellence if your current POS system isn’t capable of:

• Capturing detailed customer info at the point of sale
• Turnkey email marketing 
• Social media management 
• Online review management & company outreach/response
• Integrating with your existing loyalty & marketing tools

The moment a guest books a room, reserves a table, or schedules time at your in-house spa, you should know their birthday, their hometown, the date they were married, and their spending preferences. With this information, you’re better able to anticipate their needs and fulfill them before they ever have to ask.

This information can also guide direct marketing campaigns and promotions. Smart POS systems for hospitality help you express gratitude to repeat guests with:

• Reward Programs & point-based incentives
• Personalized promotions (birthdays, anniversaries, etc.)
• Traditional & digital gift cards
• Scalable loyalty tiers for preferred customers

When guests feel seen and appreciated, they’re more likely to remember your staff and your premises favorably. In the hospitality business, as in our personal lives, manners matter. Smart POS systems empower businesses to maximize their manners for better outcomes across the board.

Make Smarter Decisions With Data & Analytics

In hospitality, we prefer a personal touch. A human attendant, bartender, or pool-side server communicates that your business values interaction and the guest experience. But when it comes to long-term observation, data aggregation, and analytics, it’s best to let the machines take over.  

The right POS system for your hospitality business is capable of crunching the numbers and making recommendations through easy-to-read displays. You should be able to identify the best-selling dish in your restaurant, peak hours, and real-time social media exposure. You should also be able to use historical traffic data to determine how many employees you need on certain days in both slow and busy seasons. 

SkyTab POS systems use the simple sales data you’re already gathering to report and predict numerous KPIs (key performance indicators), including:

• Peak hours
• Net sales (per day, week, or month)
• Real-time social media visits, likes, & reviews
• Top selling & lowest selling items
• Sales per guest
• Cost of goods sold (COGS)
• Inventory valuations
• Gross profit margin (GPM%)
• X and Z reports
• More
  

With this information in the palm of your hands, coupled with the world-wide connectivity of our management software suite, you can make real-time, data-driven business decisions from anywhere in the world. 

Accept All Payments Wherever Your Customers Are

When your guests are relaxing by the pool or spread out on the massage table, it’s less than hospitable to get them up and steer them to the cash register. That’s not what world-class service looks like. 

In the future, guests may be able to pay for daiquiris or room service with the blink of an eye or by tapping a microchip implanted in their forefinger. But until that day, we need mobile POS systems that accept all forms of payment.

Tableside payments, curbside payments, and contactless ordering with QR codes provide your guests with the freedom they need to enjoy themselves. These touchpoints are also ideal moments for gathering information. 

The best restaurant POS system supports numerous payment types (including Apple Pay and Google Pay) wherever your customers are. At Sky Payments Group, our hardware supports mobile payments of every popular variety, regardless of where your customers happen to be. 

With our SkyTab Glass handheld POS and SkyTab Mobile device payment software, we enable payment from the pool to the golf course, from the hiking trail to the beach-side cabana. In hospitality, payment should be less than an afterthought for your cherished guests. Our hardware and software make seamless payments anywhere that much easier. 

Stop Paying Credit Card Fees & Start Paying Yourself

It’s hard to grow your hospitality business when you’re growing the banks instead. With interchange fees ranging from 1.75% to 4.25% per transaction, you’ve got thousands of dollars going out the door and toward the institutions that issue credit cards. At Sky Payments Group, we’re offering a better way forward.

Our game-changing no-fee credit card processing replaces interchange fees with a shocking $10 monthly payment. In an industry that struggles to maintain profit margins of 5% to 15%, having this amount of money to reinvest back into your business can make the difference between booming profits and bankruptcy. 

Who knew your choice of POS system could literally make or break your business? 

Find the Best POS System For Your Hospitality Business

It’s perfectly nice to fold towels in the shapes of swans, place chocolates on pillows, or drape your guests in lei necklaces as they arrive. These are sound practices that most everyone enjoys. But at the end of the day, we have to admit that it’s our guests who define the word and act of hospitality for us. 

Short of reading their minds, your choice of POS system can position you to understand each guest’s definition of the word. By collecting personal information, rewarding loyalty, celebrating big moments, and crunching the numbers to make smarter decisions, your hospitality business can encourage repeat visits without cutting into profits for interchange fees. 

At Sky Payments Group, these comprehensive payment solutions certainly qualify as “hospitality” to us. So schedule your free demo today and let us show you how SkyTab POS systems can change how you define your business.

Defining Hospitality One POS System & Flourishing Business At a Time

Whether you’re a new player in hospitality or a grizzled industry veteran, Sky Payments Group has a leading-edge POS system and mobile payment solution that’s right for you. By combining the best of the best in hardware, software, credit card processing, and business data aggregation, our fully integrated POS systems set a Gold Standard.