Retail Point of Sales Database

When I used to work at an AT&T Wireless Retail Authorized Dealer, they had a fantastic database software called Teletracker that was connected to the internet. This teletracker software compiled massive amounts of data and made it available to every single store in the company (about 25 in NY/NJ).

This program is amazing because it allowed the entire company to run its business on this simple but extensive retail point of sale software. It gave us the ability to track inventory, employee hours, calculate sales commissions, manage customer relationships, create task lists for salespeople, generate real time business reports across all 25 stores! If the district manager wanted to update something on his end he could update it for every store in his district.

It was extremely helpful when employees would have to sign in when they arrived at work - all they would do is place their thumb on a scanner and it would log them in and when signing out they would repeat the same procedure. All hours worked were easily kept track of and there was no way to fool the system.

Another amazing feature was the ability to store every customers contact and wireless bill information. This allowed us to go through the list and analyze each customers' bills and then call each customer to offer them new services/fixes that would reduce their phone bill etc. If we saw that someone was using 800 text messages out of a 500 plan and paying extra money, we were simply able to call and recommend them the 1500 text message plan and save them money.

Also on this system was a whole database of each salespersons sales, commission earned, and cell phone sold - matched up with the inventory database which would automatically be updated when the phone was scanned. As we received new shipment the phones were scanned to input them into the inventory database. It was also great when for example we didn't have a certain cell phone, we could simply log on and check the inventory database of another store location in the area and have them hold that phone for a customer. There are many retail point of sale systems on the market that have extensive database features such as MicroTeleCom and Pacific Amber POS.

There are absolutely no challenges that I can think of besides the cost of the software and installing it along with periodical internet problems that would take the software offline. It provides great competitive advantage because it allows authorized dealers to keep track of each and every customer and provide fantastic customer service that normal corporate stores are not able to do. Only improvement I can think of is maybe an easier way to input new inventory instead of scanning each and every barcode when there are large shipments.