Last year, at the urging of Victorian newsagents using the POS Solutions software, VANA, the local newsagent association, facilitated a POS Solutions user meeting at the VANA offices. I complained at the time as the announcement did not provide any background as to their involvement in the meeting. The VANA announcement read like an endorsement by VANA. Since then, VANA has facilitated several more POS Solutions user meeting, the most recent this week.
VANA continues to be less than clear in explaining that they are facilitating the meetings because POS has been unable or unwilling to host user meetings in the past. This maintains the air of endorsement.
Tower Systems, my software company, has run regular user meetings since the early 1980s. We fund these ourselves. We have never used VANA offices or resources to facilitate them. Further, we actively support VANA in a number of ways on a pro bono basis.
As a financial VANA member I am disappointed at the implicit endorsement of POS Solutions and frustrated that people who should know better at VANA do not understand that their involvement – even in providing an office and sending an email – implies endorsement.
If POS Solutions lets newsagents down by not providing user meetings, so be it. It is their commercial decision. Newsagents make a commercial choice as to the software they use and that choice should not be propped up by VANA in any way.
Tower Systems currently serves in excess of 1,400 newsagents. My understanding is that POS Solutions serves around 700 – this is based in part on information supplied by POS Solutions to one of their clients late last year.
With only one more Tower Newsagent user meeting to go – Darwin July 12 – let me recap some numbers. We visited 23 cities and met with hundreds of our customers. Our investment in travel, hotel rooms, meeting room hire and the like, we invested over $50,000 in these sessions. We will invest a similar amount in the second round later this year. The most common questions related to user of Retailer 2. We have received 20 suggestions for changes in the software and we will look at these as we consider future updates. In the early 1990s, when our support was not as good as it could be, we would face angry customers at user meetings. This time around, as has been the case for years, we faced happy customers. We’d like to especially single out our Sydney customers for turning up over several sessions – they usually have the worst attendance record. This time around was huge improvement!
Mark;
This was the Statement at the bottom of the Vana Bulliten which advertised the Pos Solutions training.
‘VANA wishes to make it clear that we are not endorsing Pos as a product over any others in the market – we are merely making our facilities available for Pos to use for the convenience of our members’.
Whilst VANA is offering their facilities as a ‘convenience’ to it’s members, they in no way endorse Pos Solutions. I know the frustration they have with the continued service issues raised by newsagents surrounding Pos Solutions.
I was one of the newsagents that pushed for the meeting. It was designed to help Pos Solutions understand some of the service issues that were raised at the National Conference last year and ultimately get them to fix it. (1 year on, I keep hearing the same complaints).
Saying that, if VANA does nothing, they will be critised, if they help their members by making their facilities available, they will get criticised. (it’s a no win situation)
Based on the fact that i have attended 2 ‘forums’ in 2 years to address issues associated with Pos Solutions, VANA may need to distance themselves and make Pos Solutions be more proactive with their user meetings.
I have always believed that ‘if you are not happy with something then change it.’ We did! I was lucky that i could afford to change to ‘Tower Systems’in March this year as a result of continued ‘issues’ with Pos Solutions. Many cannot afford to do this, so they continue to put up with it…unfortunately for the industry.
Vaughan
Vaughan,
Yes I saw that small disclaimer on the latest email from VANA to members. The disclaimer should have headed their article and it should have been in bold with background on why VANA is involved.
mark
I think I am getting tired of this nonsense Mark, repeating this stuff again and again even though you have been told it is nonsense.
You claim that Tower Systems visited 23 cities costed $50,000. That they met hundreds of your clients and only got 20 suggestions for changes in the software which you may consider.
Wow! You must think your readers smoke good stuff!
I reckon one meeting with one newsagent could come up with twenty changes that are worth considering.
As far as Vaughan is concerned nice guy, good operator, I am friendly with him but needs a reality check, I told him so. It is rare that we are happy to lose a client but in his case good luck with him.
I got work to do
I was one of the newsagents that pushed for the meeting. It was designed to help Pos Solutions understand some of the service issues that were raised at the National Conference last year
I recall attending a similar meeting at VANA in Port Melbourne the previous year on the same topic with probably the same outcome – NIL.
Perhaps we could call on the ANF to add an extra day to the conference to handle this seemingly annual event 😉
Bernard, Peter Cowley, Ron McKinnis and Bronwyn Roney from VANA all told me VANA got involved because of your apparent reluctance to host user meetings. The only reason I blogged about those today was to correct the impression your latest meeting this week – attended by 6 of your customers – gave that VANA even indirectly was endorsing your company.
On your comments about the 20 change requests, I guess it comes from having good software.
mark
Jim why wait you can call me or Michael right now if you have any complaint about our service. By the way, that is the main reason I went to the ANF conference where I met many of our clients.
As far as holding user meetings, we have no reluctance to hold them. We also have a long term standing offer to any user of our that wants to arrange one in their area that we are happy to help.
Lastly I reckon I could wright a program that goes BEEP. Out of a hundreds of users at least 20 would complain that it is not loud enough, that it give no warning, that it too short etc etc etc
Bernard giving out reality checks; now there’s a new one! Maybe i need a refresher on that one because you certainly haven’t handed out any reality checks to me lately.
Reality is Bernard, both you and i have spoken about service issues for over 2 years. I sat in that meeting with Pos Solutions and put forward ideas, along with the other newsagents in attendance, and Pos Solutions agreed with the suggested ideas at that time. Reality check; nothing has changed.
Vaughan
Jim took my offer up and his problem is sorted out.
All well that ends well!
Anyone else have any complaints about service issue you can either call me or Michael.
Vaughan, it was closer, I think to three years ago. Reality well we were in the midst of a major crisis then as we had some many good people leave all at once. From the point of their personal development, I could understand most of them wanted to move on after all they had been with us for an average of seven years and they need in computers to do something new. From the companies point of view it was terrible as we lost like 10 people with 80 years of experience and not suffer badly. The only good point was it did save us a pack on long service leave.
Really there was little, I could do. It takes time to train new staff. I think we have done that and our team now is extremely good.
In our main support office in Melbourne we now have 6 fully trained people with one new trainee who just started up this week. We also have interstate another 7 full trained support staff plus another trainee. We do an average of about 400 telephone support calls a week plus I don’t know how many on-site calls. Then of course we have the normal stuff like a lot of upgrades to posbrowser and getting a lot of new clients either from other systems including Mark’s about 60% of them, new shops and clients interestingly who still don’t have systems.
Bernard,
You force users to pay annual support by blocking access to your software.
You have introduced licence fees for some users.
You have been hauled into VANA and told to improve support.
You were late, years late, to the table with windows software.
You give away to some what you charge others many thousands for.
You have lost over 110 newsagent clients in 14 months.
You have only 2 newsagents doing electronic returns. Tower has 340.
Bernard, I could go on. The acts speak for themselves.
POS Solutions is not serving newsagents well. All the way through you have had control of the business and its service levels. Accept accountability.
Mark
Jim took my offer up and his problem is sorted out.
Bernard – you are gilding the lily.
What you and I sorted out was ONE issue which your support desk was emailed about last Tuesday afternoon.
As of mid morning today (2 and a half days later) there was not even an acknowledgement that the issue was being looked at. It was not until I rang early this afternoon that someone actually realised that a support request had been lodged.
I concede that after I spoke to you the issue was resolved but do I have to do this for every support request I make.
I would hate to be hanging out of a gum tree by the goolies waiting for one of your support boys to save me.
Mark: In this mess of your reply that does not answer any of the questions above. I will go point by point.
1) Mark, I think you are confusing us with Xchangeit who cut you off if you don’t pay your annual support with us. Anyway I might add that you should mention that towers system your company blocks users. I had a client who came to us from towers. He needed some old data so he tried to get his old tower system working and got some tower serialization error. So he could not get it to work.
2) We have not introduced license fees although we are thinking about dong it to offer our new clients an alternative to buying our software. Note if we do adopt this choice then we will not be the first computer company to do so in the Newsagency industry and it will only affect new users who choice to adopt this model. Our preferred method will still be straight sale.
3) I have listened to my clients, the ANF, VANA among others in fact anyone; I talk to them often and as I stated I have improved my support.
4) When Towers changed over from DOS to windows, about 10 years ago you admit you had plenty of complaints – as you stated you could not go into a meeting without hearing them. I suspect much of the reasons was you rushed it out. I know at that stage, we picked up many Tower sites that had enough of the new tower windows program.
Then what you did is inexcusable. You dumped your DOS version, forcing many of your customers to buy a software package that they did not want, that they heard was not stable and spend thousands of dollars in upgrades on software and new equipment.
Yes our window’s program took longer to come on the market but from day one it was stable and we kept our DOS system going so those that don’t want to change don’t have too.
6) I like some examples of these so-called give away. I suspect what you mean here is that our software is in sections. Much of it can be set on or off. This can result in dramatic price variations.
7) The figure you quote that we have lost vary dramatically each time you say it. Bluntly, I don’t see this lose. When we send out software agreements almost 100% of newsagents renew. You might be talking about 20 in 12 months that don’t renew.
I have more newsagencies on my books today then 12 months ago.
8) I don’t see electronic returns being that great! The main and probably only advantage is that you get your credits a bit early. To the newsagent, it is the same amount of work. The low take up is a reflection of this, as it is available. It has not been the revolutionary step that you keep preaching.
Just for the record, I believe newsagents are not going to get out of technology much more from the magazine companies. They should be looking elsewhere such as increasing their stock turns, reducing their stockholdings and increasing sales something that technology can do.
For example using posbrowser one of our users at the ANF conference reported doing a presentation that he was able to get a 15% drop in stockholdings and a 28% increase in sales. This is real improvement and it can be done now with existing technology and no agreement with publishers or anyone else.
9) I have no doubt that you could go on and you do!
10) And I do accept my accountability in the firm.
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Jim: If it is an emergency you go to the top of the list here. Your email did not seem like it needed an instant response. For the record, I don’t think that email is the correct way to send an urgent request. You did much better on your phone call to me.
If you are hanging on that gum tree don’t worry, just let us know your on that gum tree.
Bernard,
I will respond using your numbering.
1. You have blocked customers who do not pay your high support fees. Tower has never blocked a user for refusing to pay for a support fee. You also removed XchangeIT access for your users in a fit over a year ago causing an uproar among your user community.
2. I have seen an invoice from your company with a licence fee for software use.
3. VANA has dragged you kicking and screaming to meet with your customers.
4. Tower (note to Bernard: not Towers) switched to Windows in 1996 back when it was a smart move. We continue to support our DOS software today and still have a small numbers of users. So, your claim about cutting people off is a lie and you know it is a lie.
5. There is no 5.
6. I heard from one of your users recently who said you offered Browser for free – the whole thing. It’s in writing from your company.
7. The 110 POS users switching to us is real. You will see it at support renewal time.
8. Newsagents love electronic returns. get with the program Bernard and give newsagents what they want.
9. No worries.
10. No you do not. You are in denial about the quality of your software and the quality of your support.
Mark Fletcher
Point by point so you don’t accuse me of missing a point!
1. This tower serialization error is a block.
Bluntly he is blocked out of his system. I have never done anything like that! Worst case, I invite any old users to send in their data and we will run the reports in our office.
What was removed years ago from XchangeIT access was a unfinish job. As you stated it caused an uproar with everyone including me. I was more upset then anyone. I still blame the mess completely on ECG committee. No one tried harder then me to keep the project going. Note it only affects our DOS users that use Xchangeit which are not most of our Xchangeit clients.
2. I am using your terminology here for this discussion.
We would call it subscription not license. As I stated we are only looking at it, if we did adopt it, it would be to give the user a choice on whether they want to buy the system or subscribe to the system. There is a report here of our conclusions.
3. We were willing to go to the VANA meeting! If we did not want to go we would not have gone.
4. I have a seen a letter sent to a Tower DOS user saying that it is not supported. Beside it is unusable as it does not have GST or anything else for that matter for almost 10 years. Our DOS system is usable and supported. You can run it on any machine that we have ever sold even on a 286.
Pos Solutions clients do not get dumped.
5. There is no 5. Indeed.
6. If one of our users recently was offered Browser free by us, I would suggest that they take up the offer. It is a good one.
7. I cannot see it these figures you quoting as real as we do collect support renewal monthly. It is billed yearly but it comes up for each site on different months. For a 110 users, that you are quoting here in 14 months (Note on other times you have quoted different figures) this would equal about 8 users a month. I would be the first to know of that. Every month if there is one person off the list, I hear about. Eight, I would have a heart attack.
Let me repeat, I have more newsagents on my books now then a year ago and it is much more then 700.
8. If my clients want electronic returns, I have it. Most on XchangeIt can start immediately. If interested, I suggest they get from us an advice sheet now. They can start running it immediately.
However there are better and more profitable things to do with computers! Say someone spwent taht time reduced their stockholding by 15% and making a 28% increase in sales. That is real money. That is something worth doing.
9. No worries.
10. A businessperson today without a reality check is a fool. Whatever right or wrong happens in an organization finally rests on its leaders. If there is something wrong, I will try to fix it.
Michael and I are available if anyone has any complaints on anything with Pos Solutions.
Bernard,
Again, I will use your numbering.
1. Tower Systems have never blocked or impeded anyone from using their software. POS Solutions blocks people who do not pay for support. This blackmails small businesses into paying for support so as to have free access to their software.
2. So, after someone buys your software you then charge support AND this so called subscription fee. This dramatically increases the total cost of ownership of your software to your small business customers.
3. VANA and some newsagents involved tell me you did not want to go to the meeting.
4. There are Tower DOS users around today – not many however. And, yes, we support them.
5. Yep, still no 5.
6. POS Solutions has a variable pricing and support fee policy. At Tower Systems we treat all newsagents as equal – this is the only fair way. Sure your DOS customer offered Browser free should take it. You can offer it free because of the bunnies who have paid $15,000 or more for the software.
7. Bernard, I was wrong about the 110. It is actually 117 not counting the ones about to switch. It does, however, include the many POS Browser users who have switched to our Windows software. Yep, the numbers are real.
8. If newsagents do not want electronic returns, as you infer, then why are there 414 using it and more about to join? I own a newsagency and see the financial benefits in my business weekly.
9. Good.
10. You have systemic support problems and they are experienced by the users not in the POS Solutions mates club. Bernard I have helped newsagents who had to cut and paste their POS Solutions accounts to get close to something they could send to a customer. You can fix these problems if you invest in your software.
Maybe you, Michael, Zack and I could debate these issues publicly. I am sure newsagents would attend.
Mark
Very dignified exchange guys
Nelson and Ted,
It is rare that the owners of two major suppliers to newsagents would engage in such a public discussion of matters of importance to newsagents. regardless of what where you may sit in a POS Solutions versus Tower Systems debate, the debate itself is worthwhile. What Bernard and I have each said here reflects in our businesses and this may help newsagents navigating a system choice at the moment. To that end, it was not a waste of my time.
It also brings focus to the VANA support – diect and indirect – of POS Solutions user meetings.
The exchange denigrated into tit for tat point scoring. Why bother focusing your attention on your opposition? It appears your company is doing well out of the alleged shortcomings of your competitor. If true, it seems the market is intelligent enough to make a judgement on the two software software suppliers so why you would engage in the futile discussion is beyond me. Stick to pumping up the tyres of your own company and forget about POS Solutions. No winners in this discussion.
Ted, I can agree and disagree with you on this. The result was an open debate which will help some newsagents make a more informed choice. It also brings to light an issue specific to Victoria – the perception of support of POS Solutions by VANA, something which VANA says it does not support.
For the vast majority of my time I focus only on my business and my customers. Yesterday’s game has to be seen in the context of this.
Mark
Bernard,
In your points above you seem rather dismissive of the value of Electronic returns yet you suggest the work load is similar to doing a manual return; I would have thought the improvement in Cash Flow from “The main and probably only advantage is that you get your credits a bit early.” would have been reason enough, let alone the prospect of a better scale out, for having fully compliant EDI software. Is POS Solutions fully compliant with the 3 major magazine companies for Eletronic Returns through XchangeIt?
Bernard I am also confused by this statement “1) Mark, I think you are confusing us with Xchangeit who cut you off if you don’t pay your annual support with us” By this do you mean XchangeIt cut you off if you don’t pay their fee through your support fee or do you mean XchangeIt cut you off if you don’t pay YOUR support fee? We pay XchangeIt’s fees directly to XchangeIt and I find it interesting that you may collect XchangeIt’s fee on their behalf.
For the record I do not use either Tower Systems or POS Solutions software. I use Computerlink which is also fully compliant for EDI Returns and who’s customer support is excellent.
Bernard;
Your point;
8) ‘I don’t see electronic returns being that great! The main and probably only advantage is that you get your credits a bit early. To the newsagent, it is the same amount of work. The low take up is a reflection of this, as it is available. It has not been the revolutionary step that you keep preaching.’
Speechless that you are so dismissive of ‘getting your credits a bit early’.
It adds up to very very important CASH FLOW! Just shows how in-tune you are with
1, Running a business
2, What newsagents really want
Regarding your comment about the dates with Pos Solutions, not even close Bernard, dates below;
1.POS SOLUTIONS MEETING – Wednesday 3rd August 2005
2.POS SOLUTIONS MEETING – Tuesday 11th July 2006
I still have a copy of the minutes, as well as all other relevent documentation that Pos Solutions agreed with.
Vaughan
Okay Bernard, how is this for good support? A client of yours calls and logged a support call. They called the next day to see when they might get a call back and were told that all your people were evry busy and they would hear from you soon. Three days later they called and were told that you could not help since their support lapsed that day. Newsagents deserve better than this. You can fix it if you are willinbg.
mark
It is interesting to see that Bernard posted the following at his PosBlog today;
“I got a couple of clients enquiring yesterday about doing Gordon and Gotch online returns. The reason is obvious as it is definitely a good cash flow saver.”
Confusing?