Merry Christmas from Futura
A look back at developments in 2016
As Christmas fast approaches we hope your stores are bustling with activity.
Here at Futura we have had a very busy end to the year with a rush of new store openings as we headed into the festive season!
We’ve been excited to work with several new brands this year, including expanding discount department store group T J Hughes, which specialises in premium brands and quality products at low prices and the first Superdry franchise store in Ireland.
Many customers have updated their web site links to our suite of Web Service API’s which support real time live data feeds for product and stock information, plus order processing and customer data. Oliver Bonas, London Transport Museum and Frosts Garden Centres are just a few of the brands benefiting from this technology.
Many clients have upgraded their version of Futura ERS and implemented the new and improved customer capture screen at the POS. This new screen is more intuitive to use, enabling quicker searching and faster postcode lookup. It is also configurable to allow more custom information capture. It also helps to reduce customer duplication by checking, during the wizard-style customer creation process, whether the customer already exists.
The new screen features faster email capture – particularly useful for our yReceipts application, as customers can receive a digital receipt emailed to their inbox, straight from the till. Receipts can be fully customised to maintain store branding and can include targeted offers, real-time feedback and social media integration to increase customer interaction. Click here to read how 73 Retail have benefited from this functionality already.
Lastly, Irish knitwear retailer Carraig Donn has rolled out the new Futura4Loyalty product, Squirrel. This is a completely new product to the original voucher based Loyalty system, which remains available. Squirrel Loyalty is a points based real-time redemption scheme. Allowing your customers to collect points in-store or on-line and redeem them against purchases at the till. Further information about this will follow soon.
Christmas support arrangements
A small reminder to make any additional support arrangements you may need for the festive period.
Please note that the standard support hours are Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. – 5.30 p.m. In addition to this, the Futura office will be Closed on the following days:
- Monday 26th December (Boxing Day)
- Tuesday 27th December (Bank Holiday)
- Monday 2nd January (New Years Day Bank Holiday)
Any clients with Out of Hours contracts will be covered as usual for the weekends and bank holiday. Please note the hours covered are:
- Saturday – 9 a.m. – 6p.m.
- Sunday – 10 a.m. – 6p.m.
- Bank Holidays – 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
- Weekdays 5.30p.m. – 9p.m.
Out of hours contracts only cover issues that are affecting the ability to trade at the till point.
If ANY customer would like guaranteed support for hours outside of their standard support contract, for example to cover the busy weekends leading up to Christmas or late night openings, then we will happy to provide this cover on a temporary basis but please be aware you must pre-arrange this with the support department to enable us to manage the staffing levels appropriately.
To arrange additional cover, please email [email protected].
Calls logged by customers without cover may not be responded to outside of our office hours.
Merry Christmas
Finally, we would like to say a big THANK YOU for your continued business and we look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at our next User Group meeting where we will take a close look at some of the highlights of the latest Futura ERS release. Watch this space for details early in the new year.
On behalf everyone at Futura, we wish you very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.