A new voice joins us today.  Debra joins our admin team in a new role we have created to help us handle the workload.  She will be handling reception and a range of other tasks.

We have six interviews scheduled for today to fill a new admin support role for our Melbourne office.  This new position will help us better manage call traffic and cope with shipping, mail and other support processes.  We started wih well over 100 applicants and are thrilled with the quality of the final six for an important front line role.

We have advertised for a new admin assistant role in our Melbourne Head Office position to work with us on a part time basis to help deal with the load of work from new installs, marketing and other tasks.  If you know anyone who would be interested please have them contact us through our website.  The hours are flexible but will be between four and six hours a day.

We quietly launched our new corporate website yesterday.  This is a complete replacement for our previous website which was two years old.

The new website offers all of the old facilities along with some new features.  Visually, it connects with our new look 2010 marketing collateral and our new look software.

The development of the new website started mid way through last year and involved various parts of the company from marketing to support to development.  We took time to consult widely internally before settling on a design and functional specification.

We also took time with this project because of the role the website plays in our business as an entry point for customer contact as well as a place where prospective customers can meet us and find out about what we do.  It was important that we delivered a website which truly represents Tower Systems on all levels.

Given the e-commerce connection from within the website, we had to get accounting and banking approval before we could go live.  The banking  approval was obtained overnight Wednesday.

We have further innovation planned for the website but as we did with the launch this morning, we will talk about that once it is delivered.

Our website is an important tool in delivering customer service as well as attracting and winning new customers.  The new website enhances our abilities in each of these areas.  We’d be glad to get your feedback.

Sent with our weekly email to all of our customers today:

As is tradition, we decorated the office to bring some Christmas cheer in a few weeks ago.  We’ve also enjoyed gourmet mince tarts and some other delights.  Tomorrow, we’ll throw on some lunch and drinks before everyone heads to family and friends for a few days R&R.  We close mid afternoon until Tuesday morning.

In among all this Christmas cheer, we continue to focus on responding to support calls, push forward on our next software update and close good business - December has been an excellent month.

While all of our offices will be closed from tomorrow afternoon, our after hours service will continue.

We booked out Vivace restaurant in Brighton (Victoria) Sunday night for our 2009 Christmas party.   This is our fourth year at Vivace and it did not disappoint.  Excellent food and wine, wonderful company and plenty of laughs.

The Kris Kringle was again a feature of the evening, spanning a couple of hours while people steal or choose gifts and then show them off.  We brought in team members from our offices in Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia.

We followed the party with team meetings throughout yesterday.  Our installation team got together as did our sales team plus our development and sales teams.   This interaction is important to our review of 2009 and our planning for 2010.

I’d highly recommend Vivace to anyone looking for a wonderful night out.   The made our party a wonderful evening, again.  We will be back!

I have a half share in a new newsagency opening in a major shopping centre in Victoria. This Greenfield location is a new style of newsagency, a smaller footprint aimed at an above average achievement per square metre. The new location is being stocked at the next week and is expected the following week.

Opening a new newsagency enhances our experience using our Point of Sale software to help in the setup of a new newsagency. This experience will be reflected in the approach we take with our customers in the same situation.

The most significant change in our business occurred in February 1996 when we purchased our first newsagency.

Click on the image below to see the video I created which introduces Tower Systems and our point of sale solutions. While not the slickest video production in the world, the video does present the Tower Systems story with honesty and passion.

This video is available from our corporate website as well as via Yahoo videos. We are enjoying good success with our videos for marketing as well as support. They demonstrate the Tower Advantage^TM

This is a photo from inside what we are now calling our studio, a room full time dedicated to producing our training videos, hosting online training workshops, hosting supplier workshops, hosting live online sales demonstrations of our software and filimg other presentations.

Equipped with two cameras (one broadcast quality), two broadcast quality microphones, a studio quality mixer, a PC with some cool software and some other bits of technology.

We are adding soundproofing and some other elements to further improve the quality of our output.

The setup of our own professional quality studio is key to enabling us to get quality content out for our customers on a rapid turnaround as we have demonstrated in recent weeks.

Too often, computer training is delivered to the business owner or manager when it is other employees  who need vital knowledge.  Our training videos mean that any team members can learn information critical to their business. This means that their business benefits and we benefit.

We have developed a range of topics for which we are preparing content at the moment.  The resulting videos and others we will create for more immediate needs will demonstrate the Tower Advantage^TM in action for our customers.

It is not uncommon for us to serve two retailers in a shopping mall.  Indeed, we have three quite different businesses using our Point of Sale software in some shopping malls.

A couple of days ago, one of our team members visited one such mall where we serve three very different businesses.  It is a good feeling experiencing this diversity first hand and connecting our customers with others nearby.

I have recorded a new version of my introductory video for retailers looking for a Point of Sale system.  This video is now available live at our website by clicking the button (see left) on the home page.

Our goal with this and other non training videos we will produce is to bring Tower Systems more to life on our website as this is how retailers are buying software.

While not broadcast quality production, the content foucses on the Tower Advantage^TM and how this benefits our customers.

I spent part of Melbourne Cup day recording a couple of videos about Tower Systems.  I wanted to experience for myself the process others in our team are following as they develop training videos in our in-house recording facility.  It is important to me that I am accessible and accountable as the owner of this company.  Hence, my decision to front up for a couple of videos.

The first video is an introduction to Tower, who we are, what we stand for and how we operate.  It shows you some of our facilities and talks about what we see as some key benefits of partnership with us.  You can this here.

By publishing what is effectively a sales pitch at our website for all including existing customers to see, we are making it easier to be accountable.  Too often, sales businesses sell only to non-customers.  I want our existing customers to see our pitch and let us know if we are delivering for them or not.

As has been tradition here at Tower Systems for more than twenty years, we ran a couple of Melbourne Cup sweeps yesterday.  Both filled quickly. The regular Melbourne Cup sweeps along with our annual AFL and NRL tipping competitions are part of the fun of what we try and make a relaxed yet professional workplace where our customers come first.

We spent over $350,000 on domestic travel last year: airfares, rental cars, hotels and travel related expenditure.  It does not include the costs of our sixteen car vehicle fleet.  Travel is a significant cost to doing business and one we are looking at this year.  We are starting by considering shifting bookings to an agency.

Currently, we do all bookings in-house.  This takes time and sometimes we make mistakes which cost extra.  By contracting a professional corporate travel service we are hoping to get better service and reduce costs - that’s the pitch from prospective service providers at least.

Over the next few days we will meet with several service providers and assess their offerings.  Service will be the key.  With so many of our team on the road for most of the year, it is important that they have the flexibility and quality necessary for enjoyable time away from home.

We have six people out of the office and installing systems this week. Some are doing two installations. It is a very busy week capping off a very busy month. This is not unusual as retailers gear up to be ready for Christmas with new computer systems. The rush will carry over into October and November based on bookings we have in place.

The downside of the rush is the amount of travel our installation team undertakes. This comes with the personal burden of being away from home as well as the impact on the family left at home.

While we try and balance time away, there are some times of the year, like now, where it is difficult to avoid long stretches of travel.

For some time I have wanted to change the slug line we use under our company name on marketing collateral.  Better Software. Better Service. This has been our pitch for more than ten years. Every idea we considered didn’t feel right to me.  They didn’t feel as genuine as I was looking for.

Then, two weeks ago, we developed:

LIFE IS GOOD WITH TOWER SYSTEMS.

This is aspirational and reflective of the experience for many inside and outside the business all at once.  I spoke with a range of people and the phrase tested well.  The feedback was that it is truthful.

Everything we do has to support this pitch.  Our software, support, sales presentations and training sessions.  They all must support our belief that life is good with us and for those who partner with us.

People want a good life.  We understand this and through our software and our service contact we will do everything possible to help them achieve this. We want life to be good too.  Our desires and the desires of our customers and our prospects are unified in this regard.

For ten years we have provided Friday breakfast.  The photo shows this morning’s offering.  This is in addition to a mixture of healthier museli bars plus a wide selection of coffees and teas.  The Friday breakfast started during the GST rush in 1999 and it is something we have continued with.  Keeping the team fuelled for a busy day is good for us and good for our customers.  The Friday breakfast is also a good way to celebrate the end of the week.

There is stronger interest than ever in using software to help retail businesses improve efficiency, increase sales and make better quality business decisions.  It seems that each day we are approached to write an article, present at a group retail meeting or work with a group of businesses on strategies for smarter operation.

We are glad to help out and share the knowledge we have from our benchmarking and business analysis and rescue packages in the hope that in what we present retailers can find opportunities for their businesses.  We are also able to pool and link relevant experience and knowledge from our work with jewellers, gift retailers, bike retailers and newsagents.

Our involvement in writing the articles or presenting is not to push our software. Our motivation is to share what we know to be true in smart retail management.  We know that stronger independent retail businesses are good for our retail management software business.

We are pleased to announce some important management changes in our customer service area.

These changes began with the decision by Michael Elvey, our former Customer Service Manager, to take a Business Development role with newsXpress, the newsagency marketing group.

Rohan Genn (left) has been appointed to the role Customer Service Manager. This important role manages the more complex customer service questions put through the Tower Help Desk and provide a management access point for customers who want to discuss service levels.

Tony Smith (right) has been appointed to the new role of Call Traffic Manager. This role has been created to streamline the flow of calls through the Tower Help Desk. Tony will perform a triage type service which helps get each call to the right person.

“These appointments significantly strengthen our customer service offer” commented Gavin Williams, General Manager of Tower Systems. “We are only as good as our last customer service call so it is essential to our future that we ensure each call is friendly and genuinely useful.”

The changes also came about because of continued growth of the Tower Systems customer community of small business retailers including newsagents.  The company is committed to a process of continual improvement.  This is brought about through a process of regular robust review of processes.

The Tower Systems Help Desk processes, on average, 200 calls each 24 hour day.

“As an ex user of the Tower software in my own newsagencies I know the value to our customers of great customer service” commented Rohan Genn. Rohan has been with Tower for a year and a half since selling his newsagency.

“I love helping people and that they laugh at my jokes” said Tony Smith. Tony has been with Tower for a year and a half after switching to IT from a farming career.

The Tower Help Desk is part of the exclusive Tower Advantage ^TM initiative - a suite of support services and facilities packaged by Tower Systems to help its user community get the most from their technology investment.

A Christmas message for our clients and all who stop by here…

We are advertising for a commercially skilled software developer with good Delphi skills.  Please email me if you would like details of the position.

We held our 2008 Christmas Party last night at Vivace Restaurant in Brighton Victoria.  93 team members are partners from around the country shared the evening.  We enjoyed a delicious selection of food, wines and beers- along with some laughs as we reminisced about the year.

Every office and retail business in the group was represented.

The highlight was the Kris Kringle ritual which involves stealing a gift from someone or selecting a new gift - which could then be stolen. One gift, a garden statue, was stolen many times! It is nights like last night which reinforce the importance of the whole team - truly the most important point of difference we have.

After sixteen years with our software development team, Gary Hall has reluctantly decided to take a role with another software company.  I know it has been a tough decision for Gary.  While we wish he would not leave, we understand the need he feels to experience life elsewhere. 

While some departures are rushed, Gary has gone about this at his unique pace and with care and respect for the company and its customers.  We sincerely appreciate that.  With a full time development team of five other developers, a tester and a manager, Gary has ensured that his knowledge is shared.

Gary’s biggest legacy will be in the area of social responsibility.  He has driven our recycling and renewable energy commitments - they are part of how we do things here.  He has also driven bad shirt day which some of us will not miss.

Norman, Charbel and Georgia (left to right) are our in-house accounting team. They run the financial side of our software business. They also process accounting information from our own six retail businesses using our software.

This is a terrific and practical advantage to us as it provides us with experience on our financial reporting and the MYOB link in our software.

Norman, our Financial Controller also plays a role in testing our software interfaces to MYOB and Quicken to ensure that these work from an accounting perspective.

We are unique in this regard, in using our software in such a practical way. This provides us with additional experience and comfort prior to the release of software updates.