With more than 150 on our newsagent customers now signed up for offering the Blackhawk gift cards, we are working hard to help them attract customers.

The image shows the second marketing poster we have created.  This will be released once we have final approval from Blackhawk international. Our approach to the Blackhawk opportunity shows off the Tower Systems difference.

From the free marketing collateral, to our advice sheet, FAQ document and other support at our eziPass website and over the phone, we are show the difference between merely offering a product through our software and providing genuine support.

We are showing how a proactive Point of Sale software company goes beyond the software and technical support and helps customers unlock the full value of the business opportunity.

Our approach to Blackhawk provides another opportunity showing sales prospects the Tower Systems difference.

We have tested and loaded the GNS 2011 Diary Catalogue to our website and made this available for our customers with the permission of GNS.

Tower Systems is offering Point of Sale software training next week in the following areas:

• Retail stock management. Tuesday Aug 31 at 11am
• General Q&A session Aug 31 at 2pm
• Point of Sale training Sep 2 at 11am
• Magazine management workshop Sep 2 at 2pm

Each of these sessions is free and will run for around an hour.  Please book for all online training at our website.

Luke La has decided to leave Tower Systems after six years and pursue opportunities elsewhere.  We wish Luke well for this move and his approaching wedding.

Rohan Genn has accepted the role on State Sales Manager for Queensland and he starts in that role from today.  Rohan brings excellent experience with our software as a customer and in recent years as a key member of our National Help Desk team.

Rohan’s appointment continues our tradition of successfully skilled technical people from within Tower moving into a sales role with the company.

For Rohan, the move is a return to Queensland where he has lived previously.

We have released a newsagency software update to address the latest requirements of XchangeIT, the industry standard EDI platform used by magazine distributors.

We have been working with XchangeIT following recent performance reviews of data being sent from newsagents.  The latest update is designed to help newsagents meet their KPIs and keep their XchangeIT access costs to a minimum.

The latest update was released two weeks ago and is available to Tower Advantage ^TM customers from our website.  We are promoting it today to encourage our newsagent customers to update to this latest version.

Preparations for the court case POS Solutions has brought against us are continuing.  POS has indicated that they plan to seek $2 million in compensation from us based on the number of newsagents who have switched to Tower Systems Point of Sale software from their software.  I am looking forward to see how the case plays out in court when it eventually gets there.

As I told one of the owners of POS when he and I discussed their considerable customer losses three months ago, the best way for them to address this would have been to deliver better quality software backed by better quality support.

Blaming a competitor for sales losses is like a kid blaming another kid some something which they themselves have caused to happen.

We continue to welcome newsagents switching from the POS Solutions software to our software.  We promise to work hard to make the transition as easy as possible.  We also promise friendly and professional service backed by a whole of company commitment to genuine customer care.

We are thrilled to be welcoming John Le to a newly created role on our national Point of Sale software help desk today. John brings years of help desk experience to the role and an affinity for small business. Following comprehensive training, John will start taking calls from customers - these will initially be shared with another team member before moving to solo calls.

We have created two new help desk roles over the last month to help us cope with demand from new customers.

If you get to talk with John, please say hello and join us in welcoming him to the Tower community.

We are offering four free online workshops in our Point of Sale software this coming week:

Magazine management workshop. Tuesday Aug 24 at 11am
Retailer security Aug 24 at 2pm.  For business owners only.
Magazine management workshop Aug 26 at 11am
Retail stock management Aug 26 at 2pm.  Ideal for retailers new to our software.

Bookings can be made on the booking page at our website.

Yesterday we published advice to our Victorian newsagent customers on how to handle the unexpected and quite complex campaign announced by the Herald Sun earlier this week.  While the timing of the promotion has been pushed back, we have worked hard to ensure that Tower Newsagents are prepared to manage the promotion with our software.

Newsagents around the country have been receiving advice on compliance with standards monitored by XchangeIT, the industry standard EDI platform.  To help  Newsagents our newsagency software refresh their knowledge of the operational requirements of the standards, we have scheduled two of our popular and highly regarded online magazine management workshops next week.  Access to these online workshops is free to Tower Advantage ^TM customers.

The commercial imperative of compliance is that it reduces the cost of accessing the XchangeIT platform.

We are finalising advice for our Victorian distribution newsagents on how to handle the Herald Sun subscription promotion announced this week.

We have been consulting newsagents and senior management at the Herald and Weekly Times to ensure that all of the requirements of the promotion are understood and appropriately addressed using our newsagency management software.

While we are frustrated that H&WT announced the complex promotion without consulting newsagency software vendors, our focus right now is in helping our customers deal with this.

We have announced to our eziPass electronic voucher customers today details of new and updated products available this month.  The latest changes further enhance the value of the eziPass offer.

It is 7:30 on a Saturday and our office based Help Desk is up and running.  This is in addition to our comprehensive after hours support coverage.

We pioneered office based Saturday support years ago and have won good business as a result.

It is easy to talk about customer service and another thing entirely to deliver it.  This is why we are transparent about our online training sessions, face to face user meetings, business management workshops, customer requested changes, new user training, free user documentation, theft check service and other services we provide as part of out Tower Advantage ^TM customer service offer.

We deliver what we promise and what we write about here.

In response to requests from retailers using our software who employ high school students, we are scheduling a couple of training sessions for 4pm on week days to enable these students to better learn how to use the software.

While we have an excellent suite of training videos which cover our POS software fundamentals and key functions, it is the live training which interests most people new to the software.  We spent the first part of the session prividing structured training and the rest covering questions from the participants.

We will finalise dates on Monday for the high school student training sessions.

We are offering four free online training workshops for uses of our Point of Sale software this week:

• Mastering catalogues. Tuesday Aug 10 at 11am
• LayBys Aug 10 at 2pm
• Mastering Sub Agents Aug 12 at 11am
• Newspaper home delivery and Customer Management Aug 12 at 2pm

Bookings can be made at our website - Outlook appointments can also be made at the same time.

Tower Systems is pleased to report that it has successfully filled a second new Help Desk role created in the company.  This new role, like the one announced just over a week ago, will further expand the company’s customer service resources.   This investment in expansion is necessary because of excellent customer growth.

The two additional people joining the Tower Systems Help Desk team have excellent IT and communication skills.

Yesterday, Tower Systems released Retailer 2.2.3C, the latest version of our Point of Sale software.  This release have successfully passed through our comprehensive in-house quality assurance process as well as extensive live use in our helpful beta test sites.

In communicating the details of the update with our customers yesterday, we listed details of the enhancements, many of which were suggested by our customers.

The update is now available for free download by our Tower Advantage ^TM customers.

Jefree Lim has been today promoted to the new role of National Support Manager for Tower Systems.  This is one of several changes we are making to better position us to handle our growing customer base.

As National Support Manager, Jefree will be responsible for call traffic management, support call quality and customer service.  Jefree has been with the company for years and has deep technical knowledge of the software and a strong commitment to excellent customer service.

In a related move, Tower Systems is pleased to report that the first of our additional Help Desk team members starts with the company next Monday.

We are offering four free Point of Sale software training workshops this week:

• Point of Sale training. Tuesday Aug 3 at 11am.  Great training in how to use the Point of Sale screen.  There are plenty of functions and facilities accessible from this screen.  Join this worshop and find out more.
• Putaways management Aug 3 at 2pm.  Magazine putaways are a great revenue opportunity for newsagencies.  This workshop will show you how to manage them, save time and make more money.
• Magazine management Aug 5 at 11am.  the most popular training session ever offerd to newsagents.  Undertaken by more than 500 newsagents.  This session sets the benchmark in the newsagency channel.
• Importing stock files and invoices Aug 5 at 2pm.  Everything you ever wanted to know about how to import stock files and invoices from large and small suppliers.

These training workshops are hosted by experts and are part of our exclusive Tower Advantage ^TM program.

To access a workshop you will need a computer with broadband access and a phone for a toll free call.

Newsagents attending the GNS Market Fair in Melbourne this weekend got to compare three software companies. They could compare software, customer service, business strategy and ethics for all were on show at the annual newsagent trade show in Melbourne.

Our stand was busy for much of the two days as the photo from this afternoon shows.

While it was wonderful catching up with so many of our customers, the real fun of the fair was the stories we heard from a competitor. It was as if they did not think that newsagents would walk to our stand and compare with what they had been told.

Being able to show our software doing something which they had been told we did not do or to show they were wrong with another claim worked well in winning business for us. They shot themselves in the foot, throughout the fair. Once time we shot them down while they were stalking our stand. Seriously!

Tower Systems serves close to three times more newsagents than our nearest competitor. Based on sales in June and July, the gap is widening. The best way to compete with us is by delivering better software backed by better service.  There is a huge difference in systems offered to newsagents.

We thank GNS for putting on an excellent trade show and look forward to next weekend in Sydney.

Thanks to terrific customer feedback we have developed some helpful enhancements to the Ezidebit customer payments facility in our software. Using Ezidebit, our Point of Sale software customers in Australia and New Zealand can more easily process customer payments. The latest enhancements are being delivered in version 2.2.3C of our software which moves into wide release in a few days.

Encouraged by the popularity of the Facebook training we have been running, we have been working on our Facebook training videos.  They will enable more of our retail customers to access our training in their own time.

We are running another workshop for newsagents who have switched from the POS Solutions software to our point of sale software recently. With so many having made the move we have found these training sessions helpful for addressing operational difference questions. The session is on today at 11am.

We are thrilled to announce success in filling a new Help Desk role in our Melbourne office.  This additional position will be filled on Monday.  Following intensive training our new team member will be taking calls and helping our customers.  He has experience in newsagencies, hvaing worked in several while developing excellent IT skills.  We will annouce more details once he starts with us.

The interviews with candidates for a new position on our Help Desk yesterday were terrific, some excellent people presented with good skills and a strong desire to help small business retailers.  While the choice has been difficult we have reached a decision and two offers will go out today.