Nowadays, many businesses are looking for creative, cost-effective solutions that can help them run efficiently and with less overhead than in year’s past. Stores renting equipment, tools, or event supplies are no different. Below is an informative look at common features found in rental store software tools that can help rental businesses manage customers, maintenance, accounting, and front counter operations to save time and money.
Better Customer Transactions
Every business needs customers to operate, and with low frequency customers often renting supplies, managing customer accounts can sometimes be problematic in the rental business. Most rental software systems offer customer features that allow you to create reservations, create rental contracts, apply credits and debits to customer accounts, process credit cards and driver’s licenses, track customer interactions, and more. The customer and front counter features allow you to process transactions faster for customers, protect your business and create better overall customer experiences.
Improved Inventory Control
In the rental business, having an accurate and detailed view of current and future rental inventory is vital for maximizing sales, and delivering customer’s the correct product at the right time. Software companies understand this, and have built tools that allow rental businesses to manage their inventory in real-time, create and edit reservations, adjust pricing based on product characteristics, delivery zones, deposits and more. These features allow rental stores to capitalize on sales opportunities and save on embarrassment of missing products on reservations.
Effectively Maintain your Products
The last thing you want is rent faulty or dangerous equipment to customers. Rental software packages allow you to create product maintenance schedules with automatic notifications for employees, as well as inspection checklists for staff members to use prior to renting merchandise. Work order creation and tracking is a common feature that allows visibility into when repairs should be completed and the item will be available again.
While there are a few different vendors to choose from, it is clear that rental store software packages contain many helpful features to make a rental business more efficient and, most importantly, more profitable. The first step for most rental companies is to evaluate potential solutions and request a software demonstration. Pricing for rental software often varies based upon the number of users and store locations a rental store has, and how much customization is required. A smart idea is to provide as much detail about your rental operation to the software vendor so they can make sound recommendations for your business.
Guy Reierson is the Vice President of sales and co-founder of Visum, creators of FocalPoint rental software. With 15+ years in the rental business, Guy is considered an expert on rental store operations and the software used to manage them profitably.