How to Prepare For & Deal With a POS System Crisis

Saturday night and you're walking the floor, taking the pulse of the house. You look across the room at the crowded bar, and fix on the bartender's eyes, which are typically sparkling. But now she has a deer-in-the-headlights gaze that you've never seen before. As you survey the landscape, you notice deep creases on the brow of your top server. A manager walks briskly in your direction to tell you, "The POS system is down. I can't bring it back up."

POS systems are typically reliable, but in this era of computer viruses and user error, problems can arise. Your first order of business is to call your technical service provider. In the meantime, you have guests streaming in who need to be served and a staff on the verge of panic.

If your POS (point-of-sale) system handles a variety of functions, your staff depends on it like a violinist depends on his bow. When it ceases to operate, guest checks are not automatically totaled, taxed and printed. Individual orders are not routed to the proper stations at the touch of a key. If you have spoiled your crew with a sophisticated system, they will feel that they've been cast back to the equivalent of the restaurant Dark Ages when servers produced handwritten notes, shoved carbon credit slips in manual charge card imprinters, calculated totals and taxes on a calculator, checked credit card expiration dates by sight, and approved charge cards via telephone.

In these dire situations, the impatience of guests waiting to sign their charge slips is almost palpable. The settlement of the check is a critical time because if your guests get angry just before leaving, they are going to take that anger home, and you won't have the opportunity to make things right -- maybe ever.