New modern POS solution at ancient Egeskov Castle

A new modern POS solution in the ticket office at Egeskov Castle in Denmark has resulted in a higher level of efficiency, more visitors and a far better customer experience.

Behind the thick castle walls and gorgeous park lies hard work, coordination and modern technology which are all important factors in welcoming thousands of guests to Egeskov every day, and making sure that they get a wonderful experience of the site.

On a busy day up to 10,000 visitors pass through the ticket office. The efficiency of the ticket office is a top priority for the castle.

For many years, the ticket office has used traditional cash registers, but the margin of error was too high and the system could not cope with rising visitor numbers.

The old system was in-flexible, and had a relatively long implementation time whenever Egeskov wanted to try out new ideas or add to its existing features. The old system was therefore replaced with a modern and future-proof solution.

One of the demands of the new POS solution was that it should guarantee short ticket office service time for the rising number of visitors.

Svendsen Data has many years of experience with complex ERP solutions, and in corporation with WinkasPro and Delfi Technologies they started developing a solution that could tackle the tasks required. Pretty soon it was evident that this was going to be more than just an average POS solution

Season Tickets and Customer Database

The new POS system can also issue season tickets. The system also manages Egeskov's customer database enabling them to do promotions and mail shots campaigns to their customers about organized events, special offers etc.

Guests are registered on the database and the season ticket is then printed on a fast A794 receipt printer from Maxatec. The A794 printer also prints a picture of the castle on every single receipt that is handed out the visitors.

The next time the guest arrives at the castle, the barcode on the season ticket is simply scanned, making it even easier for the guest to get quick entrance to the park. Egeskov can now view statistics, which show how many of the guest are coming back to visit during the season.

Foreign Currencies

The new system is ultra flexible and allows visitors to pay with many forms of European currency, including Euros, US Dollars, as well as Swedish and Norwegian Kroner. The member of staff at the ticket office simply enters the monetary amount she receives from the visitor, together with the information on the currency, and pays the customer back in Danish currency.

Questionnaires

To maintain the level of high quality and customer satisfaction, questionnaires have been developed and are regularly handed out to the guests. On a very busy day, the questionnaires could easily be forgotten with the old system as the staff had so many other things to think about, but with the modern POS system, a solution to this problem has also been found. For every 15th customer, a reminder pops up on the monitors in the ticket booth reminding the user to give the next customer a questionnaire.

Hardware

On the hardware side, the new Egeskov solution consists of a J2 POS PC solution with touch screen, card reader and POS PC is cased in black, minimalist and stylish design that fits well into the rest of the interior and takes up the minimum of space.

The A794 receipt printer has several features that make it ideal for a job like this. It is incredibly fast, reliable and hardwearing, and it is one of the best in the market when barcodes need to be generated.

To read the barcode, the HHP IMAGETEAMTM 3810 scanner is used. This is one of the sturdiest scanners in the market and the reading ability of this unit is exceptional.

The customer display on the monitor reads "Welcome to Egeskov", text can easily changed if required. The display also shows the amount payable in the currency required.

Software

The Danish company WinkasPro has provided the software required for this solution, and over time they have solved several customer specific software assignments, starting with manageability and logic.

Today they even register the weather

Today the ticket office is a great example of how a company can make the most of a new logistics solution and thereby make logistics, sales and marketing work together.

Everything is registered, keeping the staff at the ticket office informed of what activities are occurring during the day. With this information, they are always prepared when buses, schools, journalists or other registered guest arrive at the park. Even the weather is now registered to keep track of how this affects visitor numbers.

Egeskov Castle currently working on extending the solution to implement the system in the various kiosks and restaurants available at the castle.