“CBE’s forecourt self-checkouts fuel a better customer experience“

Forecourts are no longer just about pumping fuel – they now need to provide a full retail offering to their customers and offer an all-inclusive shopping experience. In order to achieve this, retailers need an IT solution that can manage all of their operations from one central hub and enable them to provide their customers with the best possible buying experience. CBE’s FutaTill Solution with Self-Checkout now facilitates this.

The CBE team has led the way in shaping EPoS solutions offered to the forecourt retail sector both here in Ireland and in Britain. It has done so by listening and responding to the ever more sophisticated needs of retailers. For over 20 years CBE has been working with leading Irish and British forecourt and convenience retailers to help them drive their business forward, having installations across all the leading symbol groups and major oil companies.

The first to develop a fully integrated solution for forecourts, CBE’s Research & Development Team continue to break ground through constant innovation and development.

FutaTill’s comprehensive forecourt solution is now offering retailers the ability to process fuel transactions using Self-Checkout solutions (SCO). CBE, an Elite Solution Provider of NCR, has installed SCO in a number of forecourts in Ireland and Britain. Fuel on self-checkout is implemented using the ‘fractional model’, it allows consumers to pay for their shop items and their fuel in the one transaction at the Self-Checkout while being monitored/assisted by an existing cashier. This eliminates the need to have a dedicated staff member managing the SCO area, therefore providing an additional service for customers, faster throughput of transactions and with no extra labour costs.

The innovation is currently live in Centra Kilbeggan, enabling the County Westmeath retailer to stay ahead of its competitors within the Irish forecourt sector.

Niall Dooney, Marketing Executive of CBE explains, “Self-service checkouts are well and truly part of retail culture now and there is almost an expectation from shoppers to have the option when checking out. While standing in line customers usually feel like they are wasting time. A big benefit of SCO for both customers and retailers is it reduces the negative experience of standing in queues”.

“From a Retailers point of view, another advantage is reliability – a SCO will deliver the same level of service to every customer all day every day. The usage of SCO is not limited to the number of free cashiers, but is instead down to the number of available machines. This also eliminates the impact of the human factor such as staff absenteeism. There is also the huge benefit to retailers of cash office savings, where there is less time used in balancing till drawers after shifts. SCO also increase the transaction numbers in a store while also helping to generate greater numbers of sales throughout peak periods. Having more staff present on the shop floor results in more security around the store”.

“Despite being a regular feature in supermarkets, self-checkouts are not too common in the fuel sector. Although self-checkout has been around for several years, it’s the fuel aspect which surprises consumers. Since introducing the innovation to the Irish forecourt sector, we have had many retailers showing a keen interest in the technology. Here at CBE, we always consider two stakeholders when developing a new software solution, the business, and the end-user, as the checkout experience is the last thing a customer remembers when exiting a store, a better shopping experience for a customer will nearly always result in repeat business”.

Why CBE?

Formed in 1980 with Head Office in Claremorris Co. Mayo, CBE has grown to become one of Europe’s largest EPoS providers. CBE designs and develops cutting edge software applications for the Retail, Forecourt, Hospitality, Fashion, Pharmacy and general merchandise sectors. Our in-house innovation lab provides a unique competitive advantage that allows us to offer an agile bespoke solution to prospective customers. Employing over 150 skilled personnel, CBE continue to lead the way in retail technology innovations.

Read the article here: https://www.businesspost.ie/focus-on/cbes-forecourt-self-checkouts-fuel-better-customer-experience-450663