Club Systems International, the UK and Ireland’s leading producer of golf club IT systems, has added a mobile hand-held device to its market-leading MerlinTouch EPoS loyalty card system: the MerlinMobile.
Since its launch in 2005, MerlinTouch – designed and developed in-house by Club Systems – has become the most successful EPoS loyalty card system in UK and Irish sports and membership clubs. Now, the introduction of the simple-to-use MerlinMobile hand-held device offers the ability to achieve additional sales ‘on the move’.
Using the new MerlinMobile, orders can now be taken quickly and efficiently from tables in the bar or restaurant and, if connection allows, from a terrace or patio area, using a simple touch-screen process. The MerlinMobile can even be used as an additional till, and provides multiple pop-up windows for menu options and cooking instructions; quick card balance and product-price interrogation; and allows ‘table tracking’ so members can run a tab in comfort.
Club Systems International’s sales manager, Hilary Clamp, said: “The introduction of MerlinMobile is the natural, organic progression of the widely-used MerlinTouch system. It’s been designed to bring together two ideals: increased simplicity for staff users, and increased comfort for customers and members.
“It means staff can take orders electronically from tables or on the patio, which doesn’t just increase sales, it also encourages groups to remain together and stay longer. If customers do not need to get up to reorder, you retain them longer; they don’t fragment their group, which may otherwise lead to people drifting off. We’ve had some really great feedback on it already – and we’ve only been trialling it for a few months.”
One club which was a quick convert to the MerlinMobile is Deeside GC. Club manager Debbie Pern said: “The Merlin Mobile is a fantastic addition to our Club Systems products. Using it on a daily basis relieves pressure on the tills, particularly when taking food orders at the lounge tables or in the restaurant. And, with young people preferring to have a piece of technology in their hands, there is no shortage of enthusiasm to use it.”
The MerlinMobile is just the latest addition to a range of products from Club Systems International which keeps raising the bar in terms of club and membership IT. It follows on from the successful launch last year of the cloud-based ClubV1 administration system, which is now in use at more than 150 golf clubs, and which offers extensive drill-down capabilities on members’ golf and financial activity; radical improvement of competition and handicapping administration; and extensive advances to member and visitor communication and marketing.
Also included in the Club Systems International portfolio is the original MerlinTouch EPoS – now available via a rental scheme; PSiTouch screens, enabling forward booking, competition sign-in, score entry and swipe card transaction history; PSiBoard (Player Score Information Board), displaying live current information to members and guests; and CSiSites, the website design service which integrates sites with club software.
Club Systems International Ltd has been designing, building and supporting IT systems for golf clubs since 1982. Now, with more than 1,800 golf clubs in the UK and Ireland, along with customers as far afield as Dubai, Ghana and Sri Lanka, Club Systems International has grown to lead the UK & I golf club market.
Club Systems International www.clubsystems.com/mobile