Top Business Opportunities 2018: Cell Phone Repair Business

I plan to help you answer the question… “What is the best software for your cell phone repair shop?”
A quick Google search for that question returns over one hundred pages. So instead of having you search through all of those results I have put together a short article to answer that question (from my perspective of course!). I will cover why you need software for your phone repair shop, the different type of software available, and I will also include some of the vendors in each category.
Here we go…

Do you really need software for your cell shop?

Do you really need software to run your cell phone repair shop? No. There was a time, not too long ago where the only tools you needed to run a shop was a calendar, appointment pad, pencil, and a cash register. In fact, I’m sure there are many shops still using those tools today.

But in today’s hyper competitive market more and more cell phone shop owners are employing software within their stores to stay ahead of competitors, to make customers happier, and to increase their bottom line.
As the owner of a wireless shop, you could send your day managing inventory, employees, sorting through paper repair tickets, calling customers to let them know their devices are ready for pickup, managing customer assets, answer phone call inquiries, running reports, calculating sales, determining sales persons and technicians commissions, greeting customers in store, marketing, and many other activities…
The truth is there isn’t enough time in a working day do all of the things that you need to do. A good assistant store manager can help, but without the systems in place, you and your team are working harder than you need to be. This is where software and good systems come in!

How can software help your cell repair business?

Listed below is some of the activities where software can help your shop:

• Point of sale (POS) - Generating, printing and emailing of sales invoices
• Repair tracking and ticketing - Quickly produce professional repair tickets
• Inventory control - Track parts, accessory, and device inventories
• Customer management - Store a complete history of customer transactions and interactions
• Store-wide reporting - Real-time store performance numbers
• Sales management - Improve margins, improve sales processes
• Sell warranties - Good systems will allow owners to confidently sell profitable warranties on services and devices sales
• Technician reports - Get a clear understanding of what your technicians have completed and current repairs
• Generate estimates and quotes - Quickly provide customers with professional quotes
• Purchase orders - Add inventory through a PO system to organize incoming inventory
• Supplier returns - Easily return goods that are defective to original supplier
• Inventory reorder levels - Stop running out of inventory with low inventory alerts
• Sales Dashboards - An overview into sales, repairs, and received payments
• End of day reports - Stop using paper to manually record end of day activities
• CRM - Track all important customer activities and receive tools to easily communicate with them
• Salesman commissions - Track each sale by sales person
• IMEI Tracking - Stop managing IMEI’s and wireless devices with spreadsheets
• Barcode printing - Reduce errors inputting or scanning items into various systems
• Remote store management - Monitor the performance of your store from home when you are on the road
• Device Test Checklists - Upgrade your paper checklists to digital ones that are stored in each customer's record
• Staff management - Coordinate your staff hours and activities
• Website - Sell your services online, accept requests and quotes from users over the Internet

Now that you’ve seen some areas where good software can help you run, manage, and grow your business, here are the main types of software solutions available.

Standalone software solutions

Standalone software services are typically what many cell phone repair shop owners look for when starting out. (For example, if you need assistance with store accounting you may look for accounting software.) There are thousands of solutions that can assist you with many of the individual tasks on your to-do list.

Standalone software options:

Point of sale (POS)

• NCR Silver
• Square POS
• Giftlogic

Accounting

• Quickbooks
• Sage accounting
• Freshbooks

Inventory Management

• Brightpearl
• Fishbowl Inventory

Misc

• Spreadsheets - MS Excel / Google Doc
• Google apps for work

Scheduling

• When I work
• Snap Schedule
• Humanity

CRM

• BSI
• Insightly
• ZOHO CRM

Expense Tracking

• Concur
• Wave Apps
• TriNet Expense

The problem with standalone solutions

On first thoughts, buying separate tools for your individual business needs sounds like a good idea. As you encounter an issue in your shop you can search for an appropriate software solution.
There are many problems that this philosophy presents. First, you the owner now have to manage the relationship which each software provider. With each service comes a different username and password to remember. Each service will have its own support details. And each software will have its own separate cost. The biggest issue that cell shop owners will face is getting these different tools to work together. You see each standalone software operates in a silo. The data that they collect are not easily shared. This situation means you will need to work hard piecing together all of the data to get the complete picture of your business.

General purpose store management solutions

General purpose store management providers are general purpose all-in-one systems built for standard retail business. These software are great for general retails operations, and will include functions like POS, inventory management, customer management, and more.
However, for the purposes of cell phone repair store activities, core store functions like repair tracking and IMEI management are not available.

Examples of general purpose store management solutions:

• Vendhq
• Quickbooks POS
• Shopify
• Microsoft Dynamics
• Retail Edge

All-in-one software solutions for cell phone store owners

Cell phone repair shop management solutions are all-in-one software systems built specifically for repair shop owners. If you are a cell phone repair store owner, this is where I would strongly recommend you start your software search.
The biggest advantage is that these software solutions were designed for the daily activities that occur within a cellphone repair shop environment and workflows typically mirror the way you manage your store. This means that this software type is typically easier to learn and easier to get started with for you and your staff. A second advantage of these software solutions is that they include software systems for most of the your repair and retail business activities. This eliminates different passwords. This ensures a single support point of contact. Most importantly, all of the data saved within the one system allowing for deeper insights from the data.
All-in-one solutions do have some some drawbacks. The main drawback is that some functionality may not be as full functioned as some of the standalone options. However, expect that the functionality provided will cover your daily store activities.

All-in-one software solutions for mobile retail stores:

• CellStore Software (that's us!)
• Repairshopr
• Repair Desk

Conclusion

As the owner of a cell phone repair store you have more activities to do than there are hours available in a day. The right software can make a huge difference in how your shop operates, improving the satisfaction rate of your customers, and helping your to make more money. Expect your stress levels to be reduced as well (nice bonus).
However with the hundreds of possible solutions available, I strongly recommend you selecting an all-in-one software solution made specifically for cell phone repair shops and your unique business requirements.
CellStore Software is the best value-for-dollar all-in-one store management solution built specifically for cell phone repair owners on the market today. Our core features includes POS, repair tracking, inventory management, customer management, Website, and too many other features to add here. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me anytime.
To your wireless success,
Alvin
www.cellstore.co