As the coronavirus continues to spread, more governments are issuing restrictions designed to limit people gathering—or mandating they stay inside altogether. Some businesses, like restaurants and entertainment venues, have been required to, or have volunteered to, close. Increasingly, this includes some retailers.

But what do you do with your NCR retail technology if you have to close your store? How do you still engage shoppers? What about returns? Here’s some guidance to help.

 If your stores are closing

What to do about Buy Online, Pickup (or Return) In Store?

Consider alternate ways of enabling your customers to shop, like offering home delivery. Some retailers are also relaxing current return policies to extend the return timeframe (if you do the same, take into consideration your vendor agreement guidelines).

What about returns?

Put returned items in a separate area and follow CDC guidelines for isolating the returned items, and sanitation steps.

What about my NCR systems?

The general rule of thumb is to keep essential machines running (e.g., store servers). You can shut down registers; recommended practices can vary based on specific store systems and your business requirements.

For information or advice on what to do with your store systems, contact NCR at 1-800-CALL-NCR or have us call you back.

 If your stores are staying open

What about store returns?

Consider relaxing your current return policies to extend the return timeframe (taking into consideration vendor agreement guidelines).

How should I handle payments?

Consider curb-side pickup, where you can use a mobile device to complete the transaction.

For card payments, consider letting your customers dip or swipe their own cards using the PED. Wipe the PED clean after every use. Consumer signature is no longer required, so this could be a good time to remove that from your configuration.

For cash payments, consider encouraging your customers to use mobile or card payments.

Consider offering digital receipts. Have your associates ask customers if they’d like a digital receipt or if they’d prefer to have their paper receipt disposed of.

What about cash management? Consider reducing the frequency of cash and media pickup and deposit with banks to maintain social distancing.

What about my NCR systems? If your stores are open, even with reduced hours, keep your software and hardware running. Make sure you keep up with security updates, operating system updates, etc. And clean your hardware surfaces regularly, following NCR cleaning guidelines.    

 Additional ways to help keep your staff and customers safe

You can find us at NCR.com/retail, have us call you back, call us in the U.S. at 1-800-CALL-NCR or call outside of the U.S. at 1-937-445-1936.