As the world’s most international tobacco group, with quality brands sold in more than 180 markets, British American Tobacco (BAT) is now at the forefront when it comes to cashless payment technology.
With a responsible approach to doing business from crop to consumer, BAT has maintained its place in the Gold performance band in the list of the UK’s 100 most responsible companies.
Working with Sodexo, BAT identified VMC as the supplier for the new cashless card system that was required for Oxford House Aylesbury refurbished Café Link. Oxford House is managed by BAT and is home to BATUK and the remaining premises are sub-let to ACCO UK, Henkel and The Share Centre which means that the Café Link has the potential customer base of over 500 site-based staff.
Nicky Taviner, Sodexo’s, General Services Manager at Oxford House, comments on the new cashless payment system: “The old cashless card system had to be replaced as we could no longer support the Windows 98 system and spares for the readers and the cards were no longer available. We were looking for a user friendly system that could be used by various support staff and a till system that was integrated with the cashless cards to enable us to have a complete auditable system that would be capable of given daily, weekly and monthly consumption reports, spend trends, etc.”
Café Link is currently serving breakfast and freshly produced hot main meals daily, together with access to a freshly made deli bar, the 500 strong customer base have individual cards on which to load cash from wall mounted terminals. They can then use the cards for a fuss free, smooth running operation whether its breakfast, mid morning snacks, lunch, afternoon snacks or simply a fresh bean to cup coffee.
Real benefit
Nicky concluded: “Being able to access a full audit trail and reporting system has been a real benefit to the team, integration is key for running a smooth service. Having the tools to react to a changing environment means we can adapt our system accordingly, for example hospitality cards for visitors which are recharged monthly dependent on usage makes perfect business sense. The software fits in with us rather than the other way around.
“Cashless is a lot more hygienic and efficient than cash and the new system means restaurant queuing times are drastically cut, the tills operate much faster, and they’re simple to use. The VMC team was very supportive with training and installation, and Project Manager Andy Alsford was absolutely brilliant.”
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