“Competitive Edge”: How Lightspeed Helped Traverse Alpine Overcome Challenges & Grow
With eight incredible venues, Traverse Alpine Group is the largest hospitality employer in Falls Creek and is quickly growing its presence in Albury-Wodonga. With a passion for exceptional food and beverage offerings in the most beautiful of settings, Traverse Alpine are at the forefront of the quickly evolving regional hospitality scene.
Business type
Restaurants, spa & hotel
Customer since
2023
Locations
8 venues in VIC & NSW
Traverse Alpine + Lightspeed
As a large, multi-site operation, Traverse Alpine needed a POS platform that was user-friendly for their seasonal staff yet sophisticated enough to easily manage key aspects of the business, from sales to reporting, in one centralised system.
We spoke to Nathan Roberts, Executive Assistant Manager of Traverse Alpine, who walked us through his experience with Lightspeed.
At a glance
Lightspeed provides Traverse Alpine with a powerful POS platform that’s cost-effective, easy to use and constantly evolving to meet the ever-changing demands of a large-scale hospitality business.
- Easy-to-use POS makes it simple for new staff to learn and start serving
- Comprehensive support whenever you need it
- Easy set-up makes it quick to get up and running
- Industry-leading POS that’s continually improving the software
- Quick and easy to update the POS, even if you’re not on-site
Easy-to-use system
“Easy, user-friendly interface.”
Seasonality is the nature of the game for the majority of Traverse Alpine’s venues. As a result, they often have seasonal staff who work the winter ski period and then head off somewhere else.
This meant they needed a user-friendly POS platform so seasonal staff could quickly familiarise themselves with the system and get up and running, serving customers.
“One of the appeals of Lightspeed was we felt like there was a nice, easy, user-friendly interface there… We just need a simple, easy, foolproof system that runs and doesn’t require a lot of knowledge to get going... That was one of the reasons we chose [Lightspeed].”
Support when you need it
“We’ve got great support.”
Nathan and the team love the support they get from Lightspeed and how quickly the team are able to help resolve any issues the business might have.
“We've got great support that we have been utilising and a great core team that are helping us finalise any kind of challenges we face through the season.”
Easy set up
"A nice, simple system."
One of the things Nathan loves most about Lightspeed is how easy it is to get up and running, such as adding new products and menu items.
“I've been basically setting up with guidance from Lightspeed. But it's a system that once you really understand it really well, like I do, it's something that I can just run with.”
“It's just a matter of locking the pieces together and knowing the right button to press that makes it all work.”
Paper dockets to digital KDS
“Every restaurant should have a KDS.”
In a seasonal business, efficiency is paramount, and anything that can speed up orders flowing in and out of the kitchen is a win. With the help of Fresh KDS, Traverse Alpine has been able to eliminate their paper dockets, making their order flow completely digital - enhancing efficiency in the kitchen.
“We've gone from paper dockets to completely paperless… that was one of the things we were really keen on transferring over.
“Lightspeed has allowed us, with its integration partners, to be able to [go paperless] and to have [the KDS screen] the way we want it.”
Cost-effective POS
“Cost-effective compared to some other systems.”
Another huge advantage of choosing Lightspeed was the fact that the platform and hardware were so competitively priced compared to other players in the market.
“It seems cost-effective compared to some other systems, in terms of hardware and in terms of setup costs. Some of the other POS systems had some really high hardware costs and implementation.”
Industry leader
“Trying to push the boundaries.”
Nathan and the team at Traverse Alpine have huge confidence in Lightspeed and see the platform as the perfect fit for their business.
“It was one of those systems I was like, it just feels right; these guys are with up with the times… I guess [Lightspeed] just felt more modern. It felt more up-to-date.”
Nathan also believes that Lightspeed is at the forefront of hospitality technology and is pushing the boundaries to continually improve its POS and software offerings.
“We try our best to be leading in that tech space with hospitality. And Lightspeed felt like they had that connection for us as well... You guys seem to be trying to push the boundaries and trying to improve your system.”
Reporting
“Detail-orientated.”
For Nathan, being able to easily access data and compile reports from the POS has made back-office admin much simpler.
“Some of the really nice stuff we've been able to do so simply is chase down a transaction inside a back office report, with the last four digits of a card, in a certain time period.”
“That kind of detail-orientated stuff is really easy to find in the back office. So from an admin point of view, it has been really good.”
Make changes on the go
“I can just look it up, change it, off it goes.”
Another feature that Nathan loves about Lightspeed is how quick and easy it is to make changes to things like pricing and menus, even if he’s not on site.
As long as Nathan has access to a device with an internet connection, he can log in to the POS back office and make any necessary changes that will immediately reflect on the front end of the platform.
“Someone was messaging last night saying, Oh, can we change this? And I'm literally just sitting there doing it on my phone. Which feels like a world away from where we were previously.”
