Will You Take My Money?

I told you last week that this week's post was going to relay a good customer service story, to offset the tale about Shmukdonald's. But something happened this afternoon that really hits a nerve with me.

The contact management system that I use underwent a major overhaul recently, and I despise the new system. (My aversion to change may be coming into play there. I don't know.) I checked out several systems, and found the one I thought would work best for me. I just had one small question. That's where things went awry.

I had emailed my question on three successive days to the salesperson who had replied to my initial inquiry, with nary a word back. Clearly, time for a phone call. I should have taken it as a warning that I had to search the company's site for 10 minutes before I found a phone number (a toll number) in very small print on an obscure 'other details' page.

Call one was answered by an auto-responder. I'm no Luddite, but I am a big enough believer in customer service that auto-responders always set my teeth on edge. I hit 'eight, for sales' as directed. Eleven rings later a happy-salesy voice thanked me for my call, assured me that everyone in sales was busy as a one- legged man in a butt- kicking contest, but if I would leave a message my call would be answered in the order it was received. I left a message that hit about a four on the one-to-ten grumpiness scale and also referred to the three unanswered voice mails.

Forty minutes later, call two. Hitting 'eight' again got the same voice mail message. I left no message of my own, called right back with call number three. This time I followed the responder’s admonition to hit 'four' for service. Ten rings got me 'Here in service we're even busier than those fools over in sales.' I was once again assured of the importance of my call, and promised a returned call in the order my call was received. 

I didn't leave a message and immediately placed call four. At the sound of the auto-responder I hit 'zero', and waited happily for the sound of a human voice.

"You have reached the general mailbox. We apologize, but this mailbox is full. Please push....."

You gotta be kidding me. Calls four through eight were just me hitting random numbers- there had to be a human being somewhere. At this point I wouldn't do business with this company if they were selling quarters for a dime, but I was determined to hear a human voice before I went on to the next company. 

Hitting the pound sign on call nine was promising- it sent me to the company directory. Unfortunately, no entry that I tried led to a valid extension. Not Smith, Jones, Miller, Baker, Tom, Steve, Angelique (my email tormentor from last week), Emily, Katie, Thomas, Thompson, Stewart or Wilson. 

I gave up.

That ttok place over five hours ago. My voicemail, like last week's emails, remains unanswered. All I wanted was an answer to an easy question, and to give them my money. 

I promise you- no company has ever gone broke from the cost of having a live, friendly person answer the phone in less than four rings. 

There are customers out there trying to give you their money. Do you want it?

Two Tales of Customer Service, Part 1

So, I'm on the road a few days ago, with no time to stop for lunch. I pull into a large national burger chain- to protect their anonymity I'll call them Shmuckdonald's- and order a couple of burgers and a tea, for a total of $4.09.

About a week ago a very small hole formed in the magnetic strip on the back of my debit card, making it impossible for some credit card terminals to process my card. We are switching banks next week, so we decided not to order a new card, and the merchants whose terminals can't read the card just punch it in manually.

Not Shmuckdonald's.

I watched through the window as several different employees took turns furiously swiping my card. After everyone in the group had taken a whack at it a large man in a button down shirt appeared. He swiped the card a few times, and handed it back to the girl working the window.

"I'm sorry, but your card won't work," She explained.

"It works fine, you just have to enter it manually," I replied.

She closed the window, said something to Button down shirt, who simply shook his head. Back to me.

"Our system isn't set up to do that. Sorry. Do you have another way to pay?"

"No, I don't. I'm coming back through in two hours. I can get some cash from my wife and Pay you then."

She shuts the door, talks to button down (who at this point really should have gotten involved in the conversation. Who asks to run a tab at a burger chain? The fact that I was doing just that should have alerted button down that he was dealing with an oddball, and maybe it was time for him to get involved.

Nope. Button down shook his head a second time, and window girl comes back to say,

"Sorry. Since your card won't work you'll have to pay some other way."

"How can you guys not......never mind," not being the kind of guy that wails on the hired help, I drive off, with a bad taste in my mouth.

CUT TO- Me, at the next burger chain down the road, happily munching on a double cheeseburger.

First off, if its true that Shmuckdonald's POS system doesn't allow manual entry of debit cards, that is an epic fail on their part. How many times have you been in line at  store and watched the clerk punch in the card details of a customer in front of you. And Shmuckdonald's has no method for people in that situation to be able to use their card?

But the real failure in my mind was committed by button down. Shmuckdonald's spends tens of millions of dollars every year to get me into their business. His owner spent around a million on the franchise. And he can't get creative enough to find a way to provide me a four dollar meal.

Say I don't come back to pay for it. He has a drawer or a pocket short four dollars. Instead, because I'm a customer that holds a grudge, I will avoid that particular Shmuckdonald's like the plague. And I have already told this story four times today- once to a leads group with 18 people in it. That telling evolved into a 15 minute topper exercise, with everyone relating their worst experience with Shmuckdonald's customer service.

Hire creative, empathetic people, and give them the authority to solve your customer's problems. Unless your ad budget is as large as Shmuckdonald's.

That's the bad. Part Two, the good, will come later in the week.

No More Quiet Tuesday's

If you run a retail business or a restaurant one of the  frustrations is that part of the week, often Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon, when inevitably, week after week, business slows to a crawl and it costs you more to keep the lights on than you are bringing in sales.

But what if you could drive more traffic into your place during the slow times?

What if there was a way to reach out to the 500 customers who had signed up to receive text messages from you, your 300 Facebook fans, the 200 customers who follow you on Twitter, and the 150 customers who carry your loyalty cards? What if you could send them all the same message- one about the incredible deal you were running, but only for the next four hours? And what if you could get all that done in about one minute; or better yet, since you are always slow on Tuesday afternoons, you had pre-scheduled it, and your message went out to all those customers without you lifting a finger?

And what if you could do all that for less than the cost of a tiny 1x1 ad in your local paper (one that nobody is ever going to see anyway). And what if there were a way to set it up so your true cost is zero, zilch, de nada, nothing? And what if, just to get you see how well it works, the first two months are free, and there is no contract so you can quit anytime you like?

There are no what ifs- you can do all the above, and more, with SpotOn.

SpotOn is a powerful marketing hub for your business- a one stop dashboard to run all of your social and loyalty networks from. There is nothing like it- no other service runs your social media, mobile messaging, loyalty program, deals, and analytics. Usually you have to pay much more than what SpotOn costs just to get help with one of those programs.

"But I don't understand social media or mobile messaging," you say. No problem. SpotOn has a local representative to help you, they will teach you the ropes as they set up your account, and provide you with ongoing top notch support while you use the service.

"But I already have a Facebook page," you say. Yeah, I see that. You have 23 fans, and your last post was in May. SpotOn will show you how to drive traffic to your page; not just Facebook, but Twitter and Foursquare, too. A bagel company in California went from 180 Facebook fans to over 3000 in three months with SpotOn.

Bottom line- a group of guys way smarter than me are behind this, and they wouldn't let you use it for free for two months if they didn't know it works so well that after two months nobody stops using it.

There are very few true, no risk, what-have-you-go-to lose propositions out there these days. This is one. Drop me an email, or call 417-439-8785, and lets talk.

SpotOn- Click. Your customers are listening.

Why would you do that?

"I leased my credit card processor."

Why!!??!! Why would you do that?

"There's a guy here trying to get me to lease a credit card machine."

RUN!!!! RUN AS FAR AND AS FAST AS YOU CAN!!!

Let's talk about business math.

Credit card terminal A processes cards quickly and quietly, has a small footprint and an easy user interface. You can lease it for $49 a month for 36 months.

Credit card terminal B is the exact same piece of equipment, brand new out of the box. It's free, and if it stops working you can get an equally free one that looks just like it.

So- what's better for the merchant, $1746, or free? Seems like a no-brainer, but every day I see smart, successful business owners that chose the $1746 option.

Now let's take it a step further. What if I told you that with the $1746 option, about $1000 of that goes straight into the pocket of the salesman who sold the equipment? Because that's the case. Kind of makes your ears burn, doesn't it.

One step further- your 36 month lease is actually a never ending monthly payment. At lease end, you have to return the equipment- or you can keep it, as long as you keep chucking out your $49.00 every month. Now your $1700 is $2352, or $2940. For something you could have had for free!

There may be a valid business case for leasing a credit card machine, but I have never seen it. Yes, a merchant gets to claim the depreciation on her income taxes; but I don't think the depreciation allowance comes anywhere near seventeen hundred dollars. I've heard salesman that lease terminals use buzzwords like "allocation of equipment" and "end user serviceability ", but that is a salesman trying to fog an issue and put a grand in his pocket.

There are processing companies that will provide their merchants with free equipment- not many, but a few. You can purchase a brand new terminal outright for a few hundred dollars. You can buy them refurbished on the internet for less than a hundred dollars.

One final note, if you still think leasing a terminal makes since to you. Go online and Google Northern Leasing, and LFG, and Eagle Finance, and Pushpin Holdings. See if that is a road you would like to travel down.

If I were a merchant I would want to stay far away from it.

What is SpotOn?

SpotOn is social media all in one place. Expert site set-up on Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. You have an all-in-one social dashboard, to monitor  your social traffic and schedule future posts. SpotOn's experts will show you how to drive traffic to your sites, so your circle of influence is always getting bigger.

SpotOn is mobile messaging to reach your customers wherever they go. An easy to use message interface allows you to send up to 50 free texts a month to your customer base. And you get free signage to let your customers know how to participate.

SpotOn is a loyalty program that keeps customers coming back. Customers can join just by sharing their mobile number at checkout. You choose a program based on number of visits or dollars spent, pick your rewards, decide today's deal. SpotOn gets the message out. Traffic and sales go up.

SpotOn is powerful analytics to measure the results. Track social media growth, deal redemption, and more. Track revenue, customer visits- you can even track individual customer spending and deal participation.

* Build a foundation of happy, loyal customers.
* Attract new customers.
* Increase word of mouth buzz about your business.
* Reach customers wherever they go.
* Create your own deals- no deal sites necessary.
* Track results effectively and in real time.
* No contracts.

SpotOn is a powerful tool to increase customer traffic and grow you bottom line.

It's all available for less than the cost of dinner and a movie. And I can show you a way to set up SpotOn so that your real cost is ZERO.


Contact me at bswitzer@cpay.com for details.

Introducing SpotOn- Click. Your Customers Are Listening.

What is SpotOn?

SpotOn is a cloud based software that serves as a marketing hub for small businesses. It enables owners to participate in social media, SMS marketing, deals, and customer loyalty from one place. SpotOn can be accessed from any computer with an internet connection.

Share today's special on Twitter, post a picture of  your newest product on Facebook, and listen to what your customers are saying about your business throughout the web.

Dazzle new customers and welcome new ones with your custom designed loyalty program.

Use SpotOn's SMS texting feature to instantly share your offer with your customer wherever they are.

The result? A foundation of happy, loyal customers that help spread the word with their own social networks. You handle the extra traffic and we'll handle the technical stuff.

360 degree view of your customers. Powerful Analytics. Weekly tips and updates.

Most importantly, it can be set up in a way so that the true cost to your business is zero. De nada. Nothing.

Contact me at bswitzer@cpay.com or 417-439-8785 for more.

How to Tell if You Have a Good Merchant Services Provider

I heard the tired old refrain just yesterday, from a hardware store owner in Nevada.

"You guys are all the same," he told me, referring to credit card processing representatives. "It doesn't matter who moves my money around- there's not a dime's worth of difference between the lot of you."

Because that is a common but misguided sentiment, here are some tips on how you can tell if your agent is worth his salt or not.

The first clue is how long she has been in the business. Turnover in the processing representative field is notoriously high- various estimates put it between 75 and 87 percent a year. The processing companies will hire anyone, sight unseen, to rep for them. They provide almost no training- a few whispers in the ear about how wealthy the rep is about to become and an hour long Citrix meeting is pretty much industry standard for the big processors- and then the rep is out at it, chasing applications.

So if you have an agent that has been at it for a few years you know that at the very least she found a way to beat the odds and start building a customer base.

The next thing you want to consider is when the last time you saw your representative was. Does he call or stop by every now and then, or was the last thing you saw the back of his head as he was walking out the door with your application in hand? A good agent's primary concern is keeping your business in his portfolio- and that means checking in, making sure you are content, making sure you understand your equipment and your statements, answering your questions, handling your concerns. If you haven't seen the guy who signed you up since he signed you up it's a good indication he: 1) is no longer in the business, 2) made so much money off you on the front end that he doesn't care if you stay on the books or not, 3) expects you to be unhappy with your rates, equipment or service and doesn't want to deal with it or 4) is just bad at his job.

Take a look at the process you go through when you have a question or concern. Who is your first phone call to in those situations? A good agent will always want you to call her first. That way she is aware of the situation, and can be sure it gets resolved to your satisfaction. And if she can't answer your question or address your concern, she will have someone from her company contact you. She knows you have more important things to do then spend five minutes on hold waiting on customer service or trying to wade through the company's automated phone tree. And if she is really good at her job, she knows who in tech support is great with merchants and who isn't, and wants to make sure you speak to the former.

I will pick this back up with a few more ideas tomorrow; until then- if there is ever anything I can do for you, just let me know.

Nothing Ever Stays the Same

I'm hittin' on my middle years, and if the gray hairs, fading eyesight and weary joints didn't give that away, I'd know it just the same.

I'd know it cause I catch myself saying things like "when I was a kid", and thinking things like "I remember when...". Nothing ever stays the same, and in the information age things change with light speed.

My industry (credit card processing) is in the beginning steps of a major sea change- we are slowly moving away from the land-telephone line model that has served the industry well for the last three decades. Whether it be "To the Cloud!", wireless terminals, WiFi, or even smart phones, swiping a credit card through a terminal that then sends information over the telephone lines will someday soon seem as archaic as the old 'knuckle-buster' slider/imprinters do today. It will be fascinating to watch as the new technologies take hold.

But no matter what new processing platform next year's merchants choose, they are all going to need one thing- someone to get the transaction approved and to move the money around. As an industry leader in innovation and technology, Central Payment is perfectly suited to fill that need.

As a local rep for Central Payment, I pledge to provide innovative electronic technology solutions, personal service, and the lowest possible rates and fees.