Page 16 - GS20901

Feature

Advisory Board
Advisory Board

Moving forward through service

amid COVID-19 — Part 4

I n our July 27, Aug. 10 and Aug. 24, 2020, issues, we 2. The first thing we did when the lockdown was initiated

was to contact our merchants to understand how this
published answers received from members of The
Green Sheet Advisory Board to the following:
impacted them. While retail and restaurants closed, many
from home instead of a central location. Initially, virtual
1. Given current conditions, how have you planned other industries were continuing to operate, simply now
for and executed a path forward for your company terminals and emailed invoices were something being
that strikes a balance between fostering safety and heavily leaned on to provide safe and secure methods of
economic recovery? payment acceptance.

2. What have you done to help your merchants/ As businesses have opened in various degrees our goal
clients conduct business safely as they go through has been to provide the best solution that fits that specific
the same process? merchant's needs. This may be ensuring their terminal
has a contactless option, helping restaurants set up their
3. How have you worked with business and/or own online ordering options to circumvent the high
community partners to achieve the same ends? commissions of the ordering platforms or, as some dining
resumes, replacing menus with QR codes to reduce the
4. What guiding principles should people in the amount of items that need to be touched and have the
payments community keep in mind as they work potential for viral transmission.
to keep their businesses and the industry strong
through this crisis and beyond? 3. The first thing has been to keep all our agents/partners
abreast of the tools which were available for merchants. As
This is the fourth and final group of insights from our the pandemic has pushed demand into certain areas that
esteemed Advisory Board to this round of inquiry. We were deemed less important only a few months ago, we
appreciate their taking time to contribute their perspectives wanted to make sure everyone knew and was educated
to this series. on everything that may provide value to merchants at this
time.
Ben Abel With a lot of transactions being pushed into the CNP
Bank Associates Merchant Services environment we also reviewed available fraud protection
tools with our merchants, agents and partners to ensure
1. Prior to our home state's lockdown going into effect, a that more CNP transactions didn't also translate into
significant cross-section of our workforce was already increased disputes.
working from home. We use a cloud-based CRM called
IRIS CRM, which has a built-in dialer tool and capability 4. There are several takeaways from this which I think are
for managerial oversight, so transitioning the remaining very valuable, both for the payments industry as well as
members of our team to working from home was done others. First, you must be able to keep a pulse of the needs
easily. Most of our meetings and collaborations were of your client base. Situations and needs change and only
already being managed virtually, so I was very pleased by staying in tune with those needs can you consistently
with how smooth the entire process had been.
provide value to your clients. For example, investing all of
your resources into pushing a restaurant POS in the middle
Our home state has allowed the reopening of offices, and of March would likely have been a failing strategy.
we've implemented all of the necessary measures to ensure
that our team members can come to work safely, although Second, and this builds on the previous point, is that you
those who have requested to continue working from home cannot always expect things to remain the same, and so you
have been granted that allowance.
16