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CoverStory




        made the adjustment. Next, we had to reconfigure how we   I do believe we reacted well in protecting our staff and
        were going to deploy some of the terminals we work with   moving everyone to their homes. By the time we resume
        and solved that by shipping terminals to someone’s home.   going back to our offices, I know our people will be ready
        Boarding applications and rearranging of agent support   for that and will be glad to be back.
        required some major adjustments as well.
                                                                Challenges that lie ahead will be no different than what
        The biggest issue was getting our sales partners to un-  we have experienced for years. There will always be new
        derstand why application approvals, equipment deploy-   companies out there to compete with. There will always
        ment, and overall customer service and technical fixes   be new technology to learn. The key for current and new
        would take longer.  Both processing entities that most of   people entering this industry is to find a comfort level
        our business goes to also moved their peronnel to their   with  a  company  that  is  open,  has  full  reporting,  has  a
        homes. Due to this change, customer service and technical   simple way of doing business, but is willing to continually
        support response times increased.  The concept of same-  educate you and present products that help grow your
        day approvals and deployment turned into next-day. Re-  residuals and commissions.
        ceiving VAR sheets, and gateway setups also went from
        one day to a few days, so setting new expectations created   We all have different business models, and ours is focused
        disappontments, and the word “rush” disappeared.        on the long-term residuals. At least for the foreseeable
                                                                future, we need to continue being patient and not beat up
        Most of our sales groups are face-to-face folks, which led   the customer service person or tech person on the other
        to a drop off in new business, given that lots of  businesses   end of the phone conversation. We need to remember that
        either closed or didn’t wish to have visitors. Given that we   everyone  is  dealing  with  family  issues  associated  with
        couldn’t solve the business closure issue, we focused on   COVID-19, whether it is someone being sick, children
        developing in our Betterpay portal a user friendly e-sign   doing remote schooling, a loss of a job or the lack of
        capability for all applications and forms. This gave all of   normalcy. If we focus on helping each other, and continue
        our people the ability to send out a completed application   to push hard in business, we will be fine.
        for signature and avoid the face-to-face time spent hand-
        writing an application. Adoption of using the e-sign pro-
        gram is increasing, but of course we wish everyone would   Jared Isaacman
        use it.                                                 Shift4

        We also spent considerable time developing marketing        1.  When  COVID  first hit,  we  quickly adapted  our
        materials on all of our product offerings that our sales    operations and shifted development efforts to focus
        groups could use. We made a conscious decision not to       on products that would help our customers address
        compete with our agents with a direct sales force, so all   pandemic-related challenges. This included the release
        of our literature is designed with only our sales partners   of QR Pay for contactless payment, QR Ordering for
        contact information.                                        contactless restaurant ordering, SkyTab for curbside

        Additionally, we realized that by growing our
        agent base, and educating and training some                     A Also find us on lso find us on FFacebook,  acebook,
        qualified new people, we could make up for                      L LinkedIn & inkedIn & TTwitter for the witter for the
        some of the loss in application volume that we
                                                                        mos
        hoped was only a temporary situation.                           most up-to-date stories,  t up-to-date stories,
                                                                        can’t miss events and newest an’t miss events and newest
        Our company is on solid ground due to cutting                   c
                                                                        industry announcements.ustry announcements.
        back expenses and increasing revenue from our                   ind
        new sales partners. I do expect until we get past
        at least the first quarter of 2021 that we will not
        see any positive change in our production.

        Our plans call for continued recruiting and
        training. Most of my day is peronally spent in
        that area. We also have plans to increase our
        marketing, and after the holidays, to hire addi-
        tional people because, based on the response we   https://www.facebook.com/TheGreenSheetIncttps://www.facebook.com/TheGreenSheetInc
                                                        h
        have received from our agent/office program,    h https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-green-sheetttps://www.linkedin.com/company/the-green-sheet
        we need to be prepared to be able to handle an
        expected large influx of new business starting   h https://twitter.com/The_Green_Sheetttps://twitter.com/The_Green_Sheet
        in the second quarter of next year.



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