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takeout and delivery payments, SkyTab Online for Maurice Griefer
online ordering, and various other solutions. Maverick Payments
In addition, we launched shift4cares.com, an online
resource for the industry. We shared our transaction
data on the site to draw attention to the devastating
impact the pandemic was having on restaurants,
hotels and other businesses. Through this site, we also
sold gift cards for our merchants to help them bring
in much-needed revenue as lockdowns impacted
their business operations. Shift4 matched 5 percent
of all gift card sales to further help these hard-hit
businesses. Additionally, we waived fees and offered
various special promotions to provide financial relief
for our customers. Lastly, we were fortunate to be able
to take Shift4 public this year to help strengthen the
company’s balance sheet.
2. Overall, I think we did a good job of adapting to
the challenges of 2020 given the circumstances, but
there are certainly some things that we might have
done differently knowing what we now know. First,
we never would have had all of our staff on desktop
computers. Having to transition everyone to laptops in
order to shift to a work-from-home environment was
a significant operational challenge. Luckily, we were
able to pull this off pretty quickly, but in hindsight,
we should have switched everyone to laptops years
ago. We also would have made additional investments
in the operational resources needed to support the
considerable growth we saw during the spring and
summer as payment volume rapidly recovered and
overall customer demand increased from the low
point in late March/early April.
3. We’re still expecting COVID to have an impact on
businesses through Q1, but we anticipate a sharp
increase in volume as the vaccine proliferates and
pent-up consumer demand begins to be realized. We
do think that a lot of the technology and products that
have emerged during the crisis will continue to have
relevancy well into the future, such as contactless
solutions, QR code payments and ordering, online
ordering, and mobile solutions.
4. The convergence of software and payments is one of
the defining trends of the industry right now. We have
seen this play out with the rise of vertically integrated
platforms like Shopify, Square, Toast, Clover and
many others. As this trend reshapes the payments
landscape, SOs and agents will need to adapt their
business model in order to succeed. ISOs that have not
adopted software and technology-driven solutions
will find an ever shrinking addressable market. It’s
critical to embrace integrated payments in order to
thrive in this new environment.
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1. We are all counting down the days until this chaotic
year is finally over, hoping 2021 will return to normal-
cy or some form of it. Everyone was thrown a nasty
curveball when the pandemic hit, but as I write this
(the day after Thanksgiving), I think our company re-
bounded very well in the second half of the year as we
regained focus and got adjusted to this new pandemic
lifestyle.
We are very fortunate to have a diverse portfolio with
clients in many different industries, but I think what
helped us the most to weather the COVID-19 storm
was that we are focused more in ecommerce than brick
and mortar. Therefore, when retailers and restaurants
closed, we didn’t take too much of a hit, and we were
ready to help these clients seamlessly transition to a
card-not-present environment, which we have a lot of
experience in and manage very well in terms of quick
onboarding and risk management.
I noticed a lot of processors tighten up, too, and close
merchant accounts in higher risk verticals like travel,
so we received an influx of leads and new applications
from merchants that we probably wouldn’t have come
across if it weren’t for the pandemic. For many op-
portunities we got this year, we were just in the right
place at the right time. As simple as it sounds, too,
just being there for your clients and going the extra
mile for them to ensure they are minimizing interrup-
tions and downtime has helped us tremendously. If it
weren’t for our hardworking and dedicated team, I’m
sure we would be in a much worse position.
2. This is a tough question because there was so much
uncertainty when the pandemic struck, but I think we
probably could’ve prepared for it sooner, especially
with having our team work remotely. I think a lot of
people didn’t want to believe it was going to get as bad
as it did, so not preparing or creating a contingency
plan because you think this is some type of media
hoax probably hurt a lot of business owners. We could
have started to reach out to customers sooner just to
check in and see what their plans were and extend our
support. We hired a lot of new staff this year, but I
think we could have also tried to do that sooner since
it takes time to train new employees and get them sit-
uated. Regardless, our team has done a phenomenal
job adjusting, wearing more hats as needed, working
overtime, and doing whatever else is takes to keep
merchants and partners happy.
3. I do not think next year will go back to normal com-
pletely, so the biggest thing for us will be continuing
to help merchants shift toward implementing contact-
less and card-not-present sales channels. We actually
launched our new proprietary payment gateway this
year, too, so we are very excited to get this rolled out.