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Off the Beaten Payment Path

P ayment processing is a revolving-door industry. Companies spin in and out of play. But one solutions provider, GO Software, is keeping its focus on a firm albeit different path despite acquisitions, a name change and a management shift.

GO Software originally was formed by Bill Pittman in 1991 as a provider of a Windows-based payment processing solution - PCCharge. Through venture capital, GO Software expanded its business and staff.

In 1999, it was acquired by ShopNow.com, an Internet company with large capital and a big appetite for buying. Pittman departed shortly thereafter. ShopNow.com changed its name to Network Commerce and soon found that the market couldn't sustain all of its acquisitions.

During this time, GO Software struggled for brand recognition. Its parent company opposed the continued use of GO Software despite the industry's familiarity with the name. The solution: GO Software started branding itself with its widely recognized product brand - PCCharge.

GO Software rationalized its product line to three - PCCharge Pro, PCCharge Express and PCCharge Payment Server. Implementing marketing throughout the financial channel - i.e. banks, processors, ISOs and the developers of POS systems that need credit card software - GO Software promoted its products that support cross-platforms and multiple transactions.

E-commerce was its next target. Developing a JAVA-based product - RiTA - GO Software offered a payment-processing engine that can be used for hundreds of thousands of transactions, improving revenue capability.

With a core competency in financial transaction processing solutions, GO Software's biggest appeal to the ISO community can be found in its PCCharge Pro, which enables businesses to process credit cards, ATM/debit cards and check guarantee services via their PCs. As an alternative to hardware terminals, PCCharge Pro gives the merchant a viable option to run all transactions through his or her existing PC, thus avoiding additional equipment purchase and maintenance.

"If a merchant already has computer, why buy a terminal when you can run everything through your PC, especially with mail order or telephone order?" says Tony Abruzzio, Vice President and General Manager of GO Software. "A terminal has limited functionality. Our computer-based solutions have robust reporting, using a Microsoft access database. Extremely flexible, PCCharge Pro works with any merchant and any processors."

GO Software is certified with most processors throughout the United States. PCCharge Pro is especially attractive to large merchants and can be used in a network environment, hooking into one computer and running transactions from multiple outlets.

"With PCCharge Pro, you don't have to buy 10 terminals - just 10 users and download to one server," Abruzzio says. "PCCharge Pro can also operate under multiple merchants, handling all merchants through one terminal."

How about mom-and-pop stores? For the smaller merchants, GO Software offers PCCharge Express. Not designed to be networked, Express works well for the little guy, providing all the robust solutions of Pro without expanded network capability.

Another area that GO Software sees as brimming with opportunity is the gift card/loyalty card market. According to the May 2001 issue of The Standard Register, gift card market awareness has increased from 15% in 2000 to 80% in 2001, with usage quadrupling from 11% to 45% during that time, representing the highest growth category in consumer cards. Gift card revenue is expected to grow from $20 billion in 2000 to $32 billion in 2001.

GO Software started focusing on this market about a year ago and created PCCharge Perks. "We answered a need and put into our payment server product a solution to make it easy for merchants to start a gift card program and, just as important, to make it easy for gift card sellers to go to merchants," Abruzzio says.

PCCharge Perks concentrates on gift card only, no credit or debit, and focuses on two markets.

One market deals with merchants who have POS systems already in place without gift card capabilities. With a simple download of PCCharge Perks, merchants add this value to their existing payment-processing solution program with no disruption in service or need for special equipment.

The other market for which GO Software's product is tailor-made is the stand-alone merchant who has a computer and wants to take gift cards without having to purchase a complete POS system. PCCharge Perks can run by itself on a computer and provide complete gift card functionality without equipment.

PCCharge Perks features certification with such gift card processors as Givex, Paymentech, ValueLink and Valutec. It can be integrated with all POS systems and operates in a touch screen environment with a user-friendly, on- screen virtual keyboard.

"Our product is great for ISOs because pretty much these gift card companies are offering residual income to ISOs to sell their products," says Abruzzio. "PCCharge Perks can become another revenue stream for ISOs."

GO Software products also are great for their competitors. According to Abruzzio, "A lot of our competitors are our customers, such as equipment manufacturers who need to integrate software solutions in their terminals."

Despite customers being competitors, GO Software stays right on track. "Every time a merchant needs transaction processing, we want their ISO to consider our software alternative," says Abruzzio.

According to Abruzzio, 50,000 merchants are using GO Software's PCCharge product line, and hundreds of ISOs are aboard at present. GO Software wants to be the leader in this arena and believes its offerings will propel it to the top of the hill.

In addition to those innovative product offerings, GO Software also offers an unusual mission statement: "We will delight our customers!" How does that translate into actual sales? "We really feel that we've gained market share because we take customer service very seriously," says Abruzzio.

GO Software's customer service is defined by both ISO and merchant support. For merchants, GO Software strives to make it painless for software installation, complete with a hard-copy manual that goes out with each product. "We handhold our merchants," says Abruzzio. "Each of our over 400 calls a day gets a real voice when they call our tech department."

GO Software also drives improvement in its customer service through total- quality management. When a merchant calls in and gets support, GO Software automatically implements a rating system on every call and submits a rating request to the merchant.

The form asks the following:

+ "Did our tech support solve the problem?"

+ "Please rate the professionalism of the person."

+ "Please rate the technical competence from one to five."

+ Finally, there is a place for comments.

GO Software receives responses on more than 20% of its calls, and it replies to negative comments through a Customer Relations Manager who personally calls the merchant to solve the problem.

As for ISO support, GO Software believes the biggest barriers are knowledge of its product line, understanding the software-solution concept and training ISOs to sell it and make money. GO Software offers reseller training six times a year throughout the United States. These two-day training sessions are paramount to GO Software making it profitable for ISOs to choose software over hardware.

In addition to call-in ISO support, GO Software also provides a "Reseller Den" on its Web site for suggestions, comments and feedback. Coupled with product slicks, demos and slide shows, these services are there for the ISO to satisfy merchants and become a partner with GO Software.

There is a one-time reseller commission on each GO Software product sold. The cost to the ISO varies in price. There also is a reseller agreement with commissions based on number of software copies sold. GO Software leaves it up to the ISO to charge the merchant what the market will bear. "We feel that revenue opportunities with our software are very strong for ISOs," says Abruzzio.

In the last year, that strength in opportunity attracted one of the premier suppliers of AS/400 e-transaction middleware, ROI Inc. GO Software's parent company was in need of cash and the cynergy between ROI and GO Software was ideal, so ROI acquired GO Software in May 2001.

The acquisition gave ROI product, knowledge and added ability to sell. It gave GO Software complete responsibility for all of ROI's IBM AS/400 products. In the words of Abruzzio, "A good marriage!"

Now, when a merchant needs a software solution, whether small or large scale, whether IBM, JAVA, UNIX, Linux or Windows platforms, GO Software has a solution to satisfy those needs.

Headquartered in Savannah, Ga., with satellite offices in Nashville, Tenn., and Orange County, Calif., GO Software has 60 employees with plans for expansion in keeping with economic growth. ISOs looking to lose the hardware and step over to software, visit www.pccharge.com.