Can Retailers Afford Not to Implement Estate Management of Their Payment Technology?

Retail enterprises can have thousands of  payment devices deployed in locations across expansive geographic regions. Ensuring the proper maintenance, security, updates, and documentation of these devices for PCI compliance can require substantial time and resources. An estate management solution simplifies procedures and increases payment device uptime. Furthermore, payment devices that deliver optimal performance also enhance customer experiences at the checkout. PwC research has found that the quality of the customer experiences you provide is a deciding factor for 73% of consumers. They’re willing to pay more for good experiences, and 65% say a positive experience with a brand is more influential to their purchasing decisions than a catchy ad campaign.

By delivering the types of experiences your customers demand and increasing operational efficiency, estate management results in fast and decisive ROI.

What is Estate Management?

An estate management solution gives you visibility into which models are deployed in your enterprise’s locations and gives you centralized management capabilities. You can automatically track which software is running on the devices and manage security controls. Estate management tools also allow remote updates. Instead of manually provisioning devices and shipping them to locations or requiring stores to send them back for service or updates, many tasks can be handled over a secure network.

In addition, when PCI regulations change, retailers managing payment devices with spreadsheets would have to search through lists to see which devices are in use in each location and schedule upgrades or replacements to stay in compliance. For an enterprise with 1,000 locations that opened at different times, that means hours of data review and manual device management that your IT team probably doesn’t have time to address without putting other projects on the back burner.

Estate management solutions are designed to allow retailers to replace manual payment device management processes, saving hours of labor. Even though there is a cost associated with using an estate management solution, it is far less than the expense of manual processes, shipping devices for service that could have been fixed with a reboot, and correcting errors or issues with non-compliance.  Moreover, the lack of estate management can cause increased payment solution downtime, which impacts your customer’s experience. 

How Do Enterprises Manage Payment Devices?

In the digital age, it’s rare for an enterprise retailer to attempt to manage payment devices with totally manual processes. However, some companies forego an estate management solution from their payment technology vendor and implement an alternate system, possibly intended to manage different types of IT devices. It may save some time and automate some aspects of payment device estate management, but gaps may still limit efficiency. A payment solution estate management solution closes those gaps.

For example, Ingenico’s estate management solution not only allows daily monitoring of payment devices and remote configuration, but it also offers remote terminal diagnostics and alerts so that you can proactively identify devices that need maintenance and address those issues to avoid downtime.

Ingenico’s cloud-hosted device management service also enables merchants to request support regarding their payment terminals. If your managers or sales associates need assistance with troubleshooting, they can submit requests to your help desk directly from the terminal. This feature eliminates the inconvenience caused by having to explain the issue on a call or attempting to describe the issue via support ticket to your help desk – especially in a different language. To request support, store employees can select the appropriate issue/category from an extensive list covering topics other than Ingenico hardware and software, including paper roll, third-party peripherals, and Bluetooth printers, and the device submits the ticket directly.

Another advantage of Ingenico’s device management service is the ability for the help desk team to work with a sales associate via remote screen sharing. A help desk agent can interact with the device deployed in the field and miles apart, with sensitive data masked, to guide, train, support, or resolve issues reported much quicker while saving an in-person visit to the store. This enablement can reduce the no-fault-found to a minimum and provides savings with operational costs.  Ingenico also provides Level 2 support as an additional service offer. Additionally, Ingenico’s estate management solution allows retailers to install business applications that run on Android terminals by selecting them from the Ingenico App Store.

Don’t Gamble with Payment Experiences

Payment is usually the final touchpoint on an in-store shopping journey, and it can leave a lasting impression. You can’t afford the uncertainty that the payment devices your enterprise has deployed will work reliably and securely – and to maximize profitability, you can’t afford labor-intensive and error-prone processes to manage them.

Moreover, efficient organizations don’t leave decision-making up to guesswork. Analyzing data from an estate management solution can provide insights into payment device usage and customer behaviors, which can help your staff make informed decisions that increase efficiency and customer experiences.

Managing your payment estate is no longer an option but a requirement. Estate Management tools are available to provide you with on-demand information and remote access to payment devices in your estate.

You need a purpose-built estate management solution. Contact us to learn more.