Restuarant Chain Finds Their Service Solution with POSDATA’s Advance Exchange Program

Advanced Exchange Replacement is the efficient means to cost savings

The Situation

As a means to create a customer-efficient and friendly payment environment, a major restaurant chain equipped their stores with payment devices. The strategically placed terminals enabled their customers to utilize credit and debit cards to pay for their meals at the point of delivery.

The installation called for approximately 30 positions per store at hundreds of corporate, and thousands of franchise locations. In total, the terminal manufacturer, Hypercom, designed and manufactured over 100,000 devices for the customer.

The Challenge

At the outset, the maintenance of the terminals was performed by an onsite service company. Terminals determined as defective devices were sent back to the manufacturer for repair. This method of device support proved to be very expensive and ended up taking inordinate amounts of management time to ensure a high level of service to their stores.

The Solution

Looking for a means to streamline the operation, make it more cost effective, provide a greater level of service to their stores, and get better control of their inventory, the management team looked to POSDATA for a solution.

POSDATA’s Advance Exchange Replacement Program met the requirements set forth by the directive. With this strategy in place, a terminal deemed defective by store management was reported directly to POSDATA. Immediately a refurbished terminal was sent overnight to the reporting store. The replacement kit sent included the instructions needed to have store personnel replace the device without outside assistance. The kit also contained return shipping documentation allowing the store to simply call the carrier for pickup. The defective device would then be returned directly to POSDATA. Once received by POSDATA, the failed terminal would be fully refurbished, replacing a certain number of parts such as batteries, security switches, etc. on every device even if not failing. Additionally, as a fully certified Electronic Services Organization with all major banking partners, POSDATA would be able to inject the terminals with their secure keys.

The Result

Upon the successful completion of a pilot program at all the corporate stores, POSDATA extended the Advance Exchange Replacement program implementation to the thousands of franchise stores. The program utilizes a customer-owned pool of spare equipment under a fixed-price-per-incident basis.

With the Advanced Exchange Replacement Program in place, POSDATA has been able to provide over 99% of customer requests within the prescribed overnight delivery commitment. The calculated return rate for terminals sent to stores and not working is less than .01%. History service reports based on both terminal serial number and store site are made available to corporate management for problem-monitoring purposes.

The program has resulted in a significant cost reduction for service on the devices.

  • Costly on-site service calls with poor response times have been replaced by cost-effective overnight replacement services.
  • Inventory now is tracked by one company instead of multiple locations providing the customer better asset visibility and the capability to track these assets without having to dedicate significant management time to control the process.