Last week, I think on Thursday after I had dropped a big email, I was looking for an more permanent solution. The issue we had with credit cards that were taking 80 seconds to process was old. The stand alone card machine on the counter was working fine but the owner wanted the POS to work. I had sent an email to the store owner, the reseller, and the merchant that sold the POS. The gist was that we were going to make a big change the next week because of the performance issue we had been experiencing.
The reseller, Linda, really came through again. Separated, neither Linda or the merchant had the whole story so no one could solve the issue. Linda wanted to get the merchant on the phone. The back story here is the merchant, a nice lady who will remain nameless, was very involved in the initial install. It just did not go well and at times seemed to place her in a bad light. So she was not extremely happy about the situation and probably blamed Linda. You can probably imagine two frustrated women and me on a phone call. It was a tense call. But luckily, I was able to lead the conversation to the big question. “What other networks do you suggest we use with the third party software?”. The question behind that was, “Which ones might Linda have the ability to resell?”. Of course the merchant wanted to sell the proprietary network because she knew it was going to work. Also because she would get a percentage of the proceeds from every sale in the future. But we needed the question answered. The difference in the discount rate and the other subtleties in the contract could cost the company millions. This is why you always want to avoid the proprietary world. Its expensive in ways you don’t often think about. My feeling? If we are now getting discount rates of less than 2% because Linda resold the network and she wants to cut a great deal on a network that isn’t slow then I am all about it. We were able to get a few answers and it was just enough information to move forward.
A day later Linda had looked at three other networks. One was a broken relationship (interesting story and I still respect Linda). A second one was a good pick because it was a network she did not know would work. She did her homework and found out it was fully certified by the third party software. The third network never got a chance. I said go, a day passed and I had all the paperwork from linda and had forwarded it on to the CEO. A day later the CEO responded with signed paperwork that linda received. Another day went by and the new encryped pinpads came in. I was on site for most of the day setting up the third party software, installing new pin pads, and reprogramming the stand alone credit card machine for data-wire and dial up on the new network. It had to accept credit, debit, and electronic checks. Its all such a blur. I had so many other things going on I could not give you a real timeline if I tried. Not that it matters.
Today I was informed all is well. The POS is fast and stable. There are no problems. Kudos to Linda for a job well done! Thank you Linda for your hard work!
Midnight Tech