One Dollar Per Call Help Desk

A client recently shared that their processor had offered them help desk services for $1 per call asking us to meet or beat it.

First who in their right mind would actually believe that they could receive even reasonable help desk for $1 per call.

Next, yes the processor can offer help desk at $1 even $0.50 or $0.25 because it subsidizes that function from its processing income. If $1, why any cost at all, why not free? However, as we all know nothing is free.

In the bankcard industry there are actually four kinds of help desk functions
1) Incident when placing an order for equipment or supplies
2) Non-technical such a how to perform a particular function such as a credit or split tender or tracking a package
3) Semi-technical when assisting a merchant in balancing and settling a terminal
4) Technical in which troubleshooting occurs on the hardware or software

Each of these components has both a level of expertise factor as well as time factor.

· Within help desk setting exist differing levels of expertise. For the caller to ultimately reach the person at the appropriate level of expertise for their issue takes two maybe three hand offs, i.e. time.

· At the highest level diagnosing the underlying problem and providing a final solution takes time. Surveys indicate a true technical help desk call may take from thirty minutes to over time several days to fix the problem.

· In providing help desk we have had to get the processor involved. One in particular has a very low per call fee. The processor was given the impression that we were either the merchant or the bank/ISO rep. What we received was try this and call me back, try this and call me back. Once finally resolved this one issue, we’d racked up over $30 in help desk calls at $3 a call.

· An additional factor is the efficiency rating, that balance in man hours employed (payroll) to call volumes at specific times of the day that vary by day of the week upwards to the month of the year. Put the opposite way, how much idle time is there

· A final factor is first call resolution. Is the caller’s problem resolved on the first call or does it require multiple calls between the caller and help desk? Here you have to look at the nature of each specific all along with the resources available to help desk personnel to address the caller’s need. Again, one call resolution may take half an hour depending on understanding of the caller, expertise of the CSR, robustness of the knowledge base and user friendliness of the knowledge tree along with resources available to the CSR and finally the authority of the CSR to resolve the problem to the caller’s satisfaction.

So tell me do you honestly believe you can get just adequate help desk for $1 per call?

You have invested hundreds if not thousands of dollars obtaining a new account. I’m told that it is between 18 and d24 months before a merchant is profitable. Why alienate and drive off a new customer with cheap service before they turn a profit?

I put this in a more basic perspective for some of you that still don’t get it. If your child was ill and you didn’t know whether or not it was serious would you take he or she to the physician with the lowest price? That is what you are doing with your equally precious merchant by contracting with the cheapest help desk provider.

A bruised knee just like a supply order is vastly different than a skull fracture like a terminal that’s acting erratically during a major sale.

So what should a competent help desk call cost?
1) First you shouldn’t pay one fee covers all, specifically not $1
2) Ask the experts:
a) Front Range Solutions - The developer of enterprise level help desk, customer service and CRM software like Goldmine. CardWare employs a Front Range application for delivering help desk. www.frontrange.com
b) Help Desk Institute – The body to which all worthwhile entities that deliver customer service and all levels of help desk belong. The body that formulates and shares best practices undertakes objective studies and strives to improve and shorten service delivery while lowering the cost. The ISO 9000 or TQM of the customer service industry. www.thinkhdi.com
c) A the bank what

Now that you are reasonably informed, do you want to be on the receiving end of the service from a call center charging $1 per call?

IMPORTANT TO THOSE WHO MAKE DECISIONS ABOUT HELP DESKS - Personally, anonymously, regularly and randomly monitor the help desk decision you make. There is nothing worse than making decisions that don’t impact you, i.e. Congress.

1. Mobile payments – Is it another solution looking for a problem in the US?
   
   Heretofore I considered contactless, NFC and RFID, as solutions seeking a problem here in the United States. Prevalent in many other parts of the world it just hasn’t gained traction in this country for a multitude of reason.
   
   Mobile payments in the US could just as easily suffer a similar fate. Why? Again, a multitude of reasons.
   
   The continued fight over who owns the transaction
   Generational demographics
   Security concerns
   Who pays to up grade the hardware at the merchant level
   
   Consolidation continues across all segments; telecommunications, carriers and gateways, banks and processors along with a myriad of other entities somewhere between the two end points, each lays claim to the transaction.
   
   If there were ever a time for the merchant community to draw a line in the sand, now is the time to do so. If you (everyone else other than the consumer) want me as a business to facilitate and accept your mobile payment, what are you willing to pay me to do so?
   
   Pilots by several key participants in the mobile payments area have yielded nothing solid simply because the respective parties are unwilling to give up what the other wants.
   
   I’m reminded that pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered just like in the housing debacle.
   
   Adults are at a loss to fully understand much less accept the impact technology, particularly cell phone and mobile computers, have on the segment of the community that is younger than an adult. Personal interaction is in the cloud versus face to face yet this is the target generation for mobile payments.
   
   Adults are concerned about lack of responsibility, in fact understanding what personal responsibility and accountability are in non-adults.
   
   Younger people don’t see their mobile device as their wallet. It’s disposable
   
   An adult looses their wallet and they are deeply concerned and rightly so because much is at stake since they have much to loose. Non-adults could care less, it’s just a cell phone I or someone (parents) will simply get another one. Nothing is lost. I’ll reload my music and my favs. They don’t get it.
   
   Mobile payment for irresponsible generations is highly risky. Responsible generations have difficulty accepting it for security reasons.
   
   Security of the personal and financial data in the device is a true concern. The ability to remotely pull that data from the device is a concern, real or not. Security of the financial data in transit between the device and reader during a transaction is also a valid concern.
   
   Loose your wallet and you can call to cancel the cards and your driver’s license. Loose your mobile device, how do you call to cancel anything since every bit of information you need is in the device?
   
   Too different physical things required to consummate a transaction are protections in and of themselves. A mobile payment device is a single device with instantaneous, anonymous access to all your financial accounts.
   
   Lastly, a reader is necessary at brick and mortar businesses to accept and transmit the mobile payment. The merchant already has a cash register with a printer, a counter point of sale device with a printer for magnetic stripe card transactions, a check imager and now they must integrate a reader to one or both of those devices for mobile payments. Who pays for that? What is the ROI or payback on that investment?
   
   With the cost as a percentage of the card transaction going up and up, cash is beginning to look attractive.