ning," he says. "The buyer does their
research, but only sees the best price
and doesn't take into account the ser-
vice and support that will be required,
like keeping the system intact and
operating after a catastrophic event.
It might be a fire, a flood, a hurricane
or tornado--any accident or act of God
that can create physical damage.
"Service for a debit card system is
paramount, and that's the great untold
story. If a system goes down, it can
result in lost business days, lost his-
torical records, and, most critical, loss
of brand reputation with customers.
Accidents, incidents, and acts of God
will happen. You need to have a debit
card system provider who can rectify
these problems without compromising
the guest experience."
To accomplish this, Sherrod says
the debit card system provider must be
proactive.
"We have alarms, so to speak, that
let us know when a client's system is
having problems or is at risk," he says.
A modern debit card system is also
susceptible to problems that come
from unseen issues in the operating
environment, for example, Wi-Fi sys-
tems, which are critical to state-of-the-
art operations. Wi-Fi can be used for
all internal networks, plus guest Wi-Fi
access, and potentially more.
"Some debit card system providers
use what's called an open channel or
RF for their Wi-Fi," says Sherrod. "It's
PLAY METER
easy to access and is less expensive
than having a dedicated Wi-Fi system,
but it can leave the operator exposed
to issues.
"We learned of a family entertain-
ment center operator whose laser tag
game suddenly stopped working. Days
before, a debit card system provider
had installed a new system using an RF
signal that matched that of the laser tag
game--problem identified."
If there's an Achilles heel in today's
debit card system, Sherrod says it's in
the network. The second biggest poten-
tial issue is the database.
Another potential issue that may
occur with debit card systems is with
the teller.
"The teller is electro-mechanical;
it has moving parts: bill acceptors;
change dispensers; card dispensers,"
Sherrod says. "All of these operations
require moving parts, so basic physics,
maintenance procedures,
and Murphy's Law can
unleash 'gremlins.'"
Are there differences
in the service issues of independent,
single-venue operators versus multi-
unit operators? Sherrod says no.
"In fact, the single venue operator
can benefit greatly from a good debit
card system provider because they
don't carry the overhead of a quali-
fied IT team," he says. "With Inter-
card, they get it as part of the service
arrangement. We provide the IT skills
and experience. We make the invest-
ments in the people and new technol-
ogies."
Salary for a qualified IT professional
can range from $65,000 to $100,000.
"More experienced people earn
much more," says Sherrod. "And those
are the people Intercard hires to bring
value to our clients."
Intercard's service arrangements
include pushing free software upgrades
to customer systems, much like one's
cell phone after a restart, typically
during off hours.
"We send people into the field for
service issues, but most of the servic-
ing we do is remote," says Sherrod.
"When we started in the business in
1979, customer service was
done by electronics and hard-
Top: IT professionals at Inter-
card’s newest call center in the
ware techs. The work typ-
Philippines can now provide
ically was replacing compo-
more convenient customer ser-
nents and doing preventive
vice to clients in Asia and Aus-
tralasia. Left: Intercard’s newest
maintenance. Today, it's all
iReader, the i3, now comes
about software and IT, a lot of
with RFID, NFC, magnetic swipe
which can be done remotely.
technology, and of course, Inter-
card’s support services.
But the salaries and training
of the people doing it have
jumped dramatically."
21
OCTOBER 2016