New Enhanced Services From Boston Retail Partners Helps Retailers Speed POS And EMV Transaction Times

EMV/POS Benchmark Assessment Service Identifies Opportunities to Shave Several Seconds off Retail Transaction Times

Boston, MA (PRWEB) - While EMV is saving many retailers $100,000 - $1,000,000 a month in chargebacks, the negative impact on transaction processing times and customer service issues is causing retailers to second-guess the methods and systems they used to implement EMV. The EMV process has lengthened POS transaction times and, in some cases, it has increased by more than 15 seconds – which seems like forever to a customer in a hurry. These excessive EMV transaction processing times are degrading the customer experience and increasing labor costs by forcing retailers to staff more registers to make checkout lines more tolerable. It’s a double negative!

Retailers are very concerned about how the slow transaction processing will impact back-to-school and holiday shopping lines and customer satisfaction, not to mention the added labor costs necessary to have more lanes open.

While slow EMV transaction processing is a serious problem, many retailers, and vendors in the industries impacted by EMV, don’t have the expertise, resources or time to solve the problem. This problem is further complicated by the fact that the EMV industry continues to change with new technologies and the difficulties of contactless EMV.

“While this is a challenging problem to solve, the risks are too high to ignore. The increase in labor costs to staff more lanes to keep lines manageable is outrageous, one retailer estimated that one extra second per transaction costs an additional $600,000 a year in store payroll,” said Perry Kramer, vice president and practice lead, Boston Retail Partners. “Of even greater concern is the negative impact of transaction frustration driving consumers out of the stores to online shopping (stores lose up-selling and spontaneous purchase opportunities) or to your competitors who have faster checkout times.”

EMV/POS Benchmark Assessment Service

BRP’s EMV/POS Benchmark Assessment Service expands its existing POS assessment methodologies to include a comparison of your EMV processing time to other retailers and leverages best practices to help optimize your POS and EMV transaction flow. We understand the dynamics and nuances of EMV processing and have worked with leading retailers to improve the speed of POS and EMV transactions.

Our methodology includes a thorough review of your current POS and payment terminal environment, including: technology, people and processes. Our process incorporates a time study analysis that benchmarks your environment to industry and retail segment averages (your competitors). This analysis looks at the total POS and EMV processing time - the time between when the last item is entered in the POS system, includes when the consumer inserts the chip card into the device, to the moment they receive approval and are ready to sign for their purchase in both fixed and mobile environments. Further analysis investigates many components to pinpoint the areas that are opportunities for improvement, balanced against the effort to implement.

The resulting recommendations will include:

• General review of the entire checkout process and ergonomics - What are you doing right and what could be done better?
• Actionable steps to improve the speed of POS and EMV transaction processing
• A review and recommendation on if, when, and how to implement emerging technology enhancements
• Analysis of mobile payments and mobile POS to identify if it is right for your organization and if your mobile solution is aligned with your EMV strategy
• Insights into what is coming next for EMV and other payment options so that you can plan and react accordingly

For more information on how BRP helps retailers speed transaction processing times, read our blog post:

Are Slow EMV Transaction Times Frustrating your Customers and Increasing your Labor Costs?

To schedule a complimentary 60-minute consultation, contact:
Tony Scardino, 617-273-8300, ascardino(at)bostonretailpartners(dot)com

About Boston Retail Partners
Boston Retail Partners (BRP) is an innovative and independent retail management consulting firm dedicated to providing superior service and enduring value to our clients. BRP combines its consultants' deep retail business knowledge and cross-functional capabilities to deliver superior design and implementation of strategy, technology, and process solutions. The firm's unique combination of industry focus, knowledge-based approach, and rapid, end-to-end solution deployment helps clients to achieve their business potential. BRP’s consulting services include:

Strategy | Business Intelligence | Business Process Optimization | Point of Sale (POS)
Mobile POS | Payment Security | E-Commerce | Store Systems and Operations | CRM
Unified Commerce | Customer Experience & Engagement | Order Management
Merchandise Management | Supply Chain | Information Technology | Private Equity

For more information on BRP, visit http://www.bostonretailpartners.com.