Xtime, CenPOS Bring Better Streamlined Service Check-Out to Auto Dealerships

Consumers save time by making online and in-lane payments directly through Xtime

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Oct. 17, 2019  — Dealers using Xtime can now leverage the payment processing capabilities of CenPOS, which is now part of Elavon, to customers creating an enhanced vehicle ownership experience through quicker online and in-lane payment options.

The CenPOS payment solution integrates into Xtime’s Spectrum Platform, which makes it easier to capture and report customer payments efficiently either in the service lane from a tablet device or any service department workstation. All U.S. and Canada-based franchise dealership customers can immediately use the CenPOS payment functionality, creating more convenient, reliable payment options without requiring a significant investment or process change.

“Giving our service advisors the ability to own the experience from start to finish on one platform is pivotal in the way we intend to do business in the future,” said Chance Wiseman, fixed operations trainer at Del Grande Dealer Group in San Jose, Calif. “This one key change in technology will drastically streamline the active redelivery process. Another opportunity Xtime is providing us to exceed our customers’ expectations.”

CenPOS provides dealership customers with more control over their experience. With the choice to make payments remotely thorough their computer and smartphone, or onsite at the dealership with the new and improved Xtime Engage Tablet Reception application, customers can pay as they choose.

“Dealers should look at the service experience they are offering their customers in order to drive greater customer loyalty and retention,” said Tracy Fred, vice president and general manager of Xtime. “The powerful combination of CenPOS and Xtime’s single platform gives both service management and advisors a more streamlined and easy-to-use solution that meets consumers’ demands and saves them time and energy throughout the entire service experience, from write-up to payment.”

An efficient check-out process is also critical to keeping consumers happy and coming back. Consumers who are most satisfied spend 2.5 hours or less at the dealership for service.1 As a result of this new integration, dealers interested in using Xtime’s Engage payment solution will soon have their choice of multiple merchant processing providers.

“With extensive expertise in providing payments for the auto industry, together with Xtime, we can offer rich, secure solutions that are specific to the needs of this industry,” said Joey Orozco, director of business development, CenPOS. “By streamlining service check-out, dealerships can increase customer satisfaction and save their customers valuable time.”

For more information, click here.

1 2019 Cox Automotive Service Industry Study

About CenPOS:
CenPOS is a merchant-centric, end-to-end payments engine that drives enterprise-class solutions for businesses, saving them time and money, while improving their customer engagement. CenPOS’ secure, cloud-based solution optimizes acceptance for all payment types across multiple channels without disrupting the merchant’s banking relationships.

About Xtime
Xtime increases customer retention for automotive dealer service departments by using technology to transform the ownership experience. Improving customer satisfaction and retention drives dealer revenue and profitability. Xtime is committed to delivering the experience consumers demand – an experience which emphasizes value, convenience and trust.

Xtime books 52 million service appointments and processes 120 million repair orders annually. Twenty-nine global OEMs have chosen Xtime to drive that same type of success for their businesses, converting more than $13 billion in service revenue annually for more than 7,500 dealerships.

About Cox Automotive
Cox Automotive Inc. makes buying, selling, owning and using cars easier for everyone. The global company’s 34,000-plus team members and family of brands, including Autotrader®, Clutch Technologies, Dealer.com®, Dealertrack®, Kelley Blue Book®, Manheim®, NextGear Capital®, VinSolutions®, vAuto® and Xtime®, are passionate about helping millions of car shoppers, 40,000 auto dealer clients across five continents and many others throughout the automotive industry thrive for generations to come. Cox Automotive is a subsidiary of Cox Enterprises Inc., a privately-owned, Atlanta-based company with revenues exceeding $20 billion.www.coxautoinc.com

Contact At Once! and AdvantageTec Become LivePerson Automotive And Launch End-to-End Conversational Commerce Platform for Automobile Sales and Service

ATLANTA, Jan. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — LivePerson, Inc. (Nasdaq: LPSN) announced today that its automotive division, including Contact At Once! and AdvantageTec, will use its new moniker LivePerson Automotive at the National Automobile Dealer’s Association (NADA) conference in San Francisco this week. Contact At Once! and AdvantageTec, two leading industry messaging solutions, have combined forces with their parent company LivePerson to deliver an end-to-end customer lifecycle conversational commerce platform that connects consumers through messaging to the whole dealership—from sales to service.

“I’m excited about the LivePerson Automotive branding because it sets the stage for where we want to take our dealer, manufacturer and advertising partners, and it reinforces yet again that we know this industry puts relationships first,” says Denise Chudy, general manager of LivePerson Automotive. “We are still the same great companies our customers are used to working with, but this serves as a reminder of the added strength, scale and know-how we bring with the industry’s most widely deployed automotive messaging platform, an innovative DMS-integrated service texting solution and the depth and breadth of LivePerson’s technologies…all working for you.”

LivePerson Automotive’s conversational commerce platform can connect consumers with their dealership through all the steps involved in buying and owning a vehicle. “Our key differentiation is our ability to make the shopping process conversational from just about any advertising point or messaging channel and then carry that connection into servicing the car and building a loyal relationship,” adds Chudy. “From initial research to digital retailing steps, service updates and payments, dealers and consumers are continuously connected with LivePerson Automotive.”

Andy Costello, General Manager of BMW of San Rafael who is a Contact At Once! and AdvantageTec customer, points out that consumers really like the experience too. “Our customers are very happy to get updates, schedule appointments, approve repair orders, and even pay—all through a messaging conversation,” says Costello. “CAO! Connect helps us create more conversations with shoppers from the moment they start looking, and AdvantageTec helps us turn those car buyers into lifelong customers.” 

Learn more exciting updates for LivePerson Automotive and our consumer lifecycle conversational commerce platform at NADA 2019 in San Francisco, January 24 – 27 (Booth 6831W) or by texting us at +1 404-850-9297.

ABOUT LIVEPERSON AUTOMOTIVE
LivePerson Automotive, formerly Contact At Once! and AdvantageTec, helps create satisfying connections and build relationships between consumers and automotive companies to enable better experiences when they’re shopping for or getting vehicles serviced. LivePerson Automotive is the industry’s leading provider of messaging platforms with over 17,000 businesses using our solutions to enable conversational commerce, from brands to retailer sites, via online advertising, in-app messaging, social media and more. For more information, visit www.liveperson.com/solutions/automotive.

ABOUT LIVEPERSON, INC.
LivePerson makes life easier by transforming how people communicate with brands. Our 18,000 customers, including leading brands like Citibank, HSBC, Orange, and The Home Depot, use our conversational commerce solutions to orchestrate humans and AI, at scale, and create a convenient, deeply personal relationship — a conversational relationship — with their millions of consumers. For more information about LivePerson (NASDAQ: LPSN), please visit www.liveperson.com.

MEDIA CONTACT
Jennifer Sutton
LivePerson
PR (at) liveperson.com

SOURCE LivePerson, Inc.

3DMERCHANT NOTE: We offer AdvantageTec products, including integrated with virtual terminal and payment gateway for express customer checkout. Saves time and money. With 3-D Secure, the cost of accepting credit cards remotely is virtually the same as card present in most cases, and merchants are also protected from “it wasn’t me, I didn’t authorize” fraud. Contact us for Liveperson text, chat, and click and pay solutions.

Dealership Post-Acquisition Standardization Cash Flow & Profits

Car, truck, and ag equipment dealership acquisitions by mega dealers are on a torrid pace. Cash-flow and profits are directly linked to standardization among locales. The right payment processing technology creates instant receivables financial transparency at headquarters regardless of varying dealer management software. heavy duty equipment credit card processingCloud-based payment processing is critical to financial transparency. For example, credit card processing terminals batched out individually means management has to wait for reports. A cloud solution, including payment gateway, can provide real-time insights by dealer location or any other number of data points.

Key payment gateway differences for dealership evaluation:

  • Real-time dashboard with drill down vs export reports to view (additional payment types not shown)dashboard net sales payment gateway report
  • Compliance with complex rules for rentals, preauthorizations, retail and card not present. How many merchant accounts needed to comply?
  • Compliance with Visa October 2017 stored credentials mandates
  • Level 3 processing capabilities for commercial cards
  • EMV chip or EMV chip and pin
  • Push payment requests (collect remote payments before delivery) via text or email
  • Cardholder authentication (3-D Secure) for remote payments
  • Payment methods supported: cash, check, wire, credit card and other methods vs just credit cards provides significantly tighter controls and data insights

Dealers hesitant to replace desktop EMV chip terminals due to prior investments should bite the bullet. Better solutions to improve customer experience and back office efficiency will reduce ROI time for acquisitions.

ABOUT: Christine Speedy is a payment processing expert with deep experience in the multi-department needs of dealerships. Solutions empower CFO’s to achieve common customer satisfaction goals with tight financial controls, risk mitigation, and reduced PCI Compliance burden. Need standardization help? Call 954-942-0483 to learn more about solutions for your business that are quick and easy to adopt, increasing efficiency and growing profits virtually overnight.

 

myKaarma & Creditcall team up to accelerate EMV chip card adoption for car dealerships

Car dealers can now simply switch to EMV, providing their customers the most secure payment solution while benefiting from reduced PCI DSS scope.

NEW YORK, NEW ORLEANS, NADA100 (Booth #5501), January 27, 2017 – Creditcall, the omni-channel Payment Gateway and EMV Kernel provider, today announced that it now supports myKaarma, the cloud-based conversational commerce software that’s revolutionizing the auto service industry. myKaarma can now quickly and easily add EMV chip card acceptance to its dealership app by using the Creditcall payment SDK – ChipDNA – which is pre-certified with First Data, one of the leading U.S. processors and the Ingenico Group’s iPP 350 smart payment terminal. More processors and payment terminals will be added in the following months.

myKaarma enhances the retail experience for service departments of car dealerships. The myKaarma app gives the dealership the ability to offer the latest customer engagement technologies such as digital conversations (text, email, voice) and smart payment systems for online and mobile point of sale (POS) with auto-reconciliation, all in one application that seamlessly integrates with the dealerships’ current dealer management system (DMS).

ChipDNA is an omni-channel, EMV-ready payment gateway solution for mobile, online, in-store and self-service card payment acceptance. It is aimed at software developers and can be integrated into Android and iOS based mobile POS (mPOS) payment solutions as well as Windows and Linux semi-integrated environments. It includes a comprehensive terminal management system (TMS), remote key injection (RKI) and point to point encryption (P2PE) for the highest level of cardholder data protection. Developers can choose from 38 different device manufacturer and processor combinations which reduces integration time and resources without the need for complex and lengthy processor certifications.

“We wanted a partner who already had years of EMV experience and a proven solution, knowing if we had any bumps along the way”

– Ujj Nath, CEO at myKaarma

“We wanted a partner who already had years of EMV experience and a proven solution, knowing if we had any bumps along the way, our partner will be able to support us and meet our needs in a timely manner” said Ujj Nath, CEO at myKaarma. “By leveraging ChipDNA, we were able to spend more time making our software even more valuable to our customers, rather than spending time trying to navigate the complex requirements of EMV”.

“Many developers and merchants still assume that replacing an old swipe card reader with an EMV chip card reader equals EMV compliance” says Jeremy Gumbley, CTO at Creditcall. “The reality is that true EMV compliance requires upgrading the entire payment infrastructure, involving several parties and complex moving parts. Once completed, there is still an ongoing requirement for maintenance and updates to remain compliant. We are proud to offer ChipDNA, which allows software developers like myKaarma to avoid the majority of headaches and address EMV with one simple, fast and future-proof integration” Gumbley continues.


About MyKaarma

myKaarma is a conversational commerce software company for automotive dealerships that focuses on enhancing the retail service department experience. myKaarma’s platform gives dealers the ability to offer their customers 21st Century technology through digital conversations and smart payment systems. myKaarma was named as an official communications and payments partner for Mercedes-Benz USA.

About Creditcall

Creditcall provides the tools to enable secure payment acceptance in-store, self-service, online or mobile. From retail and hospitality, to parking, vending, transportation or charity applications, Creditcall’s omni-channel Payment Gateway and EMV Kernels are at the very heart of its partners’ businesses, enabling them to focus on what they do best.

Creditcall is an EMVCo Business and Technical Associate, a PCI SSC Participating Organization, a Mastercard accredited MEPSA company and member of the U.S. Payments Forum with offices in Bristol, UK and New York, USA.

Steps to Reduce Credit Card Fraud For Distribution Industry

dealer fraud credit card processingCredit card fraud is still rampant in the US, even after US EMV liability shift convinced many merchants to purchase terminals to support chip cards. Marine, auto, and other high value parts dealers have long had a problem mitigating fraud risk with local and international parts.

  1. For card not present orders, require self-pay with cardholder authentication. Taking cards over the phone, and or requiring a credit card authorization form, will not protect against all forms of counterfeit card fraud. However, consumer authentication shifts liability back to the issuer; the issuer guarantees payment, and because it’s lower risk, dealers can qualify for lower interchange rates, the bulk of merchant fees. Online payment, ecommerce payment, and electronic bill presentment and payment are the 3 methods dealers can use to enable self-payment.
  2. For retail orders, EMV is mandatory. Not by regulation, but by necessity. If a chip card is presented, and merchant supports, they’re 100% protected from counterfeit card fraud, and sometimes lost or stolen cards; if not supported by the merchant, the merchant can be automatically charged back at the issuers discretion and there’s no dispute process for merchants.
  3. Check guarantee. Whether in person or via echeck, check guarantee services are only good if they don’t reject your checks later on. Surprisingly (or maybe not), some services seem to look for ways not to approve your claim, such as information is missing from checks. This can be avoided with technology that forces users to collect the right data, including for remote self-payers.

If all of the above are implemented, dealers are protected from virtually any type of credit card fraud. The following tips will help prevent other types of lost disputes, or serve as supporting documentation if not all the above are implemented.

  1. Get a signed sales order. This can reduce non-fraud claims related to disputes about what was expected. The sales order should clearly state what was sold, refund policy, and cancellation policy, or refer to another document that specifies the information, but is initialed acceptance on the sales order.
  2. Ship to cardholder billing address. If not possible, then get cardholder approval that states bill to and ship to address are different, and they’re approval.
  3. Require all communications to cardholder business email address if selling wholesale. Free email like gmail is not OK.
  4. Require cardholder respond from business email address approving transaction receipt. This is a strong document in the case of a dispute for “I didn’t approve it”, especially when a third party is picking up the part from the dealer.
  5. The marine, automotive and other distribution companies are hit particularly hard with non-qualified transaction penalties when shifting between retail, key entered, and online payments. It’s critical that transactions are presented properly not only to qualify for lower rates, but to protect against lost disputes that require specific evidence for each type of transaction.

Not related to security, but critical for interchange rate qualification, the bulk of credit card processing fees, all services (retail, MOTO, ecommerce) should support level III processing.

In summary, dealers need US EMV and cardholder authentication to maximize risk mitigation from credit card fraud. US EMV requires terminal certification, and gateway certification* to your merchant account provider. Cardholder authentication requires a payment gateway certified for the service.  There are very few companies that meet all these requirements so if your credit card processing salesperson gives you a blank stare when you ask, it’s time to explore other options.

*A payment gateway certified for level III retail to your acquirer is required; countertop terminals are incapable of sending level III data.