Lack of visibility into customer engagement activity can be a scary thing, especially within a high volume ATM channel. But with easy access to transaction data, fears of a poor consumer experience can be chased away…
This was the topic that INETCO was invited to present about at the Stratamigos event held October 30th in Mexico City. Some of the key questions that came up were good ones:
Q: What is transaction data, anyway?
A: Retail banking and payment networks play host to an “always on” data source – consumer transactions. Each transaction contains useful customer engagement information such as:
- What are my customers experiencing?
- How are my networks, authorization hosts and applications responding?
- What is the business value of each transaction type or card type?
In today’s complex networks, one transaction is often made up of sub transactions…many moving parts between a start point such as the ATM, and the end point, such as a host authorization. These moving parts could include things such as transaction switches, firewalls, service applications, or host security modules. When INETCO talks about transaction data, we talk about all the information collected on an end-to-end transaction path, correlated into one, complete transaction.
Q: I have a lot of ATM data already. Why do I need transaction data?
A: To better serve existing customers and acquire new ones, you need the ability to see beyond ATM device performance, analyze consumer usage patterns, and gain a more detailed breakdown of the transaction types being used.
In addition to dealing with more complex moving parts in a transaction network, today’s banks, payment processors and retailers are also dealing with an explosion in the volumes and types of electronic consumer interactions they must support. Back end transaction approvals need to come from a variety of value added service and host authorization connections, depending on the transaction type. Some may still go to the payments switch, but more and more now go to external applications servers and third party service providers. Simply put, the majority of issues today causing a transaction to slow down or fail are occurring beyond the self-service device. Increasing transaction volumes, infrastructure complexity and growing consumer expectations cannot be managed in a timely, cost effective way without real-time access to consumer-centric transaction data.
Q: How do I gain access to this data without having to involve outside parties and extensive support hours?
A: Real-time transaction monitoring software platforms such as INETCO Insight are often utilized across multi-silo IT teams that are looking for a one-stop, holistic view into transaction performance. This software captures and correlates any type of transaction, across all the moving parts of a transaction network. It provides the data structure and mapping visuals you need to understand network and application dependencies, and to see a complete, end-to-end view into the performance of your entire operations environment. Software such as INETCO Insight instantly alerts to transaction slowdowns or failures and helps operations and support teams to isolate underperforming application components, host and third party connectivity issues and infrastructure bottlenecks – on average 65-75% faster.
Data mining applications such as INETCO Analytics act as the business interface for ATM channel managers and chief data officers that want to analyze consumer engagement activity, or report on transaction statistics and card data that can be used to improve customer service, acquire new customers and improve the profitability of each ATM.
What makes both of these products truly valuable is the easy accessibility to rich transaction data. Each individual consumer transaction is captured, decoded and correlated in real-time, meaning there is a wealth of information for both operations teams (thanks to INETCO Insight) and business teams (thanks to the new product, INETCO Analytics) to utilize, including:
- Meta data such as ATM terminal IDs, geographic locations and transaction status information
- The application payload message such as transaction types and transaction amounts
- Network level protocol communications information
- End-to-end request and response times, broken down by each moving part on a transaction path, and
- Response code error information for each transaction
Q: What are the top 3 ways transaction data impacts banks today?
A: Easy access to all your transaction data is an important part of your ability to:
Improve profitability
- Make more consumer-centric decisions based on consumer engagement analytics
- Gain a better understanding of your cash inventory and replenishment patterns per self-service device
- Understand profitability by card type and service type, for each of your self-service devices
Reduce operational support costs
- Receive instant notification of transaction failures and slow downs
- Gain one-stop visibility into all your applications, networks and host or third party connections
- Investigate and resolve transaction slowdowns, timeouts and failures 65-75% faster
Deliver an amazing customer experience
- Cater service offerings based on where/how your top customers (and non-customers) are transacting
- Improve placement of self-service devices such as ATMs
- Reduce failed consumer interactions by 25%
If you are interested in learning more on how transaction data and consumer engagement analytics can help BOOst your ATM profitability, contact us directly for an INETCO Analytics demonstration, or visit us at the upcoming BAI Retail Delivery show, November 12-14th in Chicago – Booth 4530.
Happy Halloween!