Article

ATM innovation: Taking it to the streets

Whether you're developing a product or introducing one, the seven steps from desktop to blacktop are pretty much the same.

April 12, 2012 by Suzanne Cluckey — Owner, Suzanne Cluckey Communications

The brilliance of an idea is not always a measure of its future success. One word: Betamax. So it's no wonder that people are a little skeptical of the Next Big Idea.

"There's tons of people running around with great ideas, right?" said Better ATM Services president and CEO Todd Nuttall. "But to sit back and say, 'This is how to proceed; this is how to make it a realistic business model' … "

Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard.

To get his ATM-dispensed Visa gift card from the desktop to the blacktop, Nuttall followed a seven-step process. But you don't have to be developing a product to use it — if you're an ISO or IAD introducing a new product to an existing customer base you might find it equally valuable.

1) Assess the need.

A little more than five years ago, a friend told Nuttall that he should go see a guy who had a patent that had to do with issuing non-cash media out of an ATM.

"At that time we said, 'Well, it's got a long way to go, but it makes sense,'" he said. "with the way prepaids were growing, with the way the ATM world was changing, it just made sense."

2) Make sure you've got the right partner.

Nuttall had to look for the "golden thread," the common objective that would align his product idea with the right developer/distributor.

"With Visa, it was convenience," Nuttall said. "[T]he main purpose of Visa's products is for convenience on both sides of the transaction. And so the fact that we were extending that rang a chord with them."

Visa's head of U.S. prepaid products, Hyung Choi agreed.

"This relationship is part of our ongoing commitment to supporting prepaid innovation and expanding access to Visa prepaid products," Choi said in emailed remarks. "[T]his new channel for delivery expands choice and convenience for consumers who would like to purchase a Visa Gift card."

3) Know your A-game.

Yes, we know. It's "Bring your A-game." But to do that you have to know what your A-game is. (And it's not the same in every situation.) Nuttall and Better ATM VP of Operations Troy Bowman knew their A-game with Visa would be their corporate experience — Bowman's with KPMG and Nutall's with Ernst and Young.

"We're literally the small company dancing in the land of giants," Nuttall said. "All of the ATM manufacturers are billion-dollar companies, all of the banks we're working with are billion-dollar entities. So it takes someone that can appreciate the discipline and the structure that exists within these corporations and yet can help them carry out the change."

4) Hurry up and go slow.

Entrepreneurs and other leaders tend not to be the most patient of humans — they know their widget will work, so why not just get on with it already. But it's not that simple, Nuttall said.

"We've had to go through all the processes that one would expect. You do have to align with new product development requirements, making sure that it meets branding needs and security needs and the physical durability needs and so on. Obviously Visa is all about making sure their customers are satisfied and the last thing they want to do is have a product go out that doesn't do that."

Said Choi in his remarks, "The ATM-dispensed card has the same security features as typical Visa cards, including the dove hologram, signature panel, and UV color. Additionally, the new form factor has been thoroughly tested to ensure it works in point-of-sale terminals and the readability of the cards is consistent with ISO standards, ultimately providing consumers a reliable experience."

There's a reason why you never see "reliable experience" and "rushed" in the same sentence.

5) Test, test, test.

Consumer behavior can be highly predictable. And highly unpredictable. This has something to do with the fact that consumers love the idea of change, but aren't as keen about the process of changing. They will overlook obvious product benefits if they seem too hard to use — or too easy to be true. Focus group facilities are a much cheaper venue than the marketplace to find out if consumers will "connect" with your product — and intuitively know how to use it.

"Focus groups provide a reality check when it comes to determining whether that product will survive in the marketplace," Nuttall said. "You do want to see how people react and respond. The fact that [the Visa ATM gift card] played to the brand and was accepted as the brand … it was complementary. The consumers felt that Visa brought them convenience and that this was a step in exactly the direction Visa expected it to go."

6) Refine, refine, refine.

Implementation is where it all hits the road — or the fan. In the case of Better ATM Services, the company first ran a limited pilot to make sure the product would work flawlessly in real world conditions. And once they had those results (all affirmative ) they needed to work with individual ATM manufacturers to develop hardware and software solutions that would enable a broader rollout.

"None of it's earth shatteringly hard, but the machines weren't initially designed around multi-products and so there were some where it was a bigger hurdle than one might have thought," said Nuttall.

7) Market, market, market.

Countless great products die on the vine every year for the simple reason that people don't know about them, or don't know how to use them. When Better ATM Services took its card to market for pilot testing, they chose to work with a credit union, knowing that a CU could offer the two essential elements for a successful product introduction — customer trust and communication.

Finally, when the product is in the field and functioning as expected you do not sit back with a contented sigh. Instead, you begin the process all over again, knowing that competitors will be following in your footprints — and that you'll have to take your offering to the next level to stay one step ahead.

For more on this topic, visit our multifunction ATMsresearch center.

About Suzanne Cluckey

Suzanne’s editorial career has spanned three decades and encompassed all B2B and B2C communications formats. Her award-winning work has appeared in trade and consumer media in the United States and internationally.