For all the talk about security, mandates, and liability surrounding the internal changes retailers need to make to support chip cards and mobile wallets, perhaps the most important challenge retailers will face will be in communicating these changes to their customers. Is your staff ready to help customers learn to use these technologies?
The EMV process requires a credit card device with a chip reader and NFC (near field communications) reader (used by some cards as well as mobile applications). Based upon the card presented, the customer would either swipe the card when there is no chip, tap (actually hold) the card or mobile phone on the credit card device when the card has a chip and supports NFC, or insert the card into the credit card device when the card has a chip (whether NFC is supported or not). “Tapped” cards must be held against the device until the device flashes that it a read has been successful. “Inserted” cards must be left in the card reader until the transaction is approved or declined. If a card with a chip is swiped, the EMV supported device will require that the customer insert the card to use the chip for the transaction – there is no swipe option for card present transactions once both the customer and retailer support EMV.
The following links provide some great short videos on how these processes work.
All of this represents a change in how consumers interact with retailers and while many people will embrace the added security, many will resist the change. Like it or not, retailers will need to help train many of their customers how to use their technologies. A smart retailer will make sure their staff understand all the options once they are implemented.
