National Merchant Services Company Uses Plum Technology to Add Over-the-Phone Payments to Payment Solutions Suite, Generate Revenue, and Improve CSAT About

National Merchant Services Company (NMSC) is a major payment processing company offering multi-channel payment options, including web-based portals, SMS, physical kiosks, IVR, and more, to customers all over the country. The company uses Plum Voice to securely handle over-the-phone payments in its comprehensive payments solutions suite.

As a reseller of Plum Voice technology, NMSC’s problem was a reflection of its customers’ needs. The decision to add IVR to the NMSC portfolio was “really about extending the payment counter as far as we can,” according to NMSC’s Chief Revenue Officer. Providing an around-the-clock payment option filled a gap in NMSC’s product offerings, and provided customers with a better overall product.

When searching for an IVR vendor, several factors set Plum apart from the competition. First and foremost, NMSC is a PCI-DSS Level 1 payment warehouse and “absolutely had to have a partner who was PCI as well,” said NMSC’s CRO. Plum’s PCI level 1 compliance got them a seat at the table. And while NMSC considered four different IVR providers, their CRO noted that NMSC “needed more than just a vendor. We needed people with experience with payments.” NMSC needed a company it could lean on for education on IVR technology, and would be able to hold their hand throughout the process. Plum fit that bill perfectly.

NMSC’s solution started with a call script. “I had a script basically. I knew what I wanted to say and what would come in what order, and the validations we needed to use,” said NMSC’s CRO. But making sure those ideas followed best practices was uncharted territory. NMSC relied on Plum’s professional services team to help fine-tune and optimize the call script, and ultimately build NMSC’s application. This type of personal attention left an impression on NMSC’s CRO. “Having those guys to be able to talk to and have them help with the call flow was vital. You can’t put a price on that kind of feedback from a vendor.”

NMSC operates its own payment gateway, so the fact that Plum DEV is payment gateway agnostic helped the integration process. Validations accepted by the Plum IVR feed NMSC’s payment gateway, which is able to cross-reference caller input with their NMSC customer profile. This enables the system to provide the correct payment options based on each caller’s payment history.