Imagine for a second that you’re a consumer about to choose between two financial institutions. One provides greater accessibility and convenience to ATMs in your locale, while the other, not so much. Which bank or credit union would you pick? The former. That is why having an ATM fleet that is not just efficient but convenient is key to meeting your customer’s demands.
But achieving this demands a sizable portion of your resources, not to mention have you go through a lot of hassle. If you wish to keep your ATM network operating 24/7, meet industry regulations, and safeguard it against malware, you need to pour effort and resources into it. And this whole process can drive up the costs.
That’s why it’s not unheard for a financial institution to run their ATM fleet at a loss. This scenario is where ATM managed services come in. Not only do these services
deal with the hassle for you, but they also provide your cardholders and your institution with several benefits.
Here’s how.
Minimizing ATM downtime
Generally, when an ATM goes out of service, it takes an average of four hours for a technician to repair it and get it up and running again. But here’s the thing: more than half of the ATM issues can be fixed remotely without ever sending a technician into the field. But that only works if you opt for the right ATM managed services.
Even when an on-site repair is required, managed services solutions can speed up the process many-fold. They do so by providing a preliminary diagnosis before your field service technician arrives on the spot. This step saves them the time and effort of diagnosing the issue themselves.
This step can also slash the repair time from hours to minutes because the technician can bring the parts necessary for repairs beforehand.
This process is how these services can increase the uptime of your ATM network by a significant margin.
Securing and keeping the network up-to-date
Aside from keeping the ATMs up and running, it’s also essential to keep your fleet up-to-date with the latest software, operating systems, and security patches. Equally important is to have your system comply with the industry standards.
Some of the security updates are more frequent. Others are more complex. Yet others are required to be implemented immediately – the so-called “hotfixes” which protect against new malware. Managed services solutions can update your entire fleet remotely, so your technicians won’t have to physically interact with every machine to install the necessary and often frequent updates and patches.
Ever since Microsoft dropped the support for Windows XP, clients need to upgrade their units to Windows 7 or higher. A managed services provider can remotely update all your machines at once with the latest Windows operating system.
Enhanced user experience
To maintain a consistent brand image, financial institutions require their entire ATM fleet to have a uniform interface. But achieving a similar or a more standardized interface for all your machines can be a bit tricky when you aren’t employing ATM managed services. They can make sure that the look and feel of the interface for every unit are substantially similar, which adds to your user’s experience.
