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June 21, 2023
Re: Canadian KOA Credit Card Town Hall Summary
To: KOA Canadian Owners & Operators
From: Bill Gottwals, KOA Sr. VP Franchise Operations
My sincere appreciation to all who could attend yesterday’s Town Hall; I apologize that my technical shortcomings prevented a successful recording of the call. However, as promised, a summary of the discussion is below:
The call kicked off with Darin Uselman, KOA Chief Operations Officer, providing a historical background of challenges with the credit card process in Canada over the past few years, briefly outlined below.
- As a large organization, Chase Paymentech-Canada has restricted flexibility which created significant operational issues for our gateway partner, eConduit. As a result, eConduit terminated the relationship with Chase, requiring that we find a new solution for our Canadian campgrounds.
Priorities in our replacement were:
1. Full integration with K2
2. The ability to tokenize debit & credit card transactions
3. Improved service
4. Beneficial pricing
5. Parity between US and Canadian operations
- The Solution that best matched the above criteria was with Tenerum and Fiserv Canada. Our initial target date for the rollout was 3/31/23, but this was delayed until 6/30/23 due to certification challenges.
Bill Gottwals provided the following status update:
- Tenerum recently reached out to make us aware of additional challenges Fiserv is having with the certification process, particularly around debit card transactions. The estimated date for full transition is now 11/30/23.
- We understand, and deeply regret, the challenges that this presents to our campgrounds in Canada. While there seems to be satisfaction with the Clover solution, the fact that it does not integrate with K2 creates the opportunity for human error. Not only does this result in reconciliation challenges, but the camper experience can be impacted by having to reach back out to them to gather credit card information if the transaction was not captured correctly.
- Tenerum has offered to waive its monthly service charges through 2024 as an acknowledgment of the impact.
- We have had a team working diligently on enhancing the interim solution.
Andy Metroka, KOA Chief Information Officer update::
- Potential solution – quickly distribute magnetic stripe readers that would allow for fully integrated processing of credit cards. While this is an obvious step back in technology, it could assist with reconciliation.
- Feedback from our franchisees was that this solution would not be acceptable. This technology has been absent from the Canadian system for some time, and to “bring out a separate swipe machine from behind the counter” would create a bad experience and create concerns regarding fraud.
- Based on that feedback, all resources have been redirected to another solution that may be even more beneficial to the campgrounds (more to come on this next week).
Group Feedback
For those who were not able to join the call, we must acknowledge the graciousness of those on the phone and thank the collective group for putting their energy into helping each other problem-solve. That being said, we must also acknowledge the feedback on the position we have put you in. These are not actual quotes, but hopefully, capture the intended message:
- “Canada is typically 3-5 years ahead of the U.S. in payments technology and system enhancements. This process has taken us back to an unacceptable level.”
- “Our provincial parks offer the guest lower priced options yet have better technology.”
- “We deserve better from our franchisor. The impact of poor execution has a real impact on our operations and is unacceptable.”
Observations and Shared Best Practices
- The Cloverflex machines and technology, for the most part, are considered good.
- For parks with lower volume, reconciliation is less of an issue. For those with multiple machines, high volume, and newer staff, it creates significant issues.
- If you have transactions being canceled, that may be driven by an alert for potential duplicate items (i.e. running back-to-back transactions in the store for the same dollar amount will trigger a warning). Staff must be aware of message appearing on the screen – Potential duplicate transaction cancel – yes/no.
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To assist with reconciliation, one campground has created additional non-cash Payment Types in K2 (Visa, Mastercard, etc.) when the CloverFlex is used. This allows inconsistencies to be found more easily than having to review every transaction categorized under the Zon/Terminal Payment. The staff does need to be aware that these payment types do not actually charge the card.
Thank you,
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