When we say we’re in this together, we really mean it.
We were going about our business on the same ordinary Tuesday in March when suddenly everything changed - as it did for all of us.
Elavon Europe’s customer-facing support teams operate from five core locations Arklow, Warsaw, Frankfurt, Oslo and Madrid.
Within 48 hours our five offices effectively became seven hundred!
Everyone working in our Operations Teams - ranging from customer care and IT, to authorisations and technical support - suddenly moved from corporate sites to their homes. Each one effectively becoming an Elavon Europe outpost in its own right.
“Like all responsible companies we had far-reaching and thoroughly tested business continuity plans in place, but no company had prepared for a global shut down - changing every area of their business in different ways,” says Linda Hand, Senior Vice President Operations, Elavon Europe.
“If we were doing this in a planned project environment it would have taken longer and we’d have probably said it wasn’t even possible. But we were looking at people’s lives – the safety of our teams and our customers. ‘No’ was not an option! We had to get it done and quickly, adjusting to and working in line with changing Government advice and restrictions.”
Despite all of this, as a customer, you shouldn’t have noticed a single change.
We’ve proudly maintained stability and service levels. Not one has been adjusted nor detrimentally impacted – even during the transition from on-site to off-site working.
- We answer 95% of calls within 15 seconds but, given the range of queries we can face in our industry and the time some take to resolve, we never rush anyone.
- 90% of the time, we solve your queries on the first call. Given the complexity of issues that we can face in an industry as broad as payments, this is exceptional.
- Our technical support is still ready to talk 24/7, and we’ve preserved our existing customer core operating hours.
- We still offer our services in 12 languages.
Importantly we’ve been able to do all this while maintaining our standards of data and security integrity.
“My team’s reactions to such a changing environment over the past few weeks has been incredible,” says Margaret Garrett, Director of Front Office for Elavon Europe.
”The high standards they held themselves to - every thought, idea and suggestion was driven by maintaining or even exceeding how we mobilise ourselves, so our customers don’t see or feel it and trying to keep one step ahead. They did it!”
“We have always reinforced putting our customer first. Seeing that in action, even while it’s been a tough time, has been wonderfully heartening - a highlight of my career to work with such a driven team during this.”
While some payment companies have altered the services they offer to cope with Covid-19’s impact on working conditions and their company’s vulnerabilities, Elavon Europe has not. Some acquirers have gone from next-day-funding to fourteen-day funding. But Elavon Europe is still providing same-day funding, and our authorisation process remains unaffected.
“Companies that have chosen to outsource their customer support have found it trickier to preserve such standards and insulate customers from the impacts of this pandemic,” says Linda Hand.
“But because we’ve always put our customers first we’ve never been tempted to follow that trend – and it’s proven, in this case, to be the right call. It not only means we can actively support our teams and make sure they are safe, but because we are one team and in this together, we’ve been able to bring our teams with us and make such far reaching changes with their support, in a way that means we’ve successfully preserved customer standards even in those days of transition.”