Johns Blog

EMV Chip/Pin Update – 09/23/2015

EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa) is the standard for electronic payment cards with a smart  card processor embedded in the card.  Among it’s features are:

• Card holder data and payment application are stored on the processors system.
• PIN based or Signature based security.
• Requires EMV Card Reading Hardware.
• Credit Card remains in an EMV reader for the entire duration of the a payment transaction.

What are the Benefits of EMV?

• Because of the smart card processor embedded in the payment card, and the hardware  required to read the card, creation of fraudulent cards is much less likely than with other  card types.
• PIN based implementations have a far less likelihood of being fraudulent.
• Has about the same speed as a Pin Debit Card.
• Consumer retains possession of the card at all times.

What are the limitations of EMV?

• It does not encrypt personal account data, so it will be up to each POS provider and/or EMV device  manufacturer to come up with standards for encryption and retention.

What is the current status of the EMV roll-out in the U.S.?

As of the end of the first quarter of 2015, many financial institutions are starting to  mail out the new EMV cards to their customer base.

With the industry goal currently being that all Retail merchants should be able to start supporting the full feature use of EMV Chip/Pin cards there is some rush to both compliant hardware and  software in place on time.  However, this demand has created some backlogs on getting compliant Pin Pads ordered and installed.  This means that if you want this equipment in place by the last  quarter of 2015, you need to be placing your equipment orders in now.

Another fundamental issue here is that as a group, hardware vendors, software companies, banks, and  credit card processors are not yet ready to roll-out the complete EMV solution.  At this time it expected that the full solution will not be ready until the end of the last quarter  or 2015, or sometime in the first quarter of 2016.  So at this point, we don’t expect most merchants  to be in a position to make the switch until January of 2016 at the earliest.

What does this mean for Counterpoint installations?

One of the requirements to take advantage of the EMV capabilities inherent in the Ingenico iSC250 is a Retail Base Application (RBA) firmware version which requires and upgrade to v14.0.6.

Regardless of a merchant’s plans to use EMV, if the latest updated NCR Counterpoint Service Pack (8.4.6.13) is installed, it will require that all existing iSC250 devices be updated to v14.0.6 firmware. This  applies to all devices in the field. At the time that this is done, a software configuration change from using the "Legacy Device Framework" to the "New Device Framework" for Pin Pads. 
 
This applies to all merchants, whether they process cards through CPGateway or NCR Secure Pay and regardless of whether of not the merchant plans to enable the use of the EMV feature.

If the firmware update is not done prior to the service pack update, the device will not be operable  in NCR Counterpoint until the firmware update is completed. It is strongly suggested the devices be  updated and verified to work for both Credit Cards and Debit Cards (if applicable) prior to upgrading to the  most recent update of the 8.4.6.13 Service Pack.

If using P2PE encryption, verify on the NCR Secure Pay Settlement portal that  transactions show ‘Yes’  in the “P2PE?” column after the firmware is updated on the device, and before updating the Service Pack.

The steps are different for P2PE and non-P2PE devices, so it needs to be confirmed if the device is  P2PE or not prior to upgrading the firmware.  Running the wrong updated procedure could permanently  damage the unit and may require an RMA.

Please contact the CCS Sales Department for more detailed information on the above process.

 

EMV Chip/Pin Update – 08/25/2015

EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa) is the standard for electronic payment cards with a smart card processor embedded in the card.  Among it’s features are:

• Card holder data and payment application are stored on the processors system.
• PIN based or Signature based security.
• Requires EMV Card Reading Hardware.
• Credit Card remains in an EMV reader for the entire duration of the a payment transaction.

What are the Benefits of EMV?

• Because of the smart card processor embedded in the payment card, and the hardware required to read the card, creation of fraudulent cards is much less likely than with other card types.
• PIN based implementations have a far less likelihood of being fraudulent.
• Has about the same speed as a Pin Debit Card.
• Consumer retains possession of the card at all times.

What are the limitations of EMV?

• Does not encrypt personal account data, so it will be up to each POS provider and/or EMV device  manufacturer to come up with standards for encryption and retention.

What is the current status of the EMV roll-out in the U.S.?

As of the end of the first quarter of 2015, many financial institutions are starting to  mail out the new EMV cards to their customer base.

With the industry goal currently being that all Retail merchants should be able to start supporting the full feature use of EMV Chip/Pin cards there is some rush to both compliant hardware and  software in place on time.  However, this demand has created some backlogs on getting compliant Pin Pads ordered and installed.  This means that if you want this equipment in place by the last  quarter of 2015, you need to be placing your equipment orders in now.

What does this mean for NCR Counterpoint installations?

• One of the requirements to take advantage of the EMV capabilities inherent in the Ingenico iSC250is a Retail Base Application (RBA) firmware version which requires and upgrade to v14.0.6.
• Regardless of a merchant’s plans to use EMV, if the upcoming NCR Counterpoint Service Pack (8.4.6.13) is installed, it will require that all existing iSC250 devices be updated to v14.0.6 firmware. This  applies to all devices in the field. At the time that this is done, a software configuration change from using the "Lacy Device Framework" to the "New Device Framework". 
• This applies to all merchants, whether they process cards through CPGateway or NCR Secure Pay and regardless of whether of not the merchant plans to enable the use of the EMV feature.
• If the firmware update is not done prior to the service pack update, the device will not be operable  in NCR Counterpoint until the firmware update is completed. It is strongly suggested the devices be updated and verified to work for both Credit Cards and Debit Cards (if applicable) prior to upgrading to the 8.4.6.13 Service Pack.
• If using P2PE encryption, verify on the NCR Secure Pay Settlement portal that  transactions show ‘Yes’ in the “P2PE?” column after the firmware is updated on the device, and before  updating the Service Pack.
• The steps are different for P2PE and non-P2PE devices, so it needs to be confirmed if the device is  P2PE or not prior to upgrading the firmware.  Running the wrong updated procedure could permanently  damage the unit and may require an RMA.

Please contact the CCS Sales Department for more detailed information on the above process.

– John

We Just Power-off The Server.

Over the years I have run into situations where Point of Sale systems artificially fail due to avoidable crisis scenario’s.  Most often, this revolves around not properly  powering-down Point of Sale equipment.

Here’s example of one recent power related interaction:

Clerk:  "I cant get into my POS software"

Tech Support:  "I can’t get on remotely, it looks like your server is turned off"

Clerk:  Yeah, it’s off.  We were having problems earlier, so we just shut it off".

Tech Support:  "The server has to be on in order for the registers to connect to the database  and the Internet."

Tech Support:  "Do you normally do a proper shutdown of the servers and registers?" 

Clerk: "We either just press the blue power button on the big box, or more often we just press  the power on the UP’s Box because shuts off faster!"

Tech Support, "Do you mean the UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply)?"

Clerk:  Yes.

Tech Support:  In situations like this, it’s recommended that you first log out of any open software  applications that you are using and the use the Windows "Shutdown" or "Restart" command, whichever is  appropriate for the given situation."

Clerk: Ok.

There are a number of serious issues here as follows:

1.  Lack of Training – This clerk has needs more information  on the equipment that is being used, and in proper server/workstation shutdown/restart procedures.  This can be a training or management issue, or both.  With a Point of Sale system it is advisable that someone who understands the proper  shutdown/restart commands for the registers and application server be available for all shifts..

2.  Operating System and Data Corruption –  there is a strong likelihood  that the operating system, the application software, or the database has corruption.  Another example of this would involve a users powering of the server or register while it was  in the middle of doing a Windows Update installation. This could corrupt the operating system.

3. Overnight processing doesn’t happen– If servers are off, no overnight processing functions run.  This could result in a lot of things NOT happening such as:

• Backups
• Database re-indexing
• Automated Credit Card Settlement,
• End of Sale sales Posting.

Additionally, there are some situations that are beyond the control of end-users, however, they should be addressed if there are problems:

• Faulty or marginal POS equipment.
• Faulty UPS (bad battery, failure to clamp during outages).
• Damaged network cables
• Faulty or marginal network switches or Network Cards.
• Faulty power circuits.

If you are having any of the above scenario’s or issues, please contact the CCS Retail Systems Support Department for assistance.

– John

Why is it coming up with the wrong price?

This is a fairly common question that end-users come up with that relates to items not  coming-up in point of sale with the right price.

The most common reasons for this are:

• Incorrect Item Price-1 values.
• Incorrectly set-up or conflicting price rules.
• Improperly assigned customer categories (when Customer Category specific pricing is used).
• Improperly assigned Item Categories/Sub-Categories (when Customer Category specific pricing is used).
• Improperly applied Item based pricing updates.

While the above items are primarily just set-up and configuration issues, sometimes this kind of issue can also be combined with end user usage and training issues. Here’s a recent example of  this perfect storm:

For an extended period of time users would ring up certain items by scanning the bar-code, or manually  selecting it from a look-up window.  Often as this was being done, the quantity was always correct, but with some items, the price was always way too high.  Without further investigation, users would  just do a price override and correct the selling price.  This process went on for many, many months.

Finally someone in the organization decided to launch an investigation into why it was  happening.  The following was found:

Item set-up was inconsistent for a number of their items that were at issue.

• In most of these cases, the item had a stocking Unit of “EACH”,  with an Alternate-1 unit of “CASE”,  and the “Preferred Unit” set as “CASE”.  However, many of these items were not configured to "Prompt  for unit" at point of sale, so the "CASE" unit was automatically being selected, by default.
• Users, thinking that the price was  incorrect, without addressing the unit issue, were just  doing a Price Override on the line and changing the “BOX” price to the "EACH" unit price.

So the end result here was…

• Cases of the items were being sold at the "EACH" price. This is not only screwed-up their margins,but the inventory quantity levels as well.
• Compounding the issue, When users were running Purchasing Advice Reports, the software was detecting low levels of product, and making buy recommendations for products that were not physically low on stock.  Also, users were  just blindly posting the purchase request without validating the overage recommendation that the software was making.

If you are seeing similar behavior to the above,  Please contact the CCS Retail Systems Support Department for assistant in correcting it.

– John

The Seven Minute Cash Transaction Print Job

An initial report came in about an issue with print Jobs taking 7 minutes  or longer to print when only cash transactions were involved.

Apparently, the problem had been on-going for somewhere between 3 – 5 months  without having been addressed by the in-house MIS staff.

The end-users and MIS staff were convinced that the issue was a problem with their POS software.

When asked if any changes had been made to the hardware or software about the time that this problem started to occur, the response was an emphatic "NO, absolutely not!".

The following was later determined to be the case:

The cash drawer was originally connect to the registers LPT1 port and was configured for use as a parallel printer with the cash drawer being connected to the "Kick" port on the back of  the printer.  This means that the software would be sending a kick command to the cash  drawer through the printer.  This is a fairly standard configuration in most POS environments.

At some point the printer stopped working and MIS staff  replaced it with a USB model, but didn’t  adjust or change the Cash Drawer set-up or the software set-up to accommodate this change.

When selecting the "Cash" pay Code the software was now sending a cash drawer Kick to a device that was not longer available on either the local register or as a shared device on the network.  At this point, it typically took the operating system over 7 minutes to give up trying to communicate with a non-existent device, after which the receipt would finally print.

To add insult to injury, at some point, the Cash drawer was connected to the PC by  both USB and DB9 Serial connectors, and  an RJ-45 connection to the back of the USB  printers Ethernet port.  This sort of triple cross connection process would have most likely caused the operating system to shutdown one or both USB/Serial ports due to  conflict, thereby making the device inoperable even thought there might not have been  anything physically wrong with it in the first place.

Also, impatient staff would reboot the workstation causing issues with system resources, user count locks,  and causing ongoing data corruption.

Most of all of the above aggravation could have been avoided if a simple short phone call had been made  to our support department.

If you are having issues like the above, please call the CCS Retail Systems Support Department  for help in resolving them.

– John
  
 

EMV Myths Debunked…

On October 1, 2015, a liability shift is occurring as it relates to who is responsible for paying for charge-backs for counterfeit cards that are used at a retail store. Between the bank that issued the credit card, the retail store and the payment processor, whoever is least prepared to accept EMV-enabled payment cards will now be responsible to pay for the charge-backs.

Myth #1:  Implementing EMV in your retail store is required and will be enforced by a government regulation or security council.

If you are a U.S. retail store operator, no government agency or industry association is requiring you to implement EMV.  You will not be fined if you do not implement EMV by the often referred to deadline date of October 1, 2015. This is not a deadline. It is your decision whether or not you want to implement EMV, there is no requirement.

However, since the liability rules change on October 1, any retailer that hasn’t implemented EMV by this date may be liable for a fraud resulting from a magnetic – stripe payment.

Myth #2:  If you don’t implement EMV you are liable for al fraudulent electronic transactions.

If you don’t implement EMV, the merchant does not automatically incur liability for all fraudulent electronic transactions. The liability shift applies to whomever is not able to process EMV transactions. If the issuer does not provide EMV capable cards or the acquirer is unable to process EMV transactions the liability will apply to them instead of the merchant. For the liability to shift to the merchant, an EMV card must be processed at the site by an acquirer that supports EMV transactions on a payment terminal that does not support EMV.

Myth #3:  Once you implement EMV, you will no longer be able to accept credit cards with magnetic stripes

Believe it or not, magnetic stripes on credit cards are going to be with us for quite some time. If you’re EMV-ready, when a customer pays with an older magnetic stripe credit card you’ll simply swipe it through your new payment terminal’s card reader. So regardless of whether or not you have implemented EMV, you’ll be able to take all credit cards in your retail store.

Myth #4:  EMV protects your retail store from a data security breach.

Remember: Implementing EMV alone will not protect your retail store  from being hacked. While EMV helps protect you from counterfeit card
 use, it’s not the end-all, be-all of store data security. There are  measures that you can put into place that are not provided by EMV such as encrypting credit card data as it passes through your network that will safeguard your store from a data breach as well as give you greater peace-of-mind.

Myth #5:  EMV will rapidly achieve mass adoptions by both credit card issuers and other retails stores.

Estimates are that only 20 to 30 percent of cardholders in the United States  will have new EMV-ready cards by October 1, 2015. Meanwhile, industry experts  are saying that it will take at least 3-5 years in order for EMV to reach full  acceptance in the U.S., and in Europe the adoption took much longer. So know  that it’s going to take a while for everyone to finally make the transition
 
Making your store EMV-ready can involve lots of discussions, questions and  planning about many different things: your POS system, your payment processor  and the right kind of payment terminal devices. It’s also crucial that you understand the impact that EMV technology will have on your operation; be  prepared to train your staff appropriately and assist customers with using their EMV credit cards.

Myth #6:  If you don’t implement EMV, you won’t be able to accept credit cards after October 1, 2015

Even if you don’t implement EMV-enabled payment devices by October  1, your business will still run the same as it did on September 30,
 aside from the liability shift. Both older magnetic stripe cards and  newer EMV cards can be accepted by non-EMV merchants, as the new chip
 cards will also have magnetic stripes available for that very reason.

Myth #7:  transitioning to EMV is as simple is plugging in a new payment terminal.

Making your store EMV-ready can involve lots of discussions, questions and planning about  many different things: your POS system, your payment processor and the right kind  of payment terminal devices. It’s also crucial that you understand the impact that  EMV technology will have on your operation; be prepared to train your staff  appropriately and assist customers with using their EMV credit cards.

Myth #8:  EMV provides P2P capabilities.

EMV and Point-to-Point Encryption (P2P) are two separate technologies that address  different security concerns and require independent implementations. EMV focuses  on securing credit card counterfeit fraud while P2P focuses on securing track and account information in store systems. EMV transactions without  P2P will expose track equivalent data and account information in the clear to payment  applications. As a merchant you must decide if you want to implement P2P capabilities  in addition to EMV and confirm that both your host and pin-pad provider support a common encryption scheme required for implementation

Myth #9:  Debit Cards cannot be processed unless US Common AID (US Debit) is implemented.

To comply with Durbin’s routing requirements, debit cards for the US market will include two or more AID’s. The cards will include Global  AIDs that will enable cards to be processed with the card brand (e.g. Visa, MC, Amex,  Discover) and US Common AIDs that will enable cards to
be routed to the merchant’s debit network or choice. Until support for the US Common  AID is implemented, POS systems may process these cards using the Global AID that  is specific to a single processor. This will still allow cards to be processed, but  will not enable cards to be routed to the merchant’s processor of choice. Further,  in most cases the Global AID will result in the cards being processed as Credit  transactions, which will restrict the ability to offer cash back or fuel using debit specific pricing.

Myth #10:  EMV is a requirement for complying with PCI Data Security Standards

You don’t need to implement EMV in order to be compliant with PCI Data Security Standards. While EMV can be one component of your data security strategy, it is not required nor mandated by PCI Data Security Standards, nor will implementing EMV make you PCI compliant.

If you have further questions or concerns, please contact the CCS retail Systems Support Department.

– John

What is the end result of falling to routinely purge historical data?

There are a number of factors that you should consider in making purge decisions.

As the amount of data that you have increases, more disk space is used and so exponentially so  does the amount of resources required to do various tasks.  This situation puts more resource pressure on your server and increases the amount of time that it takes to complete even routine tasks.

As an example, running history reports could end up taking a considerable amount of time which may end-up reducing overall staff productivity if people are constantly waiting for something to complete.  Depending what kind of resource limiters are in place on your server, as time goes on this process could end-up bogging down your server.

While Retailers only keep about (2) two years of detailed history,  I have found many instances over the years where some companies have many, many years of detailed history on file.  In one recent example, a customer who wanted to upgrade was found to have over 25 years of detailed history on file.  Not having purged this data before hand created and extended upgrade process.

Normally, it is best to schedule purging operations for times when there is no one using the application software.  Generally, there are at least (4) four good reasons for this as follows:

1.  Purging operations usually require a lot of CPU and memory usage.  So if this is done during peak hours, it can bog down your server.

2.  Some historical purging operations will hang and wait if it encounters a record that is in use. This artificially extends the amount of time required to complete the purging operation.

3.  Data Corruption – f you are purging database files of tables that are updated as part of a posting operation, this could result in on or more of those operations hanging, failing to complete, and/or possible corrupting some of the data in your database.

4.  Software upgrades – in order to help reduce time and cost on upgrades to newer software, it may be  necessary to do considerable purging of data prior to starting the upgrade.  Waiting to do this type of maintenance until crunch time can have much less that desirable outcome that you might want.

If you have questions about purging and file utility usage, please contact the CCS Retail Systems Support Department.

– John

Transaction Auditing 101

Most Accounting, Inventory Distributions and POS Systems have built-in functionality that allows for both auditing and editing of work before posting  (i.e. finalizing) it.

Failure to use these built-in tools can result in various anomalies and issues surrounding all data entered into your system.  A recent example of this was as follows:

A customer called in with various inventory related complains.  The top four of these complaints were:

1. Quantity On Hand was incorrect.
2. Quantity Committed was Incorrect.
3. Item had the wrong barcode assigned to it.
4. The cost was disappearing from Inventory Valuation report.

This was later determined to be due to all of the following:

The wrong item number was being selected. – User was searching by description and was typing in a partial description and selecting the very first item found in a group of  items with a similar description, but not the correct item.

Data Set-up issues – The same item was entered into the system twice using the exact same description.  each item had a different barcode assigned to it.  When selling the item, user were scanning the barcode, picking the first item.  When editing the item, the users were doing a look-up by description and choosing the second item.

Unposted Inventory Related transactions – There were multiple unposted inventory  Adjustment transactions and  Receiving’s transactions on file from two years earlier that had not been posted.  No one had audited or posted these transactions, and the user logged into the software wasn’t authorized to post transactions dated in either  previous periods, or previous years.

Additional Insufficient Security Levels – A user running the Inventory Valuation Report was NOT authorized to see costs, so the cost values on the report were masked.  Another user with  a different security levels was running the same report without issue.

In the annuls of Tech Support, the above issues would fall into all of these support related categories:

• Usage – The user who entered the transactions did not post their work.
• Training – The user who entered the transaction should have understood that auditing and posting was required.
• Auditing – The user was not reviewing their previously entered and saved transaction data, nor was anyone else on staff else
• Security  – The user doing the work was not authorized to post transactions outside of the current period date range. So once enough time had passed, the could have addressed the situation if they had tried. Also, this same user was  not authorized to view costs.

If you have similar issues to the above, please call the CCS Retail Systems Support Department in order to work out a resolution.

– John

Preparing for a Point of Sale Vacation

As either a manager or a business owner it is highly recommended that you prepare your staff on how to deal with Point of Sale related emergencies, BEFORE leaving for your trip.

This could include such things as:

• Emergency phone numbers and contacts.
• Handling Power failures.
• Proper system shut-down and restart of POS systems and related peripheral related hardware.
• How to manually authorize Credit Cards.
• Basic communication and language skills.

Not doing this in advance could spell catastrophe for your business or cause you greater support expense.

As a recent example:

A Store Manager left for a two month vacation and was located in an area of a country that has limited  phone service, and no internet.  Before, leaving there was no disaster preparedness work done.

During the managers vacation, both of the following happened:

1.  Their only POS register failed.

When this occurred, there were no provisions for having a backup register in place or a secondary register that could be used. They had to wait the better part of a day for a replacement to be installed.  During this time period, they  had no procedures for handling sales or manually calling in credit cards, so the store was  simply shut-down… this meant loosing a days sales activity.

2.  Extended Power Failure:

The stores power went out in the middle of the day for almost an hour. As in the above example,  they  had no procedures for handling sales or manually calling in  credit cards, so the store was simply shut-down… meaning loss of several hours of  sales activity before the system was back up and operational.  All of the following issues were involved:

• Limited or no knowledge of the POS system configuration – When the power came back on the clerk restarted the register while the server was still off, so he was getting a message that the server and Point Of Sale Software’s database could not be accessed.  This clerk was also unaware that there was a server in the back office of the store.
• Language/Communication Barriers – The clerk running the store barely spoke English, had virtually no computer skills, and didn’t use email, or the internet.
• Phone Issues – The clerk did not know the phone number of the phone that he was calling in on for support, so he couldn’t provide a call-back number to the support dispatcher.  The physical phone that he was calling in on for support assistance  was also broken, with only one of every three words coming through.  This meant in addition to the language barrier, he  was not able to properly communicate even what the basic nature of the problem was, or even that it was even an emergency.
• Confusion over hardware – There where actually two computers in the back office, one was their DVR for the security cameras and
  the other was for the Point of Sale Software and database.  When then clerk was directed to start the POS Application server,  he was 
  actually restarting the DVR server.
• Jury-rigged Equipment – Someone had disconnected the monitor from the POS application server and attached it to the DVR directly.  This meant that the clerk had no way to do a proper shut-down or restart the POS server, or to log back into it once it was restarted. This involved walking  a non-technical person through moving the monitor’s connection to the POS Server.  This set-up was most likely done in order to save on  spending an additional $80 – $150 on a basic monitor for the DVR or to purchase a switch box. None of the workers or staff was trained to address this sort of issue.
• Missing operating system passwords –  The basic OS user password had been changed.  The clerk was actually in possession of the new password, but had no clue as to what it was.  Because of this the user was logging into the operation system using the Windows "Administrator" user. – This created a security risk.

If you have similar issue with your systems, please contact the CCS Retail Systems Support Department.

– John
 

Options For Training

CCS has the ability to provide you and your staff with a number of training options as follows:

Classroom Training – This  can be overview type, closely follow training manuals,  or be directed to specific pre-defined Topics and/or individuals. CCS has a training  center that has a wall projection system, and PC’s for individual use.

Targeted Remote Training – With modern communication tools, there are a myriad number of ways to establish remote connections to PC’s and servers from literally anywhere in the world that has Internet access and phone service.

On-site Training –  This can be done in groups in a conference room, training facility or at individual workstations.

There are often avoidable situations that can leave you with angry and/or lost customers, frustrated employees, reduced sales, and an undeserved bad reputation.  Often this may be something as simple as poor communication, lack of a proper or formal training program, or assignment of tasks to a user who is not authorized to perform the required task.

An historical example:

Once, while trying to work with a clerk over the phone on a specific Point of Sale software  usage issue, the conversation was abruptly interrupted by an angry customer who  had just charged back into the store because he had been overcharged for an item.  The clerk set the phone down abruptly – while I could hear the entire room conversation through the phone, the clerk could  no longer hear me.

To resolve the customer complaint, rather than just voiding the first ticket and re-ringing the ticket, or returning just the one item at issue, the clerk took the customers credit card and then ran another charge through the register, duplicating the previous erroneous charge.

When the already "Hot" customer figured out what had been done, a shouting match ensued between the customer and the clerk.  The
customer was insisting on getting a cash refund for the  overage charges, and as the argument intensified, it brought in several more staff people and customers. This evolved into a large shouting match  with the entire group fighting for control of the receipt, the credit card, and product. This was accompanied by cursing and interspersed screams of "don’t put your hands on me", "stop touching me!", and "I’m calling the cops!". 

This chaos went on for about 15 minutes, and ended with the customer storming off, before the clerk finally picked up the phone again.  The phone was then handed off to another more experienced clerk.  When I explained what had just happened to the  second clerk, and how the first clerk could have handled the  situation, I heard a huge sigh, and the  reply, "he hasn’t had much training"

In this particular case the original clerk had not been trained on handling returns, and his POS software user account was not authorized to void tickets or take returns.  This meant that a managers assistance would have been required to help this customer properly even if the clerk had known specifically what to do.

In the Internet age, having an angry ex-customer can be devastating for your business, especially because an angry customer is most likely
to be your most vocal critic.  The last thing that your business needs are negative reviews being posted on your site, or on various commonly used Internet review sites for something that can easily have been avoided.  This can drive potential business away from you.

If you would like some assistance with staff training, please contact the CCS Retail Systems Support Department.

– John