CEO Sean Kramer has years of experience in the payment processing industry, and dreamt of creating a company "that would actually deliver what others only promise." He leads by example, calling customers to thank them for their business, resolving processing issues and even pitching in to solve technical problems. "We want to offer so much more than low processing rates," he says. "We want to use our superior technology and superior customer service to help our software provider partners strengthen their brands. As they grow, we will grow."
Dan Erickson has a background in operations, legal and finance. But ask him about what makes Element different and he doesn't talk numbers, but people. "One of the things we look for in hiring people is that they have a high level of frustration with how well they were able to serve customers at a previous job," he says. While the average industry hold time for customer calls is four to five minutes, at Element "we are under 45 seconds – and our internal goal is to get under 20 seconds," he says. "The people we hire understand that if a problem comes to them, it's their responsibility to solve it and they are empowered to do so."
Roy Bricker describes his 20 years of experience in the payment card industry as ranging from "the bits and bytes level to the strategic level of executive management." What he learned, he says, is that "a payment processing platform has to be highly reliable, secure, provide a wide array of transaction services and allow for simple and easy integration for software providers." At Element, Mr. Bricker plays a key role in ensuring that these needs are met - and exceeded. By delivering world-class products coupled with fanatical customer service and technical support, Mr. Bricker ensures that Element effectively services its more than 30,000 merchant customers.
Don Schroeder has developed ecommerce technology for an Internet auction house, and developed the strategic plan, architecture and supervised the staff which developed one of the country's leading payment processing services. But what he finds fulfilling about heading development for Element Payment Services is the fact that he can use leading-edge software technologies (such as a service-oriented architecture) to quickly create products and services that serve customer needs.
One example is PASS (Payment Account Secure Storage), which stores sensitive cardholder data at Element's PCI DSS compliant storage facility so that hackers cannot steal it from a merchant location. Through his membership on the PCI Security Standards Council, Schroeder learned that the organization would require that merchants not store such sensitive data on-site. "We were able to bring PASS from inception to implementation in a matter of weeks," he says. "We have direct access to every one within the organization, can make decisions with a very small group of people and get new products out into the market quickly, better servicing our customers."
Web-based reporting allows Element customers to get the information they need, when they need it. Mr. Roseberry was the driving force behind its development, which was the culmination of his more than thirteen years of experience in senior software development roles within the insurance, medical, and e-commerce industries. As with all of Element's services, ease of integration and ease of use are critical. Element's use of XML and Web services interfaces make it easier for software providers to integrate with the Element Express Processing Platform, and for Element to combine all the data a software partner or merchant needs into one Web portal. "Our aim," he says, "is to create a single point of entry platform that securely delivers all the information a merchant or software partner needs."
Brock Robertson began his career at shipping pioneer Federal Express, whose philosophy was "High quality people plus high quality service equals greater than expected profit.'" He brings this same drive for excellence to the marketing campaigns he crafts for software partners. "We work with our partners to put together measurable marketing campaigns," he says, complete with email promotions, custom Web sites and merchant referral forms. These campaigns explain to merchants how the Element Payment Services (combined with the software they already use) protects cardholder data, slashes paperwork and speeds payments.
This sale and marketing partnership is typical of how Element helps software providers deliver more business benefits to their merchants. To Robertson, this is a win-win situation. "We at Element are successful when we help you, the software partner, strengthen your brand and serve your customers" he says.