Monitored or managed? The ATM operator's dilemma

The consumer credit company LifeLock is running a TV spot illustrating the difference between credit monitoring services and its credit protection products.

It goes like this:

Four scary-looking men wielding baseball bats burst into the lobby of a bank they intend to rob.

All of the customers hit the deck while the bank security guard stands by idly.

"Do something!" a desperate woman hisses at him from the floor.

"Oh, I'm not a security guard," the man says, casually. "I'm a security monitor. I only notify people if there's a robbery. ... There's a robbery."

Sound a little like the ATM monitoring and maintenance situation that's frustrating your FI's efforts to make every ATM-user's experience exceptional?

If so, join a free, one-hour webinar on Thursday, Nov. 17, "5 big hassles that can be alleviated with ATM managed services," presented by Elan Financial Services and hosted by ATM Marketplace.

Attendees will hear from Joe Walent, associate director with the customer interaction advisory service at Mercator Advisory Group, and Larry Longhurst, senior managed services consultant at Elan Financial Services. 

The two speakers will offer an overview of technology advancements of the past decade that have added enormous functionality to modern ATMs, but, at the same time, have made basic fleet monitoring methods inadequate, and predictive maintenance essential.

The fact is that while an IT team member sitting at a monitoring console can see that something's gone wrong with the ATM, he or she will rarely be able to solve that problem without bringing in a vendor — or several, depending on the issue — first to pinpoint the problem and then to prescribe and perform any necessary repair.

And to the complexity of the machine itself, you can add rules, regulations, updates and enhancements that have made it increasingly difficult for an FI to keep on top of the operating and security needs of a highly sophisticated ATM channel.

And that's before even beginning to think about integrating it with other rapidly evolving, high-demand service delivery channels such as online and mobile banking — not to mention the necessity, in a highly competitive financial services market, to transform the branch into a more customer-focused, cost-efficient proposition.

As all of these become increasingly interconnected in an omnichannel banking model, it becomes more important than ever to maintain secure, competitive and compliant ATM services. And this means institutions will have to move beyond simply monitoring machine states across the fleet.

Walent and Longhurst will take a detailed look at the choice many FIs are beginning to make of shifting to a managed services ATM model. And they'll discuss five hassles a deployer can easily minimize by centralizing ATM fleet management needs with a single trusted vendor.

Register for the webinar