Sertifi Sits Down with The Modern Hotelier at HITEC 2024

We had a blast joining everyone at HITEC in Charlotte this year. It's always a jam-packed schedule of networking, learning, and growth, and it's always great to catch up with old and new friends!

With no surprise, AI was a popular topic in sessions and across the show floor this year. We were excited to share our take and other insights with The Modern Hotelier, one of hospitality's top podcasts serving up discussions on industry trends and new technologies with industry experts.

To hear our conversation, watch the recording or read the transcript below.

Modern Hotelier: Theresa, tell us a little more about yourself. Where did you grow up? What's your background?

Theresa Ellsworth: I was born and bred in Yonkers, New York and went to college upstate at SUNY Plattsburgh [State University of New York]. I did the hospitality program there, which kind of started my hospitality career.

MH: How did growing up in New York shape who you are today?

TE: Well, I know what good pizza is and other people don't [laughs]! But, I really love the hustle and bustle of New York, and I feel like I can go to any city and know my way around. I love to explore.

MH: I understand you're a bit of a adrenaline junkie. Is that right? What have you done for adrenaline?

TE: I have been skydiving twice. I think it's much better the higher up you go, and I absolutely loved it. I love roller coasters. I love it all.

MH: So, going to school for hospitality, how did that transform you into getting into technology and then into Sertifi?

TE: With my [school's] hospitality program, as a senior, you get to go to the New York Hospitality Hotel Motel show at the Javits Center, which is where I met one of my mentors. He was working at the Springer Miller booth, and he said, "I know you're in college, and we have this program where we hire folks right out of college." I thought that sounded really interesting, so I applied and got the job and that started my career in hospitality. I was with Springer Miller tor 14 years.

MH: One thing I've noticed about your booth is you're talking about accelerating revenue. Could you tell us more about what that means to Sertifi and how you help hospitality businesses accelerate revenue?

TE: I think what we're best known for is our digital authorization process. Hotels have this very antiquated process for third-party credit card authorization forms, and we digitize and secure that for them. So, instead of having a reservation and receiving a chargeback and losing that revenue, we're making sure they are holding on tightly to that revenue.

The other thing we do is we digitize their sales process. So, for their sales contracts, we give them e-signatures, and we also accept digital deposits for them, which I'm sure we'll talk about later. There's a whole lot of savings and revenue that can be found there.

MH: Being an ex-GM (general manager), I know that chargebacks are big trouble. Can you elaborate and go a little deeper into chargebacks and how Sertifi is specifically helping hotels with that?

TE: Yes, so, with our digital authorization solution - as I said before, we're taking this very manual process, and we're digitizing it in our secure platform that is PCI Level 1 compliant.

A lot of folks in hotels, like GMs, will tell me they have a binder where they keep the credit card numbers, and unfortunately, sometimes they're not even crossed off! And then they have to find somewhere to store them (the binders). So it really is this big, clunky process that they're having to maintain.

Turnover is another huge issue because you have to retrain everyone on how to do things correctly (recording and storing credit card information). So, we take all of the human error away and digitize the whole process for hotels.

MH: Fraud prevention is another huge topic. How does Sertifi help with that?

TE: Part of our digital authorization solution is what we call our advanced fraud tools. We work with a company called Kount, and we take the transaction data after the guest enters their credit card information, and they (Kount) analyze over 100 different data points to give hotels a score. The score doesn't dictate yes/no take this card/don't take this card, but it's presented as A, B, C, D, or F, showing if the card is more or less secure and if the hotel should ask the cardholder for a different card number.

MH: We're looking a lot at AI as it's a big topic. How are you leveraging AI as far as fraud and chargebacks overall?

TE: I think this is really a differentiator for us. Kount is one of the few fraud providers that uses supervised and unsupervised machine learning. So, when we talk about supervised (machine learning), we are going back in time and looking at different data points to analyze things like if the card has chargebacks on our network. And think about how powerful that is!

Then, when we talk about unsupervised (machine learning), it's looking at things like how many computers this person has used this card on. Or, how many email addresses are attached to this card. So, we're looking at both of those things with the help of Kount to give our customers a really powerful fraud score to make the best decision for their business.

MH: I want to go back to a point that we talked about a little bit earlier in the conversation, which was recognizing revenue and taking deposits as part of revenue acceleration. How does Sertifi help hotels with this?

TE: I think a lot of businesses and people are used to digital signatures. So, of course we offer that at a very attractive price point, but we go one step further and help the property take deposits in real time. You make the signature and then you immediately take the deposit. We have heard of hotels forgetting to call and ask for the deposit or forgetting to call and ask for the final payment. so we're really, again, removing the human error element of it.

MH: What are some of the benefits of the deposits? You know, taking them and the PMS, the POS component of it. What are some of the additional benefits for the property?

TE: What we're finding is that a lot of hotels are calling guests, getting their credit card number, and are typing it right into the PMS system. What happens then is they get what's called a downgrade, meaning that their transaction fee on that particular transaction is going up. And if you're talking about a $10-20k deposit on a wedding, that really adds up for the property. So what we do is we add an e-commerce merchant ID into the equation, which means we know that the guest is the one entering in the credit card information securely into our secure portal. And we're processing those payments, so we know we're getting you the best rates possible.

In addition to that, we're letting guests provide their banking information via ACH. And we have found that that's a much lower transaction fee than cards, so there's a lot of savings to be had.

MH: What are gaps you are seeing in the hospitality industry, and how is Sertifi filling those gaps?

TE: I don't know if you've talked to anyone who is not short-staffed. So, saving time, whether it's those digital authorization forms, a couple clicks and getting the form off, you don't have to worry about attaching, scanning, printing, all of that. And same thing with the sales process. We found that sales people were spending up to two weeks going back and forth revising contracts, sending, getting them back, scanning them, saving in the right place, and we just remove all of that. We want technology to make people's day easier. That's all we want to do. And we hear that feedback every tradeshow we go to. We really can't ask for anything more.

MH: That's awesome! So we are at HITEC. Are you unveiling anything here? What are we showing all the great people that are stopping by the booth?

TE: Yeah! We are definitely talking about ACH. Great transaction fees on the ACH. We also just debuted our Opera OHIP integration, which we know is kind of the talk of the town right now, so we're really proud to show that to everyone.

MH: That's awesome. And giving out free headshots, too!

TE: That's right! Come on down!

MH: Well, this was great. We appreciate you taking time out of your busy HITEC and chatting with us. Thank you for joining us!

TE: Thank you!

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