In this episode, we sit down with Theresa Ellsworth from Sertifi. Theresa shares insights into her background growing up in Yonkers, New York, her passion for hospitality, and her journey from college to a 14-year stint at Springer Miller.
The conversation delves into how Sertifi accelerates revenue for hotels through digital authorization processes, securing revenue by reducing chargebacks, and using advanced AI-driven fraud prevention tools. Additionally, Sertifi's new features, such as ACH transaction fee reductions and Opera OHIP integration, are highlighted.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- Sertifi's digital authorization process for credit card transactions
- Accelerating revenue through digitized sales processes and deposit collection
- Fraud prevention using advanced AI tools
- Benefits of digital signatures and real-time deposit collection
- Reducing transaction fees through e-commerce merchant IDs and ACH payments
- The importance of secure handling of guest credit card information
- How technology is simplifying daily operations for hotel staff
Join the conversation on today's episode on The Modern Hotelier LinkedIn page.
The Modern Hotelier is produced, edited, and published by Make More Media: https://makemore.media/
Episode Links
Theresa Ellsworth
David Millili
Steve Carran
Steve on LinkedIn
The Modern Hotelier
Transcript
Automatic Transcription - please excuse any errors
Steve Carran: So we are here with Teresa Ellsworth from Sertifi. Teresa, thank you for coming on the Modern Hotelier podcast here at Hitech. We're excited to have you. So tell us a little bit about yourself. Where did you grow up? What's your background?
Teresa Ellsworth: Born and bred in Yonkers, New York. Went to college upstate, SUNY Plattsburgh. Did the hospitality program there, which kind of started my hospitality career.
Steve Carran: How did growing up in New York shape who you are today?
Teresa Ellsworth: Well, I know what good pizza is, and other people don't.
David Millili: 100 percent true.
Teresa Ellsworth: But I really love the hustle and bustle of New York, and I kind of, you know, feel like I can go to any city and know my way around. Love to explore.
Steve Carran: I understand you're a bit of an adrenaline junkie, is that right?
Teresa Ellsworth: A little bit.
Steve Carran: What have you done for adrenaline?
Teresa Ellsworth: I have been skydiving twice. I think it's much better the higher up you go. Absolutely loved it. Loved it. Roller coasters, I love it all.
David Millili: So going to school for hospitality, how did that transform you into getting into technology and then into Sertifi?
Teresa Ellsworth: Yeah, it's kind of a good story. My 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 Hotel. He said, "You know, I know you're in college, we have this program where we hire folks right out of college." I said, "Well, that sounds really interesting," so I applied, I got the job, and that started my career in hospitality. I was with Springer Miller for 14 years.
Steve Carran: That's cool. So 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 the hospitality business accelerate revenue?
Teresa Ellsworth: A couple things that we do. I think what we're best known for is our digital authorization process. So hotels have this very antiquated process for third-party credit card authorization forms, and we're going to digitize that and secure it for them. So instead of having this reservation and having a chargeback and losing that revenue, we're making sure they're holding on tightly to that revenue. The other thing we do is we digitize their sales process. So, their sales contracts, we give them e-signatures and we also take deposits digitally for them, which I'm sure we'll talk about later, but there's a whole lot of savings and revenue that could be found there.
David Millili: So being an ex-GM, I know chargebacks are a big trouble. Can you elaborate and go a little deeper into chargebacks and how you help hotels with that?
Teresa Ellsworth: Yeah, so our digital authorization solution, as I said, we're taking this very manual process and we're digitizing it on our computer. We're a secure platform, we're PCI Level 1. A lot of folks in hotels, GMs, will tell me they have a binder where they keep the credit card numbers and sometimes they're not even crossed off, unfortunately. Then they have to find somewhere to store them. So it really is this big, clunky process that they're having to maintain. Turnover is another huge issue. Then you have to train everyone how to do things correctly. So we kind of take all the human error away from it and we digitize and secure the whole thing for hotels.
Steve Carran: So, fraud prevention. That's another huge topic. How does Sertifi help with that?
Teresa Ellsworth: Part of our digital authorization solution is what we call our advanced fraud tools. We work with a company called Kount. They'll be here at the show this week. We take the guest's data, they enter their credit card information, and they analyze it with over a hundred different data points and give the hotel a score. So it's not just a yes/no, take this card or don't take this card. It's A, B, C—like getting less secure—or you really maybe should ask this guest for a different card number.
David Millili: AI is a big topic. How are you guys leveraging AI for fraud prevention and chargebacks overall?
Teresa Ellsworth: Yeah, I think this is really a differentiator for us. Kount is one of the few fraud providers that uses supervised and unsupervised machine learning. When we talk about supervised, we are going back and looking at different data points to analyze things like, does this card have chargebacks on our network? I mean, think about how powerful that is. Does this person do a lot of returns in this network? Then when we talk about unsupervised, it's looking at things like, how many computers has this person logged in from? How many email addresses does this card have attached to it? So we're looking at both of those things with the help of Kount to give our guests a really powerful fraud score to make the best decision for their business.
Steve Carran: I want to go back to a point that we talked about earlier in the conversation, which was recognizing revenue and taking deposits as part of revenue acceleration. How does Sertifi help hotels with this?
Teresa Ellsworth: I think a lot of businesses and people are used to digital signatures. So of course we do that at a very, I think, 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.
David Millili: What are some of the benefits of taking deposits? The PMS, the POS component of it—what are some of the additional benefits for the property?
Teresa Ellsworth: Right, so what we're finding is a lot of hotels are calling, getting a credit card number, and 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 $10,000-$20,000 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, again, to 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 those guests, if they want, provide the ranking information via ACH, and we have found that that's about a half a percent transaction fee, where these credit cards, even a good credit card transaction fee is 3.5%. So a lot of savings to be had.
Steve Carran: And one last question: What are gaps that you're seeing in the hospitality industry, and how is Sertifi filling those gaps?
Teresa Ellsworth: Yeah, we talked about being short-staffed—I mean, 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 the same thing with the sales process. We found that salespeople were spending up to two weeks going back and forth, revising contracts, sending, getting them back, scanning them, all of that, saving it 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 at every trade show we go to, and we really can't ask for anything more.
Steve Carran: Hitech—are you guys unveiling anything here? What are we showing all the great people that are stopping by?
Teresa Ellsworth: Yeah, so we are talking about ACH. Like I said, 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.
Steve Carran: That's awesome. And giving out headshots too, right?
Teresa Ellsworth: That's right.
Steve Carran: Well, this was great. We appreciate you taking time out of your busy Hitech and chatting with us. Thank you for joining us.
Teresa Ellsworth: Yeah.
David Millili: So much. It's great. Thank you.