Running your ATM fleet at peak performance is critical for cardholder access. Your cardholders rely on ATMs for cash and making deposits during and more importantly, after business hours. When an issue pulls an ATM out of commission your cardholders suffer. They may lose out on needed cash for weekend expenses or not have deposits made available in their checking account. One of the most common issues robbing your ATM of critical uptime is armor/CIT issues.
In 2022, armor/CIT service performance suffered a 5% decline globally per statistics provided by CMS analytics at the Cash in the USA conference. Service results for armor carriers continued to decline in 2023. And there’s nothing stopping this slide in performance in 2024. What is causing this decline? In a word, staffing.
Lack of available and willing employees and continuous turnover are key elements in the decline in service you may be experience with your armor provider. Many armor branches are understaffed by 50%. Thinking of switching to a new armor/CIT provider? The industry joke has always gone something like, “Let’s try to pick the best of the worst.” And many armor branches are not accepting new clients due to staffing shortages, unwilling to add more stops on routes that are already too long for existing field service staff to properly service.
Even if an armor branch is able to hire and retain new armor field staff, these employees need time to train and learn how to load and work with many different ATM platforms, safes, etc. New employees typically cause as many ATM issues as underperforming employees. So, the pain or poor service will continue even as an armor branch is staffing up.
At Dolphin, we have direct access to companies that we hire to replenish cash at our outsourced ATMs & ITMs. We work with senior management, provide access to training for field staff and even provide contacts for armor staff to use as a resource when at an ATM and unable to perform a typical replenishment. We work hard to enable armor to perform at optimal levels for our clients. Even with these efforts, armor is the cause of the majority of ATM outages and issues today.
It’s an ongoing battle we are confronting. As ATM & ITM experts, we are continuously working to maximize uptime for our fleet. Even if it means working hard to train other companies service agents. We’re happy to help with your fleet as well. A Dolphin representative is always ready to assist with your fleet. Whether that means 1 or 100 units.