So remember my story yesterday of stopping by the little hamburger joint on a morning out with my family over the weekend?
This little place where we stopped was a tiny little place. It had no seating inside, but had some picnic tables outside. It had a counter, a condiment bar, a soda and shake machine behind the counter and a window where the order taker would pass orders and collect the food to hand back to the customers. It is a fine system and the food was pretty tasty.
Remember how I missed my run that morning because of the rain? Well, it was windy too. And apparently, because of the rain and wind, all the phone lines were out. We discovered this because as the cashier was trying to run my credit card through the machine, she was unable to process it. The machine kept saying “unable to proceed”. As other customers came in, they reported that the phone lines were out all over this little town, as was cable in many areas too.
This is the type of credit card machine that was being used.
By now, our order had been placed through the little window and the cook was cooking it up. I didn’t have any cash on me. And I don’t carry checks anymore.
This time however, for some reason, I happened to have one check with me in my wallet. Luckily for us and for them, I was still able to pay for our order.
But had I not had that check, they would have lost our order.
It made me think…didn’t they have a backup plan for situations like this?
I know each one is different, but it is my belief that you can still run credit cards through those little machines even when they are offline and they will store the information and then transfer it once it gets online again. If their machine is capable of this function, sadly, the worker on shift that day was unaware of it.
Or – remember those old knuckle dragger credit card machines? They still work and they don’t require electricity or a phone line.
They might be old school – but they still work!
My thought of today is – what’s your backup plan? What if you lose power or a phone line, can you business still function or are you shut down completely? Is there an old school option to use as a back up? What if something else “goes down” , are you still able to carry on with business or do you have to turn customers away (and hope they’ll come back).
Likewise, are all your employees (including yourself) versed in the procedures of what to do when things are working 100%?
I’d be happy to help come up with some backup plans for your situation. Let’s talk.
Happy Wednesday, Everyone!
~Amy
Bonus photo – who remembers these? Talk about old school.
Minute by minute 