Innovative Managed Service offer prevents service disruptions from happening, improving store productivity and customer experience, two leading grocers sign up to deploy offer across point-of-sale and self-checkout

DULUTH, Ga.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 16, 2012-- NCR Corporation (NYSE:NCR) today announced that NCR Predictive Services, a unique managed service offer for assisted- and self-service technologies, is now available for its NCR RealPOS™ point-of-sale (POS) terminals. Unlike other offerings that fix POS terminals after they break, NCR Predictive Services predicts failures before they happen enabling resolution before a device fails and faster resolution of device issues.

Already available on self-checkout devices, NCR Predictive Services drives greater terminal availability in stores at peak times and can save thousands of hours in downtime, improving store productivity and customer experience.

Sainsbury’s in the UK and a major U.S. grocer are the first retailers to sign up for Predictive Services across POS and self-checkout units. The Sainsbury’s deployment is part of a multi-million dollar managed services renewal that will also see NCR extend its offer to help desk across 1,000 stores and 23 depots.

NCR Predictive Services works through a software agent on each NCR device, which gathers a wide variety of operational data. This data is then analyzed by NCR’s unique business intelligence software and processes that leverage the NCR Services data warehouse, which maintains operational data from more than 2 million consumer points of service and 12 million annual service actions around the world. From this analysis, recommendations are then made for preventive action due to end-of-life or imminent failure of devices and modules. Detailed, advance information on repairs can also be provided, enabling faster resolution, either by on-site technicians or remotely.

For example, the NCR software could identify that a cooling fan in a POS terminal is running slower than it should be. The software would also identify that terminals with this operating condition statistically fail within a certain time period, so an NCR Customer Engineer will be automatically dispatched to change the part at a minimally disruptive time, before the defect causes failure. For service actions that do not require an on-site visit, such as firmware updates, a remote resolution session could be established, where an NCR technician can securely recover and review logs and perform problem resolution activities rapidly.

“The ability to take corrective action before a disruption occurs is a powerful shift in service delivery models and reflective of our commitment to create new value for customers through disruptive software and service innovation,” said Chris Askew, senior vice president of services, NCR. “By extending the benefits of NCR Predictive Services to the point of sale, NCR will help businesses offer an enhanced consumer experience and enable a successful interaction, every time.”

NCR Predictive Services is deployed in thousands of self-checkout lanes and ATMs around the world, helping companies maximize the up-time of critical, customer-facing technologies and enhance the shopping or banking experience for customers. Customers using NCR Predictive Services have seen an increased availability of self-service devices, with a first visit resolution improvement of approximately 14 percent over traditional service models.

NCR Predictive Services is based on NCR’s Interactive Insight™ which is a state of-the-art continuous improvement process to provide consistent, enterprise-wide analytics across products, customers and countries around the world. Leveraging one of the world’s largest databases of services information, NCR can drive quality improvements into new and existing products as well as analyze a customer’s technology environment to proactively optimize their estate.

NCR Predictive Services for POS has received Payment Application Data Security Standards (PA-DSS) acceptance. The PA-DSS is a global security standard created by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) intended to help organizations proactively protect customer account data, through requirements for security management, policies, procedures, network architecture, software design and other critical protective measures.

About NCR Corporation

NCR Corporation (NYSE:NCR) is a global technology company leading how the world connects, interacts and transacts with business. NCR’s assisted- and self-service solutions and comprehensive support services address the needs of retail, financial, travel, hospitality, entertainment, gaming, public sector, telecom carrier and equipment organizations in more than 100 countries. NCR (www.ncr.com) is headquartered in Duluth, Georgia.

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Source: NCR Corporation

NCR Corporation
Mark Scott, 678-808-7721
mark.scott@ncr.com