Sheena Wahl is the Front Desk Manager at the Best Western Sunrise Inn & Suites in Stony Plain, Alberta, Canada. The property consists of 110 guest rooms, three banquet rooms, a pool, a fitness center and a variety of other amenities that are regularly enjoyed by large travel groups and families. With a high volume of traffic arriving to and departing from the hotel, Sheena and her team at the Best Western Sunrise Inn & Suites are constantly processing credit card authorizations for a variety of guest types.
“We process a lot of credit card authorizations per month for both corporate clients and individual guests alike,” said Sheena.
Unfortunately, according to the Front Desk Manager, chargebacks and fraud at the hotel were historically a consistent and seemingly unsolvable problem.
“When we used paper forms to process credit card authorizations there was always an element of risk and the process was really cumbersome,” she said. “Sending forms back and forth was overly complicated and whenever a charge was disputed we’d usually lose despite the evidence our team provided. It didn’t matter that we had a paper trail and signatures. Apparently, it wasn’t enough,” she continued.
It was clear to Sheena and the rest of the management team at the Best Western Sunrise Inn & Suites needed a more secure solution for processing credit card payments. But whatever that solution was, it had to be more efficient and user-friendly than the process they traditionally used.
“To ensure fewer issues with payments, the Best Western Sunrise Inn & Suites has a policy that you have to have a valid credit card when you check-in, “said Sheena. “It’s shocking how many people don’t actually have credit cards, so they will get family members, friends or whoever,” she stated.
The check-in process outlined by Sheena required guests to fill out paper forms and provide photocopies of the front and back of their credit card and driver's license. This was a big blocker because many people would want to complete the payment when they were already on their way to the hotel and didn’t have the time or means to complete the authorization forms.
Conveniently, Sheena and the team at the Best Western Sunrise Inn found a solution that improved security and user guest experience in Canary’s comprehensive Digital Authorizations solution.
Sheena stated that the decision to choose Canary’s Digital Authorization solution was immediately clear for a few key reasons.
“When we found out that Canary Technologies was a Best Western Endorsed Vendor, we were fairly certain it was the solution we needed. But upon evaluation, it became abundantly clear that Canary’s Digital Authorizations solution would help us end the problem of chargebacks and fraud,” said Sheena.
Additionally, Sheena and her team saw an opportunity to mitigate liability risks — a constant worry for many hotel operators — by switching to Canary’s PCI Level 1 compliant solution.
Once the decision to deploy Canary was made, it only took Sheena and the team at the Best Western Sunrise Inn & Suites a short amount of time to get Digital Authorizations up and running.
“We were able to replace our paper credit card authorization forms with Canary’s secure digital solution surprisingly quickly,” she said. “Almost overnight, we went from archaic paper authorizations forms with security issues to a modern solution we knew we could trust.”
Sheena reported that both her staff and guests find Canary’s Digital Authorizations incredibly easy to use and more convenient than paper forms. She also noted that Canary’s 24/7 Customer Support has ensured that she has always received prompt responses for any questions.
“I’ve only had to contact the Canary team a few times — mostly for issues on our end — and they’ve been great at getting back to me right away. Five stars,” she stated.
“Our guests love using Digital Authorizations because it’s a more streamlined process than the paper forms we previously used. And our hotel management team loves it because we haven’t experienced any chargebacks or fraud since deploying Canary,” said Sheena. “Canary is easily one of the best technology solutions our property has worked with and we really appreciate all of the value it provides.”
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