PayPoint claims Pay Fair protest ‘act of bravado’

Responding to reports after the action on June 30, O’Neill said that there was a “bit of bravado going on”.

“Overall we saw 15 or 16 shops that genuinely did ‘zero’ on their PayPoint terminals for the day. There were a lot of people who said they were switching off but we can see that they didn’t turn off their terminals,” he said.

Speaking to Retail Express, O’Neill said that only one retailer has left PayPoint since the storm over reduced commission caps started nine weeks ago.

The company is planning to make a number of changes, including guaranteeing three visits from reps per year, re-introducing retailer forums, extending the opening hours of its customer contact
centre at weekends, making the number of the centre a lower-charging number, and introducing a range of preferential deals for retailers including cheaper broadband, insurance and energy.

PayPoint’s marketing director, Steve O’Neill

O’Neill accepted that the company has made a number of mistakes in handling the situation.

“The overwhelming feeling is that we’ve lost the human touch as a business. There’s been a lack of humility. We could have handled it a lot better,” he said. “We’re making a long-term commitment to put things in place that will help, talk to people more often,
and show we’re human
beings and not just corporate pawns.

“Are we out of the woods? No. Do we have a job to do to regain trust and rebuild relationships? Absolutely.”