One on One 8274
March 1, 2001
One on One
With Dennis Hall
DennisHall, executive vice president for Payment Service Network Inc. (PSN), is aformer elected official and former chief lobbyist for several cities inWisconsin, where he worked on tobacco-settlement funding. He was one of thefirst civilians to re-enter Kuwait after its liberation from Iraqi forces in the1991 Persian Gulf War, and his work there landed him on the front page of TheWall Street Journal. He was recruited by Madison, Wis.-based PSN soon afterits January 2000 launch to handle all external operations for the company,including its RentToPay.com online rent-payment service. Inside Self-Storagerecently met with Mr. Hall to reflect on the benefits of online services toself-storage businesses...
How did the idea for RentToPay.com come about?
The idea actually started because the founder, Norman Ehiorobo, didn't havetime to spend writing out checks and going to the post office. His background isprogramming, and he got the idea about a year and a half ago to make it easierfor himself to pay bills online. Necessity was the mother of invention in thiscase, and it was fortuitous because that's the direction the economy is going.
Your product seems to be applicable to any number of different industries.Are you taking a particular market approach toward self-storage?
The storage industry is our primary discipline. At this point, we'reexhibiting at tradeshows and doing some print advertising. News of us is alsotraveling by word-of-mouth. Certainly, tradeshows are working very well--it'sthat personal, one-on-one contact that we like, and it really solidifies ourposition. We've received a number of calls from our magazine advertising aswell.
Exactly what services are provided to self- storage operators andcustomers who utilize RentToPay.com?
The features for property managers are really unique in the industry acrossthe board. Not only do we provide the mechanism for them to receive paymentsseamlessly by credit card or check, but it also provides an archived history ofeach renter, and managers can manipulate that information however they like. Ifthey want to find out what payments have been made within a certain span oftime--whether it's a week, a month or a quarter--they can easily go in and findthat information. They can determine who paid by credit card, who paid by check,and how long they've been paying. It's very convenient for them to do that. And,typically, in this industry it costs between 80 cents and $1.40 to mail out abill, so this is much more convenient.
On the renter side, the convenience is that it allows them--whether they'reat work or at home--to avoid going to the mailbox or post office. Because I,myself, rent storage space, I know that it's really inconvenient to drive overto where the storage unit is and drop off my check, because I'm continually lateand I hate to do mailings. This service was a blessing. It's very convenient forme, because I don't have to do anything extra. I'm already at work, and I canformulate my bill and send it in about a minute, and it's paid--I don't have toworry about it. For me, personally, it works well, and it's working very wellfor customers across the country. The renter also has an archive of payments,and has the ability to download a receipt. So he's got all of that justificationat his fingertips. Wherever he's at in the world, he can pay his rent.
How do you assure users of your online system that their transactions aresecure?
Security was Norman's biggest focus. Everyone who offers online credit-cardtransactions uses a security system called socket-layer technology. Thedifference in ours is that we've taken an extra step and double-encrypted oursystem. Even if some hacker wanted to penetrate that socket-layer system, theonly thing he would get is random letters and numbers. He wouldn't be able todecipher any credit-card numbers, names, regions or anything else. We'reextremely confident in our system.
Where do you envision RentTo Pay.com being positioned, say, five yearsfrom now?
Our ultimate goal is that the service be free to all users, that eventuallythere won't be a convenience fee for anybody. The more operator users we have onboard, the more we can scale back the convenience fee for the consumer. We'reprobably going to see the first reduction of that fee coming in the next month.
We're constantly refining our site; in fact, we now have a brand-new siteonline, so users will see a new, updated version that will be even simpler touse.
For more information, visit www.renttopay.comor www.paymentservicenetwork.com.
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