A client-focused approach and close attention to evolving student behaviors drives TouchNet’s product innovation. This is what Melissa Medeiros, the company’s Director of Product Management, describes in this episode of CampusIDNews Chats.

Today’s students increasingly prefer self-service options, enabling them to complete tasks anytime, anywhere. She says this trend is only growing, and TouchNet is responding by offering solutions like chatbots, self-service card replacement with photo uploads, and kiosks for quick dining or mobile order pick-up.

Students are desiring more self-service, so they’re looking for ways that they can get things done and solve problems anyplace at any time.

As part of Global Payments, a Fortune 500 company, TouchNet leverages technologies from its affiliated companies to rapidly bring innovations like kiosks and mobile ordering to clients. The open nature of the company’s OneCard platform allows integration with hundreds of third-party partners, ensuring campuses can choose the right mix of solutions for their needs.

She notes that as institutions face staffing shortages and the loss of “tribal knowledge” due to the Great Resignation, efficiency is critical. Her team focuses on enabling automation – whether through integrated systems or streamlined processes – to help campuses “do more with less.”

By prioritizing self-service, mobile-first access, and flexible integration, TouchNet aims to create technology that works seamlessly for both institutions and the students they serve.

To watch the full interview, click the image at the top of this page.

TRANSCRIPT

Hi, thanks for having me. I'm Melissa Medeiros. I am from TouchNet, and I am in a product management role there. I work with a wonderful team of product managers that deal with all of our application-based systems that interact with our customers and our students today.

I have the esteem of being able to work with not only all of our clients today, but having the engagement of our team members who have that innovative technology behind them.

Holistically, there's a couple things that resonate with us in product technology and innovation that allow us to further this ship.

One of those is that students are desiring more self-service, so they're looking for ways that they can get things done and solve problems anyplace at any time.

One of the ways that we help campuses through that is thinking about chatbots, where students can log in and actually walk through helping themselves to solve situations.

A lot of clients today are saying, you’ve got to do more with less… identifying ways to streamline or automate is significant to campuses right now.

Or things like self-service. They lost their card and they want a new card, uploading photos so that they can do that all on their own time and offer that up in the availability that they have.

In addition to that, a lot of self-serve kiosks when you're thinking about the dining or mobile order ahead, things that are grab-and-go, anything that they can do that's quick and convenient on their own time and available for them, they're looking for that.

They don’t necessarily want the people-to-people engagement, it is really about convenience and timing for them.

Another area that we've seen from a trend perspective is that mobile piece of it.

If I think about an experience that a lot of students have is they leave that physical card sitting in the residence hall when they head out for a class or they're heading down to grab a meal.

They've lost that control of access or being able to pick up that meal easily, which creates some churn for someone who has to do some verification or manually enter in information.

The great thing about having it in a mobile wallet is that students typically don't leave these behind. They're kind of their extension of them.

So having it in the lock in a mobile wallet allows for definitely additional alignment and ease for students to be able to have those available when they need it, where they need it.

At TouchNet, we are always looking for innovative ways to help our clients with the challenges that they're seeing. I call it buzz word, but it's really truly inherent to what we do, and that's the platform-centric approach.

That comes in all shapes and sizes in regards to how our customers are able to engage with that, whether that's a mobile app and students can engage with it by seeing declining balances, being able to do check-ins, event planning, or looking at their meal plans that they're set up for, being able to do access management through that.

That's one way.

Other ways that we see that today is in the power of Global Payments, our parent company, with other companies that are affiliates. We leverage them adding additional innovative technologies like self-kiosk services, mobile order ahead, and other solutions that are out there today that are just that step forward in innovation.

Because TouchNet is an open platform, the great thing about OneCard is that it allows for integration with additional partners, so you can truly right-size for your campus and the solutions that you need.

If there's other partners that seem to be a more viable solution for you, you definitely have that opportunity, and we are constantly looking at additional partners that really help from an automation perspective.

I know a lot of clients today are saying, you've got to do more with less, and that's kind of the theme that's been running for quite some time now, and with the great resignation, and lots of tribal knowledge is being lost.

And so identifying ways to really streamline or automate those is significant to those campuses that are losing some of that knowledge and need to find faster or better ways to do this.

So that is really how TouchNet tries to bring solutions to market for customers hand-in-hand so that we can help them through that process, not be a roadblock for them.

How this really impacts me personally is that I do believe that innovation drives behavior, and behavior drives innovation.

When we look at building solutions, we are truly looking at what those behaviors are today, and understanding forward thinking on how do we continue to help drive those behaviors that campuses are looking for, much like I talked about with streamlining processes and trying to identify how to get lean on campus without making an impact on the students.

I have a personal bias to action, so I love executing on the strategy that helps drive this, and I genuinely love being in this industry, where they are driving change to attract and retain students for the next generation to be better, so I personally am invested in this.

TouchNet is available for information online and additional resources. You can certainly explore some of our webinars that are out there as well as blogs and other resources that we have on touchnet.com. Please feel free to visit us in areas where you can contact us if you're looking for a demo.