Tell me a little about your background and why you opened CWW.
My stepfather opened it back in ‘94. He had a friend who drove a semi-truck says to him, “Hey Charlie, come for a ride. Let's see what you got.” The moment he put his hand on the shifter, he just fell in love with it. He slowly worked his way up through the ranks and after 11 years, he wanted to settle down due to his two young children. He was an instructor at first, but he quickly fell in love with the job and helping other people. He loved giving to others and after a couple of different instructor positions, he saved up enough money to buy a single Class B truck, and started his small school by teaching three students at a time in a little six acre lot he leased out. It’s been a labor of love ever since. We continue his vision of putting the student first, always making sure they have the best foundation to succeed. We’ve even created the first hearing-impaired CDL testing in the state of Colorado, that’s how dedicated we are. It was one of the main reasons we decided to partner with Mia Share, because we aligned in our values.
What was your experience managing payments prior to Mia Share?
Prior to Mia Share, we were using credit card machines from different companies, and as I’m sure you know, credit merchants rip you off. We were paying up to a 7.5% processing fee for some of our transactions. They also charge you monthly fees on top of that to keep the machine in use. We also partnered with a loan company back then, where the students were getting slaughtered with interest rates between 18-29%, which is outrageous. It was always a last resort, and we knew we had to change gears. We started looking at all our options, but the more we looked into Mia Share, the more we realized it was a perfect fit for us. Not only because you guys offered the right terms, but everybody was easy to talk to and our goals for students were a complete fit. From there, it was as simple as building the programs exactly as it would fit best for our school.
“The amount of changes and tweaks we collaborated on so our program would fit us better made it really work for us. The level of customization was just amazing for us compared to what we were used to.”
How has Smart Invoicing affected your payment process?
We started using it the last couple of months now, and if you wanna know the truth, we were on the phone today getting rid of all our card merchants. Smart Invoicing is easy and very intuitive. The platform you guys have built is phenomenal. You type in the person's information, how much money and what is what they're being charged for, hit send, and it goes directly to their email. Then the student has options for paying like ACH, card, Apple Pay, I mean it makes it so simple on the student too. It's streamlined our processes and it has made things easier for us now that it's all in one place. Instead of having different entities, it's a one-stop shop.
How has Smart-Invoicing factored into your overall metrics and goals?
The dashboard projections and analytics helps us with meeting goals and tracking our metrics. I can look at what I'm receiving that month and it allows us to budget ourselves accordingly. Having that knowledge right there and being able to see the projections has helped with our finances. We know where we’re at for this month and the further out you go, the more those numbers are going to go up.
How has your team implemented Smart-Invoicing and has it affected team productivity?
It just made it much simpler for us. Instead of answering the phone, walking out to the card reader, and typing it in, we can type it into the computer and hit a single button. It’s increased our efficiency and saves time for us. We don’t have to sit there and review that the money went through, or if there was a chargeback, because Mia Share handles that for us. The biggest win is the automatic receipt at the end. Students receive an instant confirmation and email receipt once they’ve made their payments. Previously we would take the receipt printed from the card merchant, scan it into the computer, save the file, and email the receipt to the person. It's one of those things where you don't think about what it does, and how much time it really takes, but overall it has a substantial impact.