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Case Study: PAR® Pay
Maya Cinemas Enhances Transaction Times and Customer Experiences with PAR® Pay
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“What we get out of PAR is a vendor that is future thinking and always looking at new innovations as well as the experience to expertly answer all of our questions and concerns. PAR has been a great partner. They always follow up and follow through."

James Mullins, Maya Cinemas Director of Information Technology

Tech Challenges

  • Obsolete, legacy tech stack
  • Limited customer payment options
  • Lacking unified and consolidated reporting

Tech Integrations and Solutions

  • PAR Pay, an all-in-one payment processing service
  • PAR’s end-to-end software/ hardware offerings with the Ingenico Lane 3K

Maya Cinemas is a quickly expanding brand of megaplex movie theaters that are serving as cornerstones within a growing group of community revitalization projects. With 6 locations across California and Nevada as well as plans for expansion, choosing the right technology partners is a crucial aspect of the brand’s long-term success. However, Maya Cinemas previous payment processing partner was proving to perform below expectations, ultimately creating more challenges than actually solving them.

“The issues that we were experiencing with our previous payment processing partner is that they just were not a great partner,” says James Mullins, Maya Cinemas Director of Information Technology. “They started out as a good partner when they were smaller, but as they grew larger, they began to ignore us. Once we lost our account manager, we lost that personal interaction between them and our representatives. We had a tremendous amount of customer service issues and we really wanted to further the advancement of our technology footprint.”

Being able to be on the forefront of technologies and integrations that allows us to serve guests faster and more conveniently creates a mental model for the guests that says, ‘that was a much better experience.

James Mullins, Maya Cinemas Director of Information Technology

It was at this point when James Mullins and Maya Cinemas said enough is enough and determined it was time for a change. According to Mullins, what they were looking for in a new solution and partner was an organization they could easily contact to resolve technical issues quickly, clearly, and effectively. “We were really striving for openness in communication, mutual respect, and an easy transition,” he says. 

As part of a system-wide payments processing upgrade, Maya Cinemas was seeking a single payments partner that provides a streamlined underwriting and approval process, frictionless onboarding, competitive pricing, and centralized support that substantially improves the payments experience for their guests. They selected PAR® Technology to provide them with PAR Pay, an all-in-one payment processing service, across all of their locations. PAR’s end-to-end software/hardware offerings and commitment to improving the guest experience made Maya Cinemas selection an obvious choice. “What we get out of PAR is a vendor that is future thinking and always looking at new innovations as well as the experience to expertly answer our questions and concerns,” says Mullins. “PAR has been a great partner. They always follow up and follow through.”

The new partnership with PAR Technology and the addition of PAR Pay has enabled Maya Cinemas to enhance customer experiences by leveraging Apple Pay and tap-to-pay, features that they previously were not able to provide their customers with their legacy payment processing solution. “Having Apple Pay and tap-to-pay really changed the guest dynamic for us,” says Mullins. From a consumer’s perspective, convenience and ease of use are key factors for an enjoyable and memorable experience, right down to the way they make payments. “Being able to be on the forefront of technologies and integrations that allows us to serve guests faster and more conveniently creates a mental model for the guests that says, ‘that was a much better experience’. It was faster, it was cleaner, and we have every method of payment available for them.”

Maya Cinemas offers its guests a differentiated entertainment approach to its communities by featuring both mainstream Hollywood releases and additional programming that is carefully researched, selected, and tailored to the local community. The implementation of PAR Pay allows the company to receive a unified view of payment transactions, providing insightful analytics and administrative capabilities that include reports of settlements, reconciliation, and more. Maya Cinemas is already experiencing the benefits of its new partnership with PAR Technology as well as its new payment processing services. “The response time in terms of the payments is faster and the failure rate is lower. When it does fail, the recovery rate is faster. All of these factors help us improve transaction times,” explains Mullins. “When the payment system works well, quickly, conveniently, and accepts everything you expect it to, that creates an overall better experience for the customer.”

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Tiffany Disher, General Manager, MENU North America

Tiffany Disher

General Manager, MENU North America

Tiffany Disher, General Manager, MENU North America, an omni-channel ordering solution to futureproof restaurant’s growing digital sales needs. Before taking on this new role in January 2023, she was an integral part of Punchh’s growth story. She has advised hundreds of customers over the past eight years on their loyalty strategies both from a base program standpoint as well as ongoing marketing strategies. Before Punchh, Tiffany worked for Schlotzsky’s where she supported the brand marketing team by leading loyalty, eClub, R&D, Franchise advisory council and marketing analytics. Tiffany has her Bachelor’s of Science in Economics from University of Oregon and Master’s in Business with a specialty in Marketing from Baylor University. An avid golfer, hiker and mom of two small children, Tiffany spends her limited free time entering into baking competitions.