How the Best Credit Card Processing Companies Recruit Talent

It’s getting harder and harder to attract and keep the best talent, especially in the business credit card processing industry. The competition is stiff. New companies are sprouting up every day, and each is working hard to sell themselves as the best place to work for talented agents and merchant level salespeople.

What makes the arena even more competitive is the fact that agents and salespeople play such a pivotal role in determining the success of a business credit card processing company. In many aspects, merchants can have a tough time telling one credit card processing company from another. Consequently, every company fights hard to recruit, cultivate and retain the best salespeople possible.

One way they do this is through bonuses and high splits. This works well, especially for young salespeople who haven’t had time to build their savings accounts. However, experienced agents often choose their partners for other reasons. As they say, money can’t buy happiness.

So here are four tips to recruit and maintain talented agents without resorting to monetary means.

Cultivate a team atmosphere.

Yes, it might be cliche, but it works. If you make your agents, or anyone for that matter, feel like they’re part of the team, they will be happier. So encourage honest and open communication. Make sure everyone knows how their job contributes to the overall effort. These are the first steps in making your company an attractive place to work.

Have a wide array of products and services.

Little could be more frustrating to your agents than having to repeatedly tell potential customers that you just don’t offer what they need. Merchants have a variety of needs, so make sure you offer a variety of products. It’ll make things much easier on your agents.

Update your platforms and systems.

Working with outdated and clunky systems can be a pain, but imagine trying to sell it. It’s no fun. Make sure your platforms and systems are up-to-date. The best credit card processing companies do, and it helps them retain the best salespeople. Make signing merchants easy When your agent has a deal that’s ready to be sealed, make it easy for them do it. Offer fast, easy applications, clear and short underwriting policies and fast merchant approvals. After working hard to make the sale, the last thing your agent wants is a tedious, complicated process for bringing on new merchants.

Those are four tips for recruiting and retaining the top sales talent. Do you use any of them? Do you have your own ways to make sure your agents are happy with their jobs? Let us know.

As a Vice Presicent of Business Development, Terry Nawara’s focus is growing supportive partnerships with ISOs and financial institutions. Terry brings nearly 20 years experience in the merchant services industry -- experience that makes Clearent one of the best credit card processing companies. With an abundance of business credit card processing services, Clearent can provide clients with the necessary tools to really make a difference.

Measuring the ROI of Your Merchant Credit Card Processing Services

To provide the best credit card processing services, you have to identify and address your weaknesses.

Sounds simple, and many ISOs agree that this self-examination is a good idea. But when it comes time to evaluate their merchant credit card processing services, they settle for cursory reviews and come up with unhelpful findings. They don’t delve deep into the details of their business, and consequently, they gain little insight and might say something vague like, “Well, things are going alright, but I guess they could be better.”

Pinpointing areas for improvement takes a detailed examination of your business. Start by evaluating why your portfolio didn’t produce as much income as you thought. There are two primary reasons for lower returns: your practices and those of your credit card processor.

Your Practices
Identify the merchants who you priced below your minimum acceptable price. Then ask why they were priced so low. After all, there may be a good reason why they’re underpriced. For example, maybe you set their rate on a different average ticket than what is the norm for their business today. Or maybe you predicted higher volume. If the reason was a perceived promise of return, examine the merchant’s volume to determine if it panned out. If not, remember to reward merchants after you receive your desired return – not before.

Those of Your Credit Card Processor
Many ISOs don’t consider the practices of their credit card processor when evaluating their merchant credit card processing services. Credit card processors can impact your return more than you might think.

Consider these questions when evaluating your current partner:
1. Can I proof my residuals down to my costs?
If not, you may have a problem, but you’ll have no way of knowing it.

2. I thought my pricing was great when I first signed? But is it really that great?
One area may look great, but other areas like lower splits, high monthly costs and miscellaneous fees may offset it.  

3. Am I getting the support I need?
Your credit card processor should be a good partner, providing advice, supporting you when you need help, and being available to address questions or concerns.

Follow these tips when you evaluate your business and you’ll be on the way to finding your weaknesses and developing the best credit card processing service possible. Did you find these tips helpful? Do you have some of your own? Let us know below.

Jeff Fortney is Vice President of ISO Channel Management at Clearent™. His career includes over 35 years in financial services, with the last 17 focused on the debit and credit card processing industry. Clearent is a valuable partner to many ISOs and agents. If you’re looking to develop the best credit card processing services, Clearent will be sure to give you high quality merchants credit card processing services, competitive pricing and sought-after products and services. 

How to Be Better Merchant Services Providers

No matter their size or industry, merchants should demand excellent customer service from merchant services providers. The best credit card processing companies know this, and do everything they can to ensure that their merchants are taken care of.

Although many companies do offer the kind of topnotch customer service that they claim, some fail at satisfying the consumer. They may think that their customer service is topnotch simply because there is no phone wait time and a building full of representatives in headsets answering calls immediately. Maybe they call their customer service “unmatched” because they have an “advanced troubleshooting program” and the representatives just have to read from a script.

Unfortunately, people don’t like feeling like they are being read to when they should be getting talked to, and people don’t really mind a short wait for a merchant service providers to answer the phone as long as the customer service experience is good. Not to mention that questions that aren’t contained in the computer script may arise during a call.

When something has gone wrong during a customer service call, customers don’t want to be formally addressed by their last name and profusely apologized to. They just want to know that the representative is doing everything he can to solve the problem. They want the customer service representative to show genuine concern for their problem.

The best credit card processing companies know that customer service representatives need to actually care about the problems of the customers. If a representative cares about the concerns of the customers, it will come through in his or her voice, and ultimately reassure the customer. Customer service representatives who care are also much more effective at solving problems because they want to see them resolved. It’s easy for customers to tell if a customer service representative is truly sympathetic to their situation or not.

They don’t want a customer service representative who speaks in a monotone voice or one that constantly uses industry jargon and big words to make them feel inferior. Customers want representatives to talk to them like normal people. Representatives of a merchant service provider can easily fall into industry-speak and forget that customers aren’t experts in their business.

The best credit card processing companies treat customers cordially, respectfully and honestly. Customers who have exceptional customer service experiences are likely to refer others to your credit card processing company just because of that one call.

All merchant service providers could benefit by reevaluating their customer service quality and revamp it where needed.

About the Author

Jeff Fortney is Vice President of ISO Channel Management at Clearent™. His financial services career includes over 35 years, with the last 17 focused on the debit and credit card processing industry. Clearent is one of the best credit card processing companies, providing passionate service that does not go unnoticed. Learn more about what merchant service providers can do for their clients.

Even The Best Credit Card Processing Companies Face Pricing Challenges

As a merchant services provider, you know that at times, it can be difficult to price new merchant accounts, especially with the addition of new association fees. After discussing referral programs with many bankers, a lack of flexibility seemed to be creating the majority of the frustration when it came to pricing these new accounts.

In such a competitive market, flexibility is key when it comes to pricing. It’s necessary to offer many different options. Some of the best credit card processing companies will work diligently toward being able to offer unique pricing based on each individual merchant and their needs. In doing so, they focus on certain characteristics, such as the average ticket size, the size of the merchant and their expected card mix (credit, debit, rewards cards, etc.).

Here are a few areas payment processing agents should be cautious of when pricing new accounts.

Small Ticket Size

Merchants with a ticket size less than $15 are hard to price due in part to the large impact of the transaction fee and the minimal impact of the discount rate – whereas normal ticket sizes have the opposite effect. Also, the range of ticket sizes can affect the percentage of transactions that actually qualify for small ticket interchange rates.

Because of this, it’s much harder to use discount pricing for merchants with small tickets, but unfortunately some providers don’t make pass through pricing an option for their banks. 

Pricing Methods

Due to limitations of some provider’s fee structures, some merchant services programs still only offer one of the two major pricing options. Typically, pricing methods in our industry include discount (tiered) pricing, and interchange plus (pass through) pricing. When deciding which pricing method to choose, many small business owners are looking for payment processing agents that will work with them as a partner and help them find or create the best pricing structure to enhance the success of their business.

The best credit card processing companies will work to find the best option possible for your program – which could include either the discount or interchange pricing method. When only offered one option that might not meet all of their needs, there’s a good chance banks have turn business away. Plus the profitability on certain accounts will take a serious hit.

Looking to the future, I bet we will see more hybrids of discount and interchange plus pricing, like a discount pricing with pass through fees.

Support

Because merchant statements can become confusing, it has become increasingly difficult to offer the right price to merchants. It’s best if a bank can be given the opportunity to call their processing company for advice, although some aren’t given such option. With a good support system, banks will be able to take advantage of more opportunities.

About The Author

 

As a Relationship Manager, Nick Karcher supports both current bank partners as well as those institutions that want to know what makes Clearent a different kind of payment processor. Nick began his career in debit and credit card processing with Electronic Merchant Systems (EMS) as an Account Executive and later started his own Independent Sales Office. Clearent is always working toward being one of the best credit card processing companies thanks to its dedicated staff and many services. Talk to one of Clearent’s payment processing agents about how you can improve your sales.