Differentiation—setting your company apart from the crowd—has become more than a business strategy for many ISOs. It can be a matter of survival. For those enterprises, the question is not whether they can find a way to market their services on something more than the price of card processing, but how to do it.
Offering merchants additional products and services that add value to the processing agreement is one approach that has paid off handsomely for some ISOs by bringing in new business and giving merchants a reason to think twice about jumping to competitors. For those who want to follow suit, finding successful strategies to emulate isn’t difficult.
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Build A Better Sales Force |
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When a sales agent for an ISO walks in the door of a merchant prospect, more than another potential sale is on the line. Because sales agents are the first and often only point of contact with a merchant, what they say and do reflects on the ISO they represent. With so much at stake, it’s absolutely critical that ISOs both hire well and provide the training to ensure each new agent is knowledgeable about the products and services he’s selling, and behaves responsibly and ethically during and after the sale.
Sales agent training, in fact, is the ISO’s first line of defense against disgruntled customers, missed opportunities and even legal or financial risk.
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Vertical Markets: The Case for Mobile |
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Whether already mature or just emerging, mobile payments bring transactions closer to consumers and allow merchants to provide enhanced service, fostering lasting customer relationships and bolstering the bottom line. But mobile payments also alter the way ISOs deal with their end-user customers.
“The current mobile payment landscape is entirely different than it was a short time ago,” says Barry McCarthy, president of mobile commerce solutions for First Data Corp. “ISOs that truly want to differentiate themselves will need to step up the service they provide to merchants, in terms of programs and training alike.”
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Data Security: Hannaford School of Hard Knocks |
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News of stolen or compromised consumer data seems to break so often, it’s easy to overlook the implications on the electronic payments industry. Yet the Hannaford case stands out from others because the Scarborough, Maine-based supermarket chain’s breach appears to represent a new line of attack: the first large-scale piracy of card data while the information was in transit. And, more important to payments professionals, this theft of up to 4.2 million credit and debit card numbers marks the first time a PCI-compliant company was compromised.
“Thieves commonly pilfer payment card data sitting in databases maintained by merchants or card processors because it’s low-hanging fruit,” says Neil Weicher, president of NetLib, a database encryption software developer in Stamford, Connecticut. “It takes a high level of technical skill to write programs that can intercept data in transit.”
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ISO Corner: Lead Generation |
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Cold calling has been the bane of existence for prospecting sales professionals—until now. Technological
advances have revolutionized lead generation, and successful ISOs are getting in on the action.
Forward-thinking companies are utilizing resources that didn’t exist when the electronic payments industry started. For example, when Certegy Check Services Inc. explored different ways to obtain prospecting information, it turned to an existing relationship with Dun & Bradstreet for guidance. The company, which
previously provided Certegy with credit scores for its merchants, helped it create an innovative product called Private Data Portal.
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