referrals/state of the payment processing industry

Because of my long hours and the fact that almost 100% of my accounts come from client referrals I am very proud of the service I give my clients. This is because I am involved in an industry which unfortunately often still resembles used car sales as far as reputation and rightly so. However that eventually works to our favor as we demonstrate to our merchants and prospects that we are a beacon of honesty, great customer service and true fair pricing in an otherwise tarnished industry which I’m sure that you have gotten a taste of firsthand.

The reasons date back to the original days of cc processing when no or very little residuals were paid on a merchant account to the ISO and rep after it was opened. So the only way a rep could make money was to get a new account bonus and sell or even worse do a lease/purchase equipment at vastly inflated prices. Even though the opportunity now exists to make a marvelous six figure annual residual stream most ISO’s, acquirers and banks have not outgrown that mindset as their typical “training” is a day of hard sell, hard close instruction and then they release the new rep with instructions to haunt restaurants and shopping malls. Consequently the average rep quits in six months or less.

Because of my long hours and the fact that almost 100% of my accounts come from client referrals I am very proud of the service I give my clients. This is because I am involved in an industry were unfortunately almost 100% of my competitors quote rates that if true would be under water so consequently they quote you a teaser rate and than proceed to downgrade all of your rewards, business and corporate cards to a higher rate. In addition they charge hidden fees, annual fees, etc. I’m in the industry and sometimes it takes me awhile to properly interpret a statement. Also there are currently about 200 different types of cards which all carry their own rates so we have to make sure that although we give our merchants the best rate possible we also have to make sure we won’t lose money on an account. And of course with us you have 24/7 Level 2 support without having to hit multiple prompts and get put on permahold just to talk to an inexperienced “customer service” rep. The average firm in our industry loses 35% of their merchants per year. Matrix loses less than 1/10 of one percent so there must be a reason for that.

Recently talking with two of our acquirers we asked how many of their ISO’s concentrate on not having their merchants suffer transactions that downgrade to a higher rate. One that has over 1,000 ISO’s said just one-us. The other one has 298 ISO’s and they said two.

Also feel free to go to my website http://paymentconsulting.net/ and be sure to check out http://chicago.citysearch.com/profile/44659273/barrington_il/matrix_payment_systems.html