The Educated Sales Rep
Throughout my 2 years working in this industry, I have noticed a few common threads that have remained unchanged over the years: Merchants do not WANT to accept credit cards, and furthermore, don’t have TIME to spend researching processing companies. They want a quick fix and easy fix. But I have seen this industry change more rapidly in the past 3 years than any other industry, and merchants are having a hard time keeping up.
By the time a merchant calls in to Merchant Warehouse, chances are he/she has spoken with 2-3 credit card processing companies and has been told 2-3 completely different things. Most of the time, it seems like competitors will throw a lot of numbers and “deals” at the merchant without backing any of it up with facts or statistics. These competitors only know how to “sell” but know nothing of the merchant account industry itself. By the time the merchant gets to me, he/she is more scared to accept credit cards than ever before.
On a typical incoming sales call, the merchant arrives already frustrated, confused, and extremely guarded. Luckily, when I started working for Merchant Warehouse, I spent 8 full weeks in training before I ever touched a phone, and every Friday morning the Sales Team gathers for a weekly meeting with the Executives to discuss industry changes. – This IS an extremely competitive industry, and as Merchant Warehouse reps, we are required to know what we are selling, and who we are selling to.
I am able to educate the merchants who come to me knowing nothing about any of this “credit card stuff” and I have found that there are very few questions I can’t answer – even for the most educated merchant! One would be surprised at how many merchants I’ve talked to who say, “Oh, I never knew THAT” “Thank you for telling me that; the other guy I talked to never brought that up.” “No, he didn’t explain this to me; I totally get it now!” The call ends with a happy, educated merchant who, 99% of the time will come back and set their account up with me.
The best part about feeling knowledgeable is that I get to relax when I’m on the phone with a merchant. Then they, in turn, also feel relaxed, and pretty soon we’re debating about who’s going to clinch the division title this year… (That’s baseball for you non-sports fans!)
Erin Leddy – Account Executive
Merchant Warehouse Ready To Help Solve the World’s Blog Shortage.
This blog stinks. At least it did until now. Starting today, we will be posting the real stuff. The insight into the mysterious world of credit card processing and merchant accounts that we think is lacking from any other blog.
We will have key employees from every major department of our in-house team posting about the issues they run into every day during their jobs here at Merchant Warehouse. They promise to be insightful, honest and if we can help it, interesting and educational.
Expect to hear about what we are seeing in the merchant services industry and what credit card machines are new to the market. We will share stories of success and also areas where we think we need to get better. In other words, the day to day life working for a merchant account provider as written by the best employees in the industry.
We hope you enjoy and please let us know if you have any feedback or suggestions for topics.
RIS Online Announces the Release of Merchant Warehouse’s BINsmart Interchange Manager
On August 7, 2008, RIS Online announced that Merchant Warehouse released a new tool to help small and mid-sized merchants reduce their overall processing costs.
The solution, called the BINsmart Interchange Manager, allows retailers to identify card type (credit, debit, or corporate card) at the swipe by reading the first 6 digits (called the Bank Identification Number, or “BIN”).
Transaction World Magazine Talks to Merchant Warehouse President, Henry Helgeson
In the August, 2008 issue of Transaction World, Jim Romeo looks into the effects of electronic payment systems and Interchange fees on the current state of the U.S. economy. Henry Helgeson, President and Co-CEO of Merchant Warehouse, discusses the potential affect of the Credit Card Fair Fee Act of 2008 and how important it is to capture the attention of legislators and educate them on the how interchange fees are established.
Beverage Media Group Introduces MerchantWARE by Merchant Warehouse
In the August, 2008 edition of Beverage Media Group, Ian Griffith discusses the rise of credit card fraud over the past three years in the U.S. and how compliance with PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) can help. PCI DSS represents a methodology with 12 requirements to help increase card data protection.
Although very few wine stores process over 6 million credit card transactions per year, stores below this threshold qualify for conducting a self-assessment questionnaire along with a quarterly network scan conducted by a third party.
Henry Helgeson discusses a new product released by Merchant Warehouse called “MerchantWARE“, which encrypts card information at the point of swipe.