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Helgeson noted that as the industry matured, acquirers Retain relationship managers
became more focused on net promoter score (NPS), the
index used to measure customer approval rankings and Retention specialists, assigned to specific accounts and
their willingness to endorse a service provider. "At Cayan, territories, have been a mainstay of merchant services.
we live, breathe and die by these numbers and constantly Austin and others have seen positions eliminated in
question how we can improve," he said. "Eighty percent of recent years. "Some super ISOs have replaced relationship
our calls are answered in 20 seconds or less. Our tactical managers with toll-free numbers," Austin said. "MLSs
staff measures performance and monitors 5 percent of who call a help desk pool may get different answers
calls." from different representatives; some will only speak
to merchants, but merchants are busy running their
businesses and depend on MLSs for support."
Building trusted relationships begins and ends with
service, Helgeson added. "If a merchant isn't happy with
a $10,000 POS system, you could lose a channel partner Gary Rutledge, President of International Bancard Corp.,
relationship," he said. His focus on service led to rebranding added, "Super ISOs serve two masters, our sales partners
the company formerly known as Merchant Warehouse to and our merchants. Both are equally important; taking
Cayan, an effort Helgeson said was more than a name care of them requires two completely different skill
change. "We migrated our call center to Belfast, a friendly sets." MLSs do not have to track down key individuals
place with highly trained personnel who excel in attrition in different departments, Rutledge noted. "Their liaison
management and independent software vendor [ISV] representatives do that for them, by driving service issues
retention," he said. "Partners still tell us, 'You guys are so through the system," he said.
much better than Merchant Warehouse.'"

Cultivate ISVs Cowart stated that Worldpay's relationship managers
view themselves as "extensions of the ISOs they serve,
Michael Cowart, Vice President and General Manager at escalating, advocating and answering calls on behalf of
Worldpay US Inc., called ISVs the new ISOs of the 21st XYZ ISO. It may sound corny but sometimes it comes
century. He said payments are just part of the innovative down to picking up the phone."
solutions these entrepreneurs bring to market. "They
know hardware and software, and they're learning how
to sell merchant services," Cowart said. "They tend to Allan Lacoste became Director of ISO at Total Merchant
specialize in boutique verticals." He provided examples Services Inc. in March 2016. A former ISO owner, Lacoste
of nail salons that assign merchant identification numbers is familiar with many challenges confronting super ISOs
to each independent contractor and doctors' offices that and channel partners. "Our in-house retention team
receive 90 percent of payments from insurance companies is very sales oriented and knows how to save deals," he
and 10 percent from patient co-pays and deductibles. said. "Our CPP-certified Partner Support team takes care
of partners, with multiple solutions including EMV, NFC
and high-end integrated POS."
"Worldpay's Solutions Consulting Team works with ISVs to
determine their needs and assist with credit, debit, virtual
terminal and recurring billing solutions," he stated. "ISVs TMS helps partners migrate merchant portfolios from
are skilled in technology and tend to focus on how to get countertop terminals to intelligent, integrated POS systems,
payments from their systems to Worldpay." Lacoste added. "Instead of trying to make older MLSs into
POS experts, our in-house team trains merchants," he
said. "Letting partners leverage our capabilities gets us
Kevin Sisk, Senior Vice President, Partner Solutions at First closer to our shared goal of getting more transactions and
Data Corp., said, "Over the years First Data has followed generating more revenue."
the movement of technology from countertop terminals
to integrated solutions, software verticals and ISVs. In the Improve alerts, tracking
end, if you're not partnering, you'll be iced over in this
business." Sisk said ISVs want modern technology and a Austin believes sub-ISOs need to be alerted when
friendly face, and First Data is committed to delivering. merchants experience phone line or processor outages.
Making it easy for ISVs helps them make it easy for "An alert system that sends out tweets or emails would
their customers and partners. "We view our partners as keep downstreams in the loop and help them manage
franchise owners, and help them price, sell and deploy expectations," she said.
merchant solutions," he added. "Our internal culture is
wrapped around the franchise model. Being big isn't the
goal; being excellent is the goal." Dimitri Akhrin, a former ISO, is founder and President
of Integrated Reporting is Simple LLC, a customer
relationship management (CRM) platform designed to

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