Page 24 - GS180201

Education

StreetSmarts SM

Steve Feldshuh

“Talk To Steve”

Easy ways to care for your 'besties'

By Steven Feldshuh down. It is expensive to do this, but I have found a lot of
Merchants' Choice Payment Solutions East merchants have left their processors because they had a
problem processing and lost business as a result.
ll of us who have been in the business for a
while have at least 10 "besties." In this context, If a merchant has a POS system, with software, you need
the term refers to the 10 accounts we cannot to do two things: give the business a back-up terminal,
A afford to lose. Maybe the number for you is 20, since POS systems do go down, and make friends with
or even more, but you get the idea. the POS company's representatives to make sure they
don't play games and switch out the processing to another
Every account that brings in a residual payment is company the POS provider works with.
important, but there are always those special businesses
you don't want to ever lose. Some may give you great What does that mean? Send the contact person for the POS
referrals or allow you to try out new technologies at company a small gift with a thank-you card. Have any of
their locations. Some may have become more than you ever done that? Do you realize merchants using POS
acquaintances or are among your favorite shopping systems typically stay on board a lot longer than those
destinations. Some may make you a significant amount using only terminals? Doesn't it make sense to make a
of money or just be an influential member of a business friend at the POS company? There are good reasons to do
association or community organization that is important this: potential referrals, and most important, if something
to you. goes wrong, the POS company won't be that quick to
blame you, the processor, for causing the issue.
When you sign new accounts, you don't really know how Personalized outreach
these businesses will do. It is hard to predict the future,
but you do know that taking care of them is of the utmost OK, lets' get back to our besties. Let's say you have a limited
importance. You start off by either placing with or selling budget but want to be remembered by your besties, so you
each merchant a new terminal or POS system. visit these businesses every couple of months. Would it be
fair to invest $100 total each quarter back into these top 10
Gold in your hands
customers? I will leave it up to you to decide, but this is
Then, once you realize you have gold in your hands what I do, and I suggest you start to do this immediately.
with some of these accounts, you start to think, how
can I insure I can keep them for a long time? The first The first thing I would do is set up an email program that
thing I do is invest in a back-up processing system. If a will enable you to send out messages not only to your
merchant is using a countertop terminal, I want to be sure besties, but also to all your clients. The messages can be
the business has a back-up unit in case the terminal goes updates pertaining to new products, pricing, cash advance

24