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Education

• Claiming three or more online business listings cor- If you had to select the single,
relates with a 78 percent jump in merchant revenue.
highest-ROI, lowest-lift task to encourage
• The average local merchant in the study processed merchants to do that correlates with
just over $301,000 annually. However, merchants who higher processing volume and residuals, it
claimed none of their online listings brought in just
$228,000 – 24 percent less than average. would be to claim all their relevant online
listings. The process takes mere minutes,
• But merchants who claimed two of their online busi-
ness listings processed nearly $341,000 annually, and the benefits are many and varied.
and those claiming three or more listings processed
$408,000. That's 35 percent more than the average
business in the study, and a whopping 78 percent reviews if they haven't. You'll find an up-to-date list of 25
more than businesses that had claimed no listings. free business listing websites every small or local business
should be on here: www.womply.com/blog/25-free-listing-
Money on the table websites-every-small-business/. Merchants, processors,
ISOs and MLSs will all reap the benefits.
One of the primary reasons you should encourage mer-
chants to claim their listings is that it allows them to re-
spond to their online reviews. Why is this important to rev- Peter Shenk is vice president of partnerships at Womply, a leading soft-
enue and residuals? Let's have a look: ware partner to the payments industry and the top provider of front-office
software to small businesses. Contact him at pshenk@womply.com. For
• Merchants who regularly respond to online reviews more surprising insights and vertical-specific data broken down by state,
process up to 49 percent more annual revenue. you can access Womply's full How online reviews impact small business
revenue report at www.womply.com/impact-of-online-reviews-on-
• According to the study, businesses that respond to re- small-business-revenue/.
views at least 25 percent of the time earn 35 percent
more annual revenue than average, and 49 percent
more revenue than those who don't respond to any
of their reviews. Snapshot of Up Coming Events

• Despite this, among businesses in Womply's study,
75 percent don't respond to any online reviews,
and roughly 25 percent haven't claimed a single
online listing.

You can go over these numbers with merchants and
assure them that ignoring their online review listings
is akin to leaving a big bag of money on the table every
year. September 18 - 19, 2019
Multiple upsides, minimal time OMNI Rancho Las Palmas Resort
Palm Springs, CA
Certainly, correlation doesn't equal causation, and https://westernstatesacquirers.net/
there are likely multiple factors at play here. Merchants
who claim more of their business profiles may be
more likely to recognize the value of a strong online
presence, and may also work to get and respond to
more reviews – or may simply be more responsive
to customers' complaints. And busy, successful
merchants who process many more transactions than
average may also naturally receive a greater number
of reviews.

However, the correlation between claiming these October 15 - 17, 2019
online review profiles and increased transaction Planet Hollywood
revenue is strong, and there are only upsides for Las Vegas, NV
merchants who do so. https://www.natmc.org/nac2019-
attendee-registration.html
So, take a few minutes to urge merchants to claim all
of their online listings and to start responding to their

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