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Education

Help merchants meet customers' success: their customers. Merchants
listen to the same radio station. Their
changing payment needs customers want to know WIIFM.
MLSs who add this component in-
crease the success and profitability
By Jeff Fortney of their sales efforts. To address this
Touchsuite LLC with a merchant, it's important to un-
derstand the merchant's customers.
n each call, every independent sales agent hears some form of, This requires grasping how the gen-
what's in it for me? I like to say we all listen to radio station WIIFM. eral customer base has changed.
How we answer this question shapes the success of every one of
O us. Many agents default to the cost savings answer: I can save you The customer today is not the cus-
money. All successful MLSs would agree this is the least effective approach. It tomer of 1995. At that time, card ac-
is also likely the wrong answer. ceptance was common and growing,
When an agent asks me how I answer the question, I normally respond that no but it was seen as an alternative to
immediate answer is available. Until you identify the merchant's pain and ask cash. With a few exceptions, termi-
questions, there is no way to know how to respond. nals were used for processing. Mer-
chant pain was the slowness of trans-
Although the approach I just described is still sound, I have come to recognize actions. And customers just wanted
another answer may have equal – or even greater – impact on a merchant. What the ability to pay with a card for sales
if the answer were just two words: increased sales? that exceeded the cash they had on
hand.
Understand today's consumers
By 2006, the consumer base had
Yes, you need to identify the merchant's pain. And yes, cost is a factor in the changed. A survey at the time re-
decision. However, it's all too common to ignore the merchant's true source of vealed that card acceptance was gen-
erational. The younger the consumer,
the lower the cash usage. Eighty-one
percent of consumers from 18 to 34
years of age carried less than $20 at
any given time. This group increased
the demand for card acceptance, and
even small-ticket merchants had to be
able to meet their needs.

Today, with millennials and Genera-
tion Z exerting huge influence in the
marketplace, card acceptance is the
norm, with cash the rare exception.
Consumer shopping options and
habits have changed as well. Online
sellers have captured a share of the
market. Transaction speed and the
ease of processing are now expected.

Understand, too, that many merchant
prospects are in this same demo-
graphic. They have the same buying
habits and want to satisfy their clien-
tele's preferences. Thus, MLSs must
gain a clear working knowledge of
how today's technology can address
the needs of today's customers.

Offer speed and control
So, what's an appropriate answer
when merchants ask what you can
give them to increase sales, customer
satisfaction and repeat sales? The

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