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CoverStory
our team members around, so they all have well over the recom- Most of our retail and restaurants received
mended social distancing guidelines. We truly never had to balance this offer and were very appreciative.
safety versus economic recovery because we were able to move our
salespeople out immediately to work out of their homes. 3. Elite Merchant Solutions has been in busi-
ness for over 18 years, and it is our strong
Fortunately, we have the technology and systems that allowed for a belief that you must give back to the commu-
seamless transition. One thing I found interesting was most of our nities and those that are less fortunate. Elite
team wanted to come back into the office rather than work from partnered with an organization a personal
home. We had several calls related to returning to the office so we friend of mine runs to feed the homeless. We
could gauge everyone's comfortability, and the response was over- stepped up our donations during this difficult
whelmingly wanting to come back, especially with all the safety mea- time, not just monetarily but actually helping
sures we had in place. feed the homeless. It is one thing to just write
a check and that helps, but it is entirely dif-
2. We did several things for our merchants to help during this diffi- ferent to go down and deliver the food and
cult time; however, I will list the two most substantial offerings. The serve those who are in need. I was pleased
first thing we decided to do was offer a contactless payment option at that some of our team felt comfortable doing
no charge for those merchants that did not have one already. The sec- this given the fear of COVID-19.
ond thing we did was offer pass-through pricing with zero markups
in any category for 60 days and, in some cases, 90 days. We did not do 4. COVID-19 was a big wake-up call for every-
this for all merchants due to the fact that many merchants were not one in the world. Nobody was prepared for
nearly as affected by COVID-19, and some merchants actually saw something like this with all the shutdowns
their business increase. and mandates bestowed upon us. Restau-
rants, retailers, airlines and hotels, to name a
few that were thriving by an extremely robust
economy, were brought to their knees in many
cases and are still in serious trouble. Some say
the world will never be the same as we knew
it prior to COVID-19, but that is debatable.
One thing for certain is businesses like ours
need to be prepared for things that are out
of our control and come upon us out of no-
where, such as a pandemic. Most business
owners understand there are times when the
Our ISO Exclusive low cost Bill&Pay economy is booming and other times when
the economy is in recession. It is not a matter
electronic invoicing pricing
& ISV Robust, cost effective of if each will happen, but rather when. When
something like the current pandemic comes
i3 Transafe gateway with
into play which none of us have experienced
Partners Multiple pricing options including to this magnitude in our lifetime, we realize
seamless integration
life can change on a dime, so to speak.
Enjoy Complimentary statement I believe companies now more than ever will
surcharging and flat rate
analysis be more cautious and maintain heavier cash
reserves to weather whatever storm lies ahead.
L2 & L3 interchange savings for Further, businesses that will remain strong
B2B merchants during and after this crisis will make the ap-
Choose from numerous propriate adjustments with respect to the new
platforms and sponsor banks world. These adjustments will be analyzing
NDF cutoff times as late as 11pm efficiencies, unnecessary redundancies and
technological synergies to be able to operate
most efficiently in a hostile environment.
Jeff Shavitz
Technology driven. Human powered. ToolBox Payment
Contact Us What a crazy and unprecedented few months,
ISORecruitment@i3verticals.com which of course, is an understatement. Unless
your company is Zoom, Peleton or few oth-
ers, this pandemic has created significant is-
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