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"The key is knowing how to meet them where they are,
not with a cookie-cutter pitch, but with real solutions
that fit their business," he said.
• Dual pricing and surcharge. Stop fining mer-
chants. ISOs, POS providers and reps cannot be Baxter and Laszig both commented on distinctions be-
the merchant police and get merchants to price tween large and small merchants. "Smaller merchants
things the way the card brands want it done. typically prioritize a solution with easy onboarding
• Reps paying merchants part of their residu- and a fully managed experience for payments, often in-
als. This is just wrong and needs to stop. Many cluding an integrated point of sale," Baxter said. "Larger
do not agree with me, but it makes us look like merchants prioritize control, wanting to gain the func-
a bunch of scammers. tionality and flexibility of a payments organization
without the overhead of bringing payments in-house."
• CPP Program from ETA. They can do better. Do
something so that reps will want to participate. Laszig stated that large enterprises "tend to process re-
I wrote an article about this too ["Let's level-up turns efficiently; small and midsize merchants feel the
payments industry certifications," published by loss of revenue acutely and are more likely to fight re-
The Green Sheet in June 2025, https://www.green- turns and chargeback requests.
sheet.com/emagazine.php?article_id=7906].
Ways in which SMBs discourage returns include post-
• Embedded finance. ISOs need to get with the ing return policies at the cash register and on printed
program and figure out how to build friendly receipts and advising customers at checkout of final
portals, offer loans, credit cards, payroll and sale restrictions."
more. The competition is doing it, and our part
of the industry is falling behind on this. According to Kahn, merchant expectations vary wide-
ly by size and complexity. "Mid-market and enterprise
organizations tend to want a more concierge, strategic
partnership and hands-on support during integrations
the money hits their account, how much they're really or system changes," Kahn said. "They expect proactive
paying, and that someone's there to help when some- service, data insights, and a partner who understands
thing goes wrong," he said. "Being able to get through how payments fit into a larger customer experience
to their processing company and/or agent and not wait strategy.
on long hold times is very important. Getting their
problems and/or questions resolved quickly is HUGE. "Smaller merchants, meanwhile, emphasize respon-
They don't have time to deal with complicated setups; siveness; they need quick resolutions to technical or
they just want things to work." funding issues and clear, direct communication. Both
groups want reliability; they just define it differently."
Midsize merchants, on the other hand, have a little
more structure, and their frustrations shift toward inte- "All merchants process via different ways," Sills said.
grations and control, Sinovoi pointed out. "They're the "Regardless of whether the business is using mPOS,
ones calling about syncing their POS with QuickBooks POS systems with semi-integrations, ecommerce, in-
or asking why their reporting doesn't line up with de- voicing with payment links, or other means, all mer-
posits," he said. "They've outgrown the "basic" solutions chants just want the process to work. The moment they
and are starting to look for systems that actually make have to think about it, the value declines."
their operations smoother."
Processing, Sills added, should be as natural as an au-
Larger merchants and enterprise accounts are all about tonomic process like blinking or breathing. "Once the
optimization, Sinovoi added. "They're watching every breaks are put on those, it becomes a focus and then a
basis point, thinking about security, scalability, and concern and pulls the merchant away from their true
how to handle payments across multiple locations or focus on focusing on what makes their business excep-
even countries," he said. "They expect customization tional," she said.
and reliability, not just a rate quote. And then you have
the vertical differences—restaurants care about tips "It's important that processing does not become a dis-
and payroll while retailers are focused on omnichan- traction and that ultimately the services provided are
nel consistency." viewed not only as necessities, but as being feature-
rich.
At the end of the day, Sinovoi stated, every merchant's
pain point comes down to the same thing: they just
want to get paid faster, easier and with fewer surprises.
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