ou hear about it everywhere. You read about it in publications in and out of the financial services industry. It is what makes the difference between a successful ISO and just another salesperson.

It is service.

One of the nation's leading providers of merchant bankcard processing solutions defines service as the heart of its operations, the most important aspect of its business. Quality customer service and attention to detail are hallmarks not easily found in the bankcard industry, but they are the cornerstones of Innovative Merchant Solutions.

Two seasoned industry veterans, Joe Kaplan and Tim Jochner, are the architects who laid those cornerstones and built upon them organizations that have received accolades throughout the business community.

First, there was the Arthur Andersen Award for Best Business Practices in Customer Satisfaction, acknowledging their approach to customer service. Next, the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award was bestowed on these two brilliant business partners, commending them for driving a service-oriented organization to the forefront of quality services for its customers.

Remarkably, they recently were finalists for this award once again. Rarely has one company been honored twice for this prestigious award.

The two also were honored with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Blue Chip Enterprise Award, which recognizes businesses that have overcome adversity. Soon after achieving the Blue Chip Award, the U.S. Association for Small Businesses and Entrepreneurships named them Corporate Entrepeneurs of the Year.

In October 1999, Joe and Tim opened the doors of Innovative Merchant Solutions in Calabasas, Calif., with 15 employees and a business plan to be up and running before the holidays. Their excitement was warranted.

"It's not often you get to create another company with all the 'would haves' and 'should haves' from past companies you were involved with," Kaplan says. "Now we had the opportunity to make new mistakes and fix the old ones."

And fix them IMS did. Starting with a respectable goal of 100 merchant accounts for October, 200 for November and 250 for December, Innovative Merchant Solutions wrote an astounding 1,063 merchant accounts that first October, 2,000 in November, 2,500 in December and 3,000 in January 2000. According to Kaplan, IMS is now doing between 5,000 and 6,000 new accounts per month.

Recent industry analysts put Innovative Merchant Solutions' growth at 4,058 percent. What does Kaplan attribute that growth to? In one word - service.

"We have created a service center and have wrapped that center around a sales team," Kaplan says. "Production is a byproduct of quality service - that's our philosophy."

That quality service translates into some unusual practices. IMS makes sure every merchant is called on his or her birthday. Every employee calls at least three merchants each day just to say hello. IMS has live telephone operators as opposed to an automated attendant. It crosstrains its employees to ensure that anyone can jump in when the customer service center gets impacted, thus guaranteeing that customer calls are resolved quickly and on the first contact. This equates to a call-abandon rate of less than 1 percent and a hold time of less than 30 seconds.

Innovative Merchant Solutions' core competence is providing financial services to businesses, supporting and offering merchants the opportunity to utilize all non-cash transactions as a form of payment - i.e., check guarantee, check truncation, credit cards, ATM and debit.

Tim and Joe also have recently purchased a bank, which will be named Innovative Bank. Through the service of this financial institution, IMS can competently offer a myriad of financial services for merchants. SBA loans, lines of credit, Internet access checking accounts, car loans, home loans, leasing - all will be available by year's end to IMS merchants.

In keeping with its commitment to innovative solutions, IMS has developed a concierge service that provides the ability to book travel, limousines, gardening, dry cleaning, party planning, payroll, human resources and other related services for any merchant and the merchant's employees.

But its hottest product remains service, which has built relationships in the payment processing industry that set IMS apart. Competition is not something that IMS dwells on, though.

"I don't necessarily believe in competition," Kaplan says. "We don't take it into account when we're going after business. If we don't get the business, it's our failing, not the competitors' (success). When your sole purpose is to provide service, the only thing that doesn't work is possibly the process. If you are trying hard and working together, you really can't miss."

Since its inception, IMS has acquired more than 75,000 merchant accounts. Kaplan attributes that outstanding number to quality service, great employees, innovation and the concentrated efforts of 60 offices nationwide, all of which are exclusive to IMS.

In an effort to staff continued growth and offer more localized service to customers, IMS continues to look for similarly dedicated organizations to add to that growing list of nationwide offices.

However, to service the ultimate needs of the company, Kaplan is on the lookout for sales organizations that fit the IMS philosophy. Kaplan is selective about who joins the IMS team because the mesh of goals and ideals must be a perfect match.

"We are a solution-based company, not a problem-seeking company," Kaplan says. "We can train people how to do a job, but we can't train people on personality, their desires, goals or philosophy, and each one of these elements is important to a successful business relationship."

Through training and encouragement, IMS gives its employees the ability to keep their customers happy. Staff meetings are held on a regular basis to discuss structure, goals and where the IMS family is heading.

From that team- and goal-oriented environment, IMS employees provide quality service because they are made to feel as if they can make a difference, and they do.

"At the end of the day you can have a vision, but without doing, it's just talk," Kaplan says. "One has to see beyond the sale. Money is a motivator, but that is not what it's all about. We concern ourselves with keeping our merchants happy."

Can Innovative Merchant Solutions continue keeping its merchants and sales reps happy in an ever-changing industry? Kaplan recognizes this ongoing challenge.

"With the onset of the Internet and other types of new business, the merchants require more innovative solutions, the sales reps are requiring more innovative services and in that respect our market has changed," Kaplan says. "We have had to adapt to those changes through technology, procedures and process.

"Our goal is to provide the most innovative approach to providing our quality financial services while ensuring that each customer receives memorable customer service experience. How big or small that makes us is not even the issue. We just want to do a good job."