or many companies - especially those in service businesses - existing and previous merchant customers are vital to organic sales growth for three reasons. They:

1. Have already bought from you. If they had a good experience, they will likely buy from you again. Also, as we all have found out, getting a new customer is much more expensive than up-selling to an existing customer.

2. Give you invaluable feedback on how well you are doing. Did your product meet their expectations, or was the service just OK? Was it a good value for the money? And so on.

3. Can save you money. They should be your primary source of referrals and new business. Through them, you get access to new merchants who may have spoken with your customers and already have a positive opinion of what you do.

Many ISOs, however, are not fully leveraging their existing merchant customer account portfolio. By not doing so, they are losing out on a cost-effective source of new business.

Seven steps to sales growth

Here are seven ways to maximize the worth of your most valuable asset:

1. Surprise your merchants: Almost anyone can satisfy a customer in the short term. But only when you continually surprise customers will they keep coming back. Your goal should be to exceed your merchants' expectations for every interaction they have with you. Do this consistently, and you will have customers for life. For example, do you think your loyal merchant customers could benefit from reading a book or article that pertains to their business? Surprise them and make it a gift.

You might think of offering a 20% discount. However, consider giving your merchant customers a better reason to stick around, one in which they reinvest in their business and enjoy returns greater than a 20% discount. For instance, at Cynergy Data, our ISOs add value to their service offerings through our partnership with Merchant Cash & Capital. This relationship allows us to advance cash against a merchant's history of credit card receipts.

By up-selling merchants using this value-added service, ISOs fuel top-line sales growth. This is just one way ISOs can surprise merchants with new services that increase sales and enrich the financial viability and security of their merchants' businesses.

2. Get personal: We have entered an era in which one size no longer fits all. Instead, we are now in a one-size-fits-one era. Today's sales development is highly personalized, merchant-centric and customer-service driven.

A version of CRM (known variously as customer relationship management and one-to-one marketing), personalization is being practiced by businesses large and small across all sectors of the U.S. economy. The message here is simple: You want to lavish personal attention on your merchant customers with the intent that they will reciprocate by being consistently good purchasers of your product or service.

Consider setting up a proactive merchant support group in which members give merchant customers frequent incentives to share information about themselves, which your ISO can use in planning follow-up contacts.

The more your merchant customers feel you are treating them as if nothing else matters, the more likely they are to continue working with you.

3.Reward loyalty: Loyalty marketing programs are designed not only to drive loyalty and increase sales from your best merchant customers, but also to provide a vital link between your business and your customers, thereby improving customer satisfaction and increasing sales. Here are a few ideas commonly used in creating loyalty programs:

• Price discrimination: Offer preferable pricing to your most loyal merchant customers; reserve the most aggressive rates for your least loyal merchant customers.
• Special value-added promotions: Promote pre-set bundled packages, e.g., merchants who buy three services get the fourth service free.
• Retention promotions: Use a points program in which each purchase is worth points. When merchants amass a certain number of points, they get merchandise rewards of some kind.

4. Keep in constant contact: Keeping in touch with your merchants is about maintaining relationships. Merchants are most likely to keep buying from you if you have a strong relationship with them, that is, if they trust you and your products and services. Your constant-contact strategy should address:

• Best practices for staying in contact (phone, e-mail, hard-copy newsletter, etc.)
• Optimal frequency for touching base (weekly, monthly or quarterly)
• What to talk about (industry information, new products, tips and helpful hints).

5. Ask for what you want: Be very clear about the type of merchant referrals you seek, and why. The quality of referrals you receive directly depends on how well your customers understand what you are looking for.

Discuss this in great detail with your merchants; don't assume they already know your needs. At the conclusion of every sale and every touch point, ask your customers if they know of any other people who would be interested in your service.

6. Thank merchants for every referral: Thanking your merchants for referrals lets them know you value them and their efforts. It makes them feel recognized, and it reinforces best practices so they consider referring to you again. A thank you can be as simple as a handwritten card sent through the mail, a set of movie tickets or even just a personal phone call.

There are so many ways that you can go one step further with the people who already buy from your ISO. Make this central to your marketing efforts, and your business will soon see rewards in the form of increased referrals and increased sales.

7. Dispel dissatisfaction: When it comes to dealing with dissatisfied merchant customers, most ISOs believe price discounts or hardware giveaway guarantees will fix the problem. Easy solution or lousy strategy? Giveaways and discounts may resolve the immediate problem, but they do nothing to repair the relationship. Policies don't remedy relationships. People do.

By applying just a few critical people-skills when tending to unhappy customers, merchant-support managers can create such good will that upset customers become even more loyal. They'll be transformed from critics to advocates of your ISO.

Here are key suggestions to remember:

• Focus on concerns instead of complaints to shift a negative situation into one that is positive and productive.
• Prove that you're listening by repeating and paraphrasing what your customers say.
• Empower merchant-support managers to make reasonable, on-the-spot decisions. This type of delegation requires two important factors: training and trust.

Remember, things go wrong, on occasion, for every processing transaction business, and merchant customers are disappointed. When that happens, your merchant customer account portfolio won't be preserved by price discounts or hardware giveaways. Rather, your business will be saved by properly trained front-line employees or merchant support managers.

Marcelo Paladini is the Chief Executive Officer for Cynergy Data, a merchant acquirer that distinguishes itself by relying on creativity and technology to maximize service. Cynergy offers its ISOs: Vimas, cutting edge back-office management software; Vimas Tracking, a ticketing system that makes responses to customers fast, accurate and efficient; Brand Central Station, a Web site of free marketing tools; plus state-of-the-art training, products, services and value-added programs, all designed to take its ISO partners way beyond their competitors. For more information on Cynergy, e-mail Mike Grossman at mikeg@cynergydata.com