How long has the sales representative been in the merchant services industry? Whether fortunate or unfortunate, credit card processing sales is a largely unregulated industry. Sometimes that can leave merchants feeling like they are walking the dangerous streets of the wild west. There is no licensing requirement to sell merchant services like there is to sell mortgages, insurance or real estate. This being the case, more people “try their hand” at merchant services than almost any other sales job. This leads to a very high rate of turnover among large merchant processors and their affiliates. There are many problems with this, but the main one that you as a merchant should be concerned with is that the majority of reps calling or walking into your business, don’t even understand the fundamentals of credit card processing, how its priced, or even how to read a statement. This leads to a classic, “blind leading the blind” scenario where both the Sales Agent and the merchant lose. If you ask the representative that approaches you, how long they have been in the industry, and their answer is anything less than a year, you’re going to want to make sure you are able to speak to someone within the organization that can answer your specific questions and concerns with confidence. I would almost tell you to steer clear altogether, but I hire new Sales Agents all the time, and even I was once wet behind the ears.

What type of reviews does the company have online? Credit Card Processing isn’t exactly the type of service for which, everyone runs to google and yelp, to leave glowing reviews. As a matter-of-fact, I would venture to say that it would be very rare to find a financial services company with a ton of 5-star reviews online. However, it does happen, and its worth checking. If you are uncomfortable with the reviews online, then you would probably end up adding to those reviews down the line. As easy as this tip sounds, it is very rare for merchants to take this step before signing on the dotted line with a Sales Agent.

Is switching processing companies going to improve anything other than your rate? Is there anything else, besides saving money that causes you to want to switch? For example, if you are a restaurant or retail store, that uses a cash register and a side credit card terminal right now, and the new processing company is offering you an upgraded solution that is integrated together, that would be an improvement to your current solution. There are many other ways to improve your solution, such as, upgrading to EMV (chip-card), getting “smart-terminal”, cash discount programs, etc. The best case scenario is one where the processing company and can save you money and upgrade your solution.