10-4 Communicate with Your Merchant Service Provider

Communicate with Your Merchant Service Provider

Most business people do not communicate at all with their merchant service provider. As soon as they are unhappy about something they waste a lot of time and energy looking for a new merchant account, instead of trying to work with their existing provider. If you are generally happy with your merchant service provider but feel that your rates and fees are too high, you should not simply close your existing merchant account and look to move.

The bank card processing industry is very competitive, and providers large and small hate to lose customers. You will often find that providers are more than willing to work with you in order to keep your business, even if that means lowering your rates and fees. If you are approached by another merchant service provider who is offering lower rates and fees you should have that provider put their offer on paper. Once you have the numbers in black and white, simply fax the paperwork to your existing merchant service provider and request that they match the offer. Nine times out of ten they will drop your rates and you won't have to waste time looking for (or applying to) another merchant service provider.

Call About Rates Increases - By watching your monthly credit card statements as we had suggested above you will find out about rate and fee increases before they actually take affect. As soon as you are notified about any increases, you should contact your processor to bring to light the fact that their competition is now offering lower rates and fees than what your account will soon be increased to. If the rate increase is a result of an interchange increase from VISA and MasterCard there may be little that your provider can do, but in most cases they will work with you to minimize of waive the raise to your account.

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