Important Lessons:
Learn from our Industry Experience

Rates
» What's your Rate?
» Acquistion Pricing
» Price Structure
» What's Interchange

Service
» Service Savings
» Personal Service

Terms
» Read the Fine Print
» Application vs. Terms
» Termination Fees
» Equipment Leasing

Risk
» Convenience Payment
» Credit is Important

Merchant Service

Everyone is selling merchant services, but who is servicing merchants?
Knowing the difference is very important when determining who to select as your vendor.

A friend in the business, a trade association membership, a big box discount retailer, even your childs grade school all sell merchant services. The fact is your web search for a merchant services provider turned up thousands of site results wanting to SELL you.

However, since what you are buying is a contract for an ongoing service, a service that will be responsible for your ability to accept payment from your customers, the service quality of the merchant account provider who will actually be performing this merchant service, not just the merchant account sale, should not be overlooked.

By far, most of the people and companies you talk to are going to be strictly sales oriented. After the sale, they send your application off to have another company you have not met to do the credit underwriting, the data entry, the terminal build and deployment, the installation, and even staff the call center. Examining the business models of those selling merchant accounts would reveal that few are compensated based upon service results, rather they make upfront equipment commissions and signing bonuses and are off to sell the next merchant account while another group you were never properly introduced to goes about consolidating your merchant account into mass call no-service centers.

Service, good and bad, impacts your bottom line. Savings doesn't come only packaged as a lower rate but in cost reductions from having your system up, your chargebacks down, and your funding on time. At Vantage, we are merchant SERVICE providers. We process applications in house including credit underwriting, data entry, terminal deployment, implementations, and one-on-one personal service with our clients after the sale is made, all under one roof. It makes a difference in the quality of service.

Part of our tag line reads, "More than customer service, Personal Service". We mean it and our merchants enjoy it (see our testimonials). We hope you will make service an important part of your decision making process when selecting a merchant services provider.

Vantage Clients, please visit the Vantage Card Services [+] merchant services portal for access to your Vantage Points Rewards, PayView Reporting and Support Services.