Page 192 - Schooley Mitchell Marketing Manual

SCHOOLEY MITCHELL
MARKETING MANUAL
Cheat Sheets – Merchant Services
Manual Revised: April 3 2025 Confidential
- 187 -
Merchant Services Cheat Sheet
confused and frustrated than when he originally started. His anxiety was increasing even though he was trying to simplify the process.
We met Jon at a community event and his anger boiled over as he told me his story. We agreed to help him. When we started digging in, we recognized that his interchange rate was very high and that his current rates no longer matched the contract they signed three years prior. In fact, unknown to Jon, the contract had expired months earlier. Not only did the rates increase drastically after the contract expired but we learned that the provider had also increased the rates six months prior to the expiration of the contract. Obviously, that was wrong. I thought Jon was going to go through the roof when we told him.
We helped Jon receive a full refund of over $6,000 for the six months with the incorrect pricing while the contract was still valid. We also found over 33% in savings with a change in vendors when we reported back to Jon. He was relieved to be rid of an unscrupulous vendor.
Of course, we waited until the refund was received by Jon before we switched vendors for him just in case they “lost the check”. The additional savings were more than $2,100 per month and Jon was very happy to let me know what he was going to use those extra funds to obtain some new software for his staff he had been putting off due to budget constraints. He was also relieved to know he could call us to deal with his vendors directly if there were any issues again.
Vendors need to be held to their commitments, regardless of how confusing.
Wholesale and Distribution Company
Bill is the Director of Finance for a wholesale and distribution company that had far too many irons in the fire with their merchant services. Bill was managing a multi-million-dollar company with six locations. When Schooley Mitchell engaged with Bill, he was utilizing four different merchant services vendors that were all over charging the business with high discount rates. Bill found it very time consuming to keep track of the multiple merchant accounts with different dedicated representatives for each. In addition, any time Bill had an issue with one of the accounts it would take time to sort out which merchant ID and representative he needed to contact. Also, due to the size of the business Bill was managing, merchant service analysis was not high on his priority list he admitted.
When analyzing the multiple accounts, we knew the consolidation of the merchant services providers into
one merchant service provider would be the most cost effective. Schooley Mitchell negotiated with each merchant service provider Bill currently had and went to the marketplace for other offers as well. In the end, we recommended that the client consolidate all the merchant services accounts to one vendor that would offer monthly savings of $2,411.22 and overall savings of 23.48%. The implementation was very seamless for Bill because the setup for the location was simple. Bill only required one physical terminal at each location and the terminals arrived fully programmed and ready to be used.
Bill was appreciative of our efforts. He also loved the fact that Schooley Mitchell provided training for the new reporting tool from the dedicated representative himself. Bill acknowledged that without our involvement he would never have been able to combine the accounts to one vendor. He also recognized that he would not have known how to read the statements or evaluate each vendor pricing to the level that we provided.
Food and Beverage Company
Mike is the owner of a food and beverage company and was feeling like he was being held hostage to his Aloha point-of-sale system. Mike, like many others, was fed the lie that their point-of-sale system would only allow for one integration capability. Mike was told he would have to stay with NCR Payment Solutions in order to remain integrated with his Aloha point-of-sale system, which was crucial to his business. Due to this fact, Mike felt he was unable to thoroughly negotiate with NCR Payment Solutions because of the risk of losing the integration. On top of that lie NCR provided, Mike was also dealing with unhelpful customer service staff and ongoing PCI compliance issues.
When Schooley Mitchell engaged with Mike, he was reluctant at first due to the integration and his fear of it becoming non-integrated. However, Schooley Mitchell confidently informed Mike that we would not change
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