Highlights:
- Merchants want solutions, not just marginal savings on transaction fees
- Solutions-based selling flips the value dynamic for processors and merchant acquirers
- Womply Insights reduces merchant attrition in partner portfolios by 17%
Credit card processors historically have competed for merchants’ business by shaving basis points off transaction fees. Ultimately, this is a race to the bottom and positions processors as highly interchangeable transaction brokers.
As the payments ecosystem grows more complex and competitive, merchants will increasingly stick with partners that help them solve everyday business problems and leave those that offer only transactional services.
So, what are the everyday problems facing our country’s 28 million small businesses? Above all, small business merchants have to compete against larger companies that can use economies of scale to win on price and accessibility.
On Main Street, this means merchants need data and technology solutions that level the playing field and help them understand and respond to customer needs faster and better than big competitors.
Merchant acquirers have to demonstrate that they understand these challenges and arm their customers with tools that help them stay competitive and improve their businesses. This is why we partner with scores of credit card processors, acquirers, and ISOs to offer an intuitive tech and data platform that turns payment and online review data into powerful tools for merchants. With tools like Womply in hand, merchant acquirers can flip the value dynamic from providing marginal cost savings to offering valuable solutions to their customers.
This solution-based approach works. In a long-term study of 400,000 merchants, Womply Insights reduced attrition for acquirer portfolios by 17%. Here’s a breakdown of the findings:
Attrition is a huge problem for the merchant acquisition industry, carrying a $2 billion price tag in lost revenue. Also, because it takes three new customers to make up for each merchant that leaves the portfolio, the industry spends $1 billion annually in acquisition costs. That’s a total of $3 billion every year in direct costs and lost opportunity. Furthermore, by some estimates 1 in 5 merchants are likely to leave their current provider. Most of that attrition is voluntary and, therefore, preventable.
Keeping merchants in the portfolio is the most profound way to improve top-line growth and profitability for merchant acquirers. The best way to retain merchants is to offer products and services that help them solve real day-to-day business problems. Contact our partnerships team to learn more about what Womply can do for your merchant portfolio.