As part of my new responsibilities at OLS, I am constantly reaching out to MSP/ISOs aka: Program Managers, to talk about our latest offering called OLS.Host. In a nutshell, OLS.Host allows smaller organizations to take the next step in their businesses by becoming a Third Party Processor or "TPP" through a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. Let me tell you... being the owner of a program management company for 8 years in my former life, I would have given up everything short of my first born to have access to something like this. No more outsourcing issues, no more system limitations and yes... better reporting!
Any program manager will tell you that it is virtually impossible to love your processor. I agree. For the simple reason that nothing in life is perfect. Businesses are still made of people and people drop the ball. Add technology, security and operational variables to the table and you are in for the ride of your life. I remember starting out in the business and sitting in a strategic session with my partners listening to them talk about how we were going to book a million active accounts in the first year! 1.5 years later we were still wrestling with our processor on how to get monthly maintenance fees billed to cardholder accounts correctly. I always thought to myself "can it really be that difficult?" Knowing what I now, I can certainly appreciate implementation delays but 1.5 years is a joke.
Now that I am on the other side of the fence pitching technology solution, I have the opportunity to listen to every gut busting problem my customers have with their processor. It's an interesting perspective.
The most common problems faced are:
- Authorization Downtime - a customer came to us because they were experiencing no authorizations for over an hour multiple times per month!
- Poor Account Management - A return call or email every now and then would be nice.
- Reporting - This is huge. Raw data does not provide the business intelligence necessary to run a successful program management company.
- Reporting - I get this one so much it was worth mentioning twice.
- Product Limitations - Text messaging. Some people just need it.
- Third Party Integration Issues - value added services can't be made available if vendors can't connect.
In the land of milk and honey it would be as simple as dropping a new payment systems in place and items 1 through 6 go away. Unfortunately it's not that simple. Without a doubt, OLS.Host provides a proven method of gaining control of the card business. But it can't fix the un-fixable. So should you consider becoming a Third Party Processor? The answer is yes.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of this post for a simple road map to processorship.
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