BUSINESS OPERATIONS
NEWS
BY MARCI GAGNON
Are Your Vendors Doing Right by You ?
You ’ ve been a loyal customer over the years — have your vendors been as loyal ?
Yo u h a v e endured the competitors ’ sales pitches , avoided fancy industry parties , laughed off some very real cost savings , all to be loyal to companies that may no longer remember your name .
Okay , that ’ s a little dramatic . However , if your vendors have not updated their product lines with tools to help your company grow then you ’ ve indeed been forgotten .
With respect to payments processing , this is happening all around us . Your company may have selected a provider years ago and chances are that you remember who you met with and why you selected them . In addition to cost savings , you probably also selected a payment partner because they offered something innovative for the industry . Fast forward five or ten years to the present . If your provider is still offering the same clunky payment tools today as they did when you first signed up , they are not making the necessary advancements .
The industry has come a long way since the days of just offering utility rates . While they are important to our industry , it ’ s been 14 years since these industry reduced rates have been introduced and they are now a table stake that everyone should provide . In the past few years there have been numerous advancements in payment technology that not only offer additional savings over utility rates , but also streamline business operations . Advanced payment technology and utility pricing work together to holistically save fuel marketers the most money . I am often surprised at how many businesses are not aware of these advancements and are unable to take advantage of them through their current providers . But why are so many payment vendors lacking tools that
can further reduce the cost of payment acceptance and internal overhead ?
Many payment providers , even if they specialize in the energy industry , utilize a separate payment gateway and merchant account , with tools originally set up for generic businesses and not the unique ways that fuel narketers operate . These generic tools are not configured for the energy space and will often cause transactions to downgrade , ultimately kicking them out of utility pricing and costing marketers money . In addition , most gateways were built on foundations from the early 2000 ’ s and were created without the ability to pass the necessary data to the card brands to accommodate for today ’ s fuel business needs . Since gateways make the majority of their money on the fees earned per transaction there is no sense of urgency to make the necessary upgrades across their platform .
Advanced payment tools such as price optimization work to reduce pricing downgrades at the card brand level so payment providers are simply passing any pricing increases onto their fuel customers . Since data is passing through the gateway before it hits your merchant account , most merchant providers don ’ t have the ability to make the necessary changes . This leaves fuel marketers in a gray area as the current tools being offered are outdated and the players involved have no financial incentive to make the necessary updates .
However , there is technology that will reduce downgrades at the card brands , like the ability to run automatic reversals , pass level II and III data for B2B transactions , streamlined reconciliation reporting ( including ACH and payment cards in one location ) accept multiple currencies , and Account Updater . These are not the future . They are available today , saving fuel marketers that use them thousands of dollars every month . These are real cost savings that are not being offered by most payment vendors in our industry . Fuel marketers deserve better .
This article describes an example on the payment side , however fuel marketers deserve all vendors to be willing to make the necessary investment in their technology . This includes updating both platforms and mindset . Innovation is something that should be happening every day . I respect and appreciate loyalty , unfortunately it ’ s often misplaced as vendors look to their next sale . As vendors , we shouldn ’ t settle for letting our platforms become vastly outdated . If we are truly loyal to our customers , we need to provide the innovation necessary to help the industry grow . l FON
Marci Gagnon is vice president of strategic alliances for Qualpay . For additional information contact Marci Gagnon at marci @ qualpay . com
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