Merchant data sharing is becoming more and more important in the payments industry as independent sales organizations look for ways to diversify their revenue streams and establish partnerships both inside and outside of the payment processing space. To facilitate those new revenue streams, IRIS CRM now includes a new merchant data sharing feature that allows two or more separate IRIS CRM installations to be connected via a data-sharing pipeline that will move merchant data freely and securely between both systems.
Setting up data sharing is simple and uses secure, unique system-generated portfolio keys to ensure that the connection is safe from outside threats and sensitive merchant data will never be at risk of intercept during transmission. With IRIS CRM’s new merchant data sharing feature, a new world of revenue sharing and partnership opportunities has been opened up for ISOs.
How Merchant Data Sharing Enables ISO Specialization
ISO specialization is becoming a growing trend, as ISOs realize the value of focusing on specific verticals rather than taking a wider, shotgun-style approach to their merchant acquisition. The benefits of specialization are significant. First and foremost, specialization allows ISOs to market themselves as the go-to leaders within a specific industry or niche, improving both marketing targeting and brand perception. Specialization also allows ISOs to focus their service offerings more narrowly and tailor them to the unique needs of a given industry, ensuring that their team can provide the kind of elevated support needed to back up their expert brand image.
On the other hand, specialization also eliminates a large chunk of the potential client pool. Some ISOs get around that by specializing through independently branded subsidiaries, but there is another increasingly popular way to tap into the market outside of a specialized vertical – revenue-sharing partnerships. Specialized ISOs can partner with other specialist ISOs outside of their vertical – ISOs that they really don’t compete with – and the two partners can then send relevant leads back and forth in exchange for a share of the data generated.
In this case, IRIS CRM’s merchant data sharing enables partner ISOs to securely and transparently share information on data, merchant activity, and more. The result is an additional stream of data that neither ISO would have access to if they simply turned away merchants outside of their vertical.
ISO-ISV Partnerships – The Next Big Revenue Driver
One emerging revenue source that forward-thinking ISOs are moving into is partnerships with independent software vendors (ISVs). There are a wide variety of ISVs focusing on payment solutions that make ideal complementary products to merchant services and payment processing, making partnerships between specialist ISOs and ISVs in their corresponding industries a natural fit.
As an example, an ISO specializing in payment processing services for restauranteurs could partner with one or more ISVs providing payment hardware or software like POS systems, mobile payment terminals, etc. The ISO could then refer merchants to those ISVs and vice-versa. Such an arrangement represents a new revenue source for ISOs as well as a new source of qualified leads for merchant acquisition.
Because IRIS CRM works as well for any type of sales organization as it does for ISOs, the platform represents an ideal way for ISOs and ISVs to establish a data-sharing agreement allowing for the frictionless flow of leads between the two organizations, as well as a transparent means of sharing and verifying sales data for relevant merchants.
If you’re ready to learn more about how IRIS CRM’s new data-sharing feature can help your ISO securely provide your partners or internal subsidiaries with access to key merchant data, schedule a free demonstration and let a member of the IRIS CRM team walk you through all the platform’s many sales, productivity, and administrative features, or start your free trial and begin putting IRIS CRM to work today!