CrossCheck Blog

1. Tell us about CrossCheck. How does it differ from similar check payment processing companies? After thirty-one years in business, serving clients as varied as furniture stores, motorcycle craftsmen and especially automobile dealerships, we have a deeper understanding of the businesses we serve than anyone in our space. The feedback we get most often has to do with the quality of our service. Our phones are staffed 24/7/365 in our offices in Petaluma, about forty miles north of San Francisco, and a lot of our customer service staff have been with us for years. They have personal relationships with our clients, and we won’t stop working until the customer is satisfied.

Retailers interested in maximizing their profits to build their business and personal wealth can learn a great deal by comparing Milton, a befuddled and ultimately pathological stapler-wielding clerk in Mike Judge’s iconoclastic workplace comedy Office Space, to Howard Schultz, the self-made billionaire who founded Starbucks.

Over the thirty years we’ve been in business we’ve learned how to establish mutually beneficial long-term relationships with our clients. And like many successful service providers, we’ve refined our offerings to make sure that we provide exactly what they need as efficiently as possible.

Nationwide there used to be five buyers for your practice; now there are three. You used to get half your referrals from dentists; now you get a fifth fewer. You used to start 220 patients a year; now you start 200 – the first decline since studies began generating this statistic in 1983.

We could say it any number of ways: “Dredge up more money,” “Haul in more cash,” “Don’t lowboy your revenue,” “Mine your income stream,” “Articulate your best sales year yet.” Aside from the catchy clichés, we’re talking money, so you’re going to want to listen.

Do you feel like an intrepid explorer every time your feet hit the blacktop of your dealership lot? You should. Every single day is a chance to discover new worlds, and if you’re not making the most of it, guess what? There’s another explorer very close behind you. Don’t give him any room to steal your thunder. Today we reflect back on Christopher Columbus’ major moment in American history and learn a few lessons on how to apply it to making your own major moment.

Time is money, right? So I’m not going to beat around the bush. If you are smart enough to be selling check services, having a couple of precise, formulated qualifying questions in your arsenal is a huge asset. These two, simple questions will open the door to a conversation and can become an opportunity to provide a solution that will help your merchants be more profitable. And when they win, you win. So are you ready for the top two questions?

I’ve been involved in check processing for a long time, yet it still surprises me when I meet someone in the industry who doesn’t understand the value of a check guarantee service. It’s not just about risk, though check services do a good job of reducing risk. It’s not even about bad checks and check services certainly minimize those. Having a check service is about enabling sales and problem-solving. In fact, I think checks are the best solution out there to make sales happen that wouldn’t normally happen. Better than credit cards, better than debit cards, and much better than good old cash. Let me explain…

As the National Sales Trainer for a check processing provider, I talk a lot. I talk for a living. I’m constantly talking to sales agents about how to sell payments services, how to get to the decision maker, what it takes to make a sale happen and how check services are still a necessary part of your portfolio. Checks, you ask, really? Absolutely! Over 20 billion checks are written each year for over 30 trillion dollars. If you claim to be a full-service payment provider, you need to be talking about checks, too.

Whether it’s the rush to close the month or the start of a new one, your department always seems to have something to be anxious about. While we can’t promise that your accounts payables will start reconciling themselves or that payroll will go off without a hitch, we can offer some advice we’ve learned from working in the bucolic area of the world called Wine Country.