Getting to know the competition...

In keeping my promise to "re-paint" this Blog's purpose in helping our business, I am getting to know the competition.

I have searched websites, I have read contractual terms and rate quotes for other merchant credit card processors. I understand the competition in industry language. What I really want, however, is to get to know the competition through your eyes.

This isn't a marketing ploy. You won't be inundated with emails or phone calls or direct marketing letters telling you that our products are better (even if they are). I just genuinely want to know what it is about your merchant credit card processor, customer loyalty provider or ATM service company that makes them most valuable to you. You can even comment anonymously- in fact, I encourage that approach.

You see, I don't believe that companies get better by picking up someone else's disgruntled customers. Companies get better by admiring what others do well, and looking for ways to take it to the next level.

So tell me, who do you use for Merchant Credit Card Processing, and why? Do you have a customer loyalty program? If so, what makes it work for you? Does your business have an ATM? Tell me how it has helped you.

Today's photo credit goes to the talented Jim Rogash for Getty Images, and this blog entry is dedicated to the incomparable Tedy Bruschi, who always knows his competition. Thanks for the memories, Tedy, best of luck to you, Heidi, and the boys!

Want to talk about football? I do! Reach me here @AmySwipeRite

What I gained, by losing everything

In June of 2007, I was preparing to move into a new home. All of the household belongings my family and I had collected over more than a decade’s time were temporarily stored in an off-site storage facility. I chose one that advertised “24 hour camera surveillance,” thinking that my “stuff” would be safer if it were constantly being watched. Alas, I was wrong. A few days before the move, I went to assess the contents of my storage unit. As I drove through the gate and toward my unit, I started to notice little “Lincoln Logs” on the pavement in front of me. “Funny,” I thought, “those look just like the one’s from the kids’ rooms.” Suddenly, instinctively, I glanced toward my unit door to find the lock was gone. Every material thing I owned was inside…(including, but not limited to, couches, entertainment armoires, dressers full of kids’ clothes, dishes, pots and pans, family photos and videos, even my late Grandfather’s ashes); And now it was gone. Stolen.

So I called the owners of the facility and said “I have been burglarized, can you please review the security tapes.” The knowledge that someone obviously would be caught and I might be led to, at the very least, my home movies and other “priceless” mementos was the only thing that kept me thinking clearly in this moment of shock. To my horror, the owner, quite without empathy, said “Oh, those? Well, the cameras haven’t been working for months. They broke, and we just never replaced them.”

Rather than get into the legalities surrounding this, or the deluded way that home owner’s insurance policies cover (or rather, don‘t cover) “off-site” belongings, let me make a long story short: Nothing, not a single bit of what was lost, has ever been replaced. From that day on, it has been a process of starting over from scratch, buying a little at a time, and never getting attached to any “things.”

And, although I was not personally affected by the Cedar River Flood of June, 2008, I feel a certain camaraderie with those who were. I, too, know what it is like to lose things you worked so hard to earn. This is why I relish working for a company who is helping Cedar Rapids and the surrounding community rebuild, by helping small businesses reduce operating costs and generate additional revenue through the goods and services we provide.

What I gained by losing everything is what the City of Cedar Rapids has known all along: Appreciation is paramount. The residents of this city understand it so well, in fact, that “Appreciation” is the so-called “Fifth-Season” in the appropriately dubbed “City of Five Seasons.” What a wonderful place to live.

What do you appreciate? Tell me here @AmySwipeRite