MasterCard RPPS Sales Team Integral to Customers' Growth Team's account management skills help maximize opportunities. Once signed on to the MasterCard RPPS® network, participants discover that the MasterCard RPPS Sales Team is actually the MasterCard RPPS Account Management Team, whose responsibility is to deliver and expand on the promises made by the Sales Team. “MasterCard RPPS is growing dramatically, with consistently strong double-digit growth in volume annually,” says Tom Carey, who heads up the group. “Our team is critical to that growth. We're not simply salespeople bringing in new prospects, though we do that very well, but we are also account relationship managers helping our existing customers grow their businesses. We all have extensive experience in online banking and bill payment, and that enables us to collaborate very closely and effectively.” The team is also supported by relationship managers across MasterCard International, who help identify valuable opportunities. “For example, the sales people in the Business Development Group for MasterCard's North America Region work with issuers of prepaid MasterCard® cards. That's a program that dovetails very neatly with MasterCard RPPS, which can cost-effectively facilitate remote value loading for the issuers.” Working together to expand biller base “The Sales Team is ready and willing to work directly with participants - both CSPs and BSPs, or lockbox providers - to help expand their electronic payment opportunities,” Carey notes. “To help lockbox providers, we've strengthened our outreach and sales efforts with billers, including advertising, conference participation, marketing efforts, and PR. This effort provides an excellent sales channel for providing referrals to our lockbox customers who work most closely with us,” says Carey. The team routinely helps new billers find a lockbox financial institution. In some cases, the institution has recognized the biller's need for cash management services, thereby deepening the relationship and the benefits for both. “We also make joint calls on billers with our lockbox participants,” says Carey, “helping the financial institutions to explain the power of MasterCard RPPS and its value to billers. Remember, our network reaches virtually every home banking service provider in the United States. Because of that, we provide the most effective way of replacing paper checks with electronic payments.” Carey adds that the Sales Team also offers sales training for lockbox staff. Carey is quick to note that the team's efforts on either the consumer or business side actually result in more volume for all participants. “By adding billers to the network, for example, we are obviously expanding the reach of the consumer service providers, and vice versa,” he says. Building awareness and profits on the consumer side On the CSP side just as on the BSP side, the providers that work most closely with the Sales Team reap the greatest rewards. “We are piloting consumer awareness programs, based on in-house research, that CSPs can use and brand to promote their online bill payment services,” Carey says. “We also offer marketing programs that will help them bring more customers to their online services. Institutions are expanding their efforts in this area because online customers have proven to be more profitable customers, and their online presence creates stronger cross-sell opportunities. “We can help our bill payment participants get the two things they want most: more electronic payees and faster posting,” says Carey. “We work with them closely to analyze who they are reaching by paper and electronically. Often, CSPs don't realize that some of their existing billers can already be reached electronically, and we help them identify those. We'll also target their big billers who are not set up to receive electronic payments, and help our participants convert them. Our efforts can deliver a 10% to 30% lift in electronic payments. That represents increased savings and productivity for our participants, which can translate into higher profits.” Listening to our customers An important key to the Sales Team's success is its inclusion of participants in the development process for new services and opportunities. “We work with customers to see what they want and need,” says Carey, “both one-to-one and in larger forums, such as our symposium and user groups.” Customer input has helped lead MasterCard RPPS into exploring international money transfers, card payments, value loading for prepaid cards, and other channels that offer expansion opportunities for participants. “We're with our customers every step of the way,” Carey adds. “From initial sales to account management to the many value-added services that MasterCard RPPS offers, we pay attention to our customers' needs and work to make their priorities ours.” For more information Please contact the Sales Team.