In this episode of Chamber On!, host Matt Appenzeller, President and CEO of the Southern Ohio Chamber Alliance (SOCA), sits down with John Webb, Business Development Manager with U.S. Bank.
From online ordering and QR codes to embedded payments and enhanced security, John shares how modern merchant services and payment technologies are helping small businesses reduce costs, save time, and deliver a better customer experience.
Listen to learn how smarter payment solutions can help your business run more efficiently and grow with confidence.
Matt Appenzeller
Hello and welcome to the Chamber On podcast, the go to podcast for small employers and local Chambers of Commerce in Ohio. I'm your host. Matt Appenzeller, President and CEO of the Southern Ohio Chamber Alliance, more commonly known as SOCA. We are an alliance of 130 Chambers of Commerce in Ohio, and today we're going to talk about one of the fastest and easiest ways that small employers in Ohio can grow their bottom line by reducing some costs. So today, our guest is John Webb, business development person manager here from US, bank and we John, we've had a partnership now for how many years has it been now?
John Webb
At least five years.
Matt Appenzeller
Okay, so you're doing, like, it's not just merchant services processing. Like, I don't just want to say, hey, we do merchant services, because you do, you run the gamut of things. So why don't you tell the audience here just some of the things that you do for small business owners?
John Webb
Yeah, absolutely. So I actually do partner with other business bankers. And what we do is we work with businesses in the Dayton area, actually, all over Ohio, and we help them to run and grow their business. My specialty is to help them streamline their solutions and things like, well, you did mention payment solutions. You know, credit card processing, basically, you know, my, my definition of a business is somebody that sells a product or a service, okay? In exchange for that product or service, they have to receive something, okay, and a payment of some sort.
Matt Appenzeller
And that's where you come in.
John Webb
And that's where I come in. So I handle all forms of payment that a business customer would need.
Matt Appenzeller
So let's, let's get into that, right? So just in the past, let's just say 10 years, I mean, all forms of payment has grown quite a bit like so what are the like, the big changes that you've seen just in your time, and like, some of the trends that are happening right now and what will be maybe hot going forward?
John Webb
Well, more and more everything is becoming digital. Okay, less and less cash yesterday, the last penny was minted. So, you know, so that's, you know, just the first step in everything going almost completely digital. And so that's what we're going to see. And it's exploding every single day. There's been more technological advancements in the last five years than the previous 50 before that. And we're going to see more things like online payments. We're going to see more things like embedded payments. Embedded payments are, you know, you want to do something, you want to you want to call a ride. Okay? You call an Uber, you pull up your app, and you're just really, all you're doing is calling a ride. But ultimately, your payment method is embedded in there somewhere, and you're paying for something, okay? And so more and more things are going to become that embedded payments.
Matt Appenzeller
That's interesting. So it's interesting that you know this industry in particular has evolved like that. So can you, can you share with us, like some of the things that you hear most often from business owners, and maybe also like an unexpected moment that you, that you've had recently, that you can share with us.
John Webb
What I hear most from customers, I would say, is they want to figure out ways to become more digital in one way or another. Okay, so believe
Matt Appenzeller
But let me ask you this. So are they trying to save time? Are they trying to save money, or is it both?
John Webb
It actually is both. Okay. So as an example, more and more restaurants want to do online ordering, you know, because they can have less staff answering the phones, you know, and less staff at the front counter taking orders. It just comes in on a computer screen. They make the order, they set it on the counter. There's less and less interaction, because now customers are just walking in, and they're walking up to the metal rack right for their name, and walking out the door. And so a lot of that is it's both time and money that they're trying to save.
Matt Appenzeller
So I'm sorry to cut you off. So you were saying, you know, let's talk about the things that employers are looking for the most. So you're saying digital stuff.
John Webb
Yeah, well, digital stuff. So online ordering, okay, they're looking for ways to speed up transactions. So in other words, like even in a restaurant, they're saying, you know, how can I get the order for the drinks faster? And so even putting a QR code on the table and scanning that QR code, you know, as a customer, I can order my drinks before the waitress ever came out and said hi, and so she could actually bring up my drinks and say, hey, you know, here you go. Here's the margarita you ordered, by the way, do you want any appetizers and stuff like that? And so everything they're doing is to try and speed things along.
Matt Appenzeller
Yeah, it's cool. So I see your brand like when I'm at a restaurant. I've seen it recently in hotels, actually, not just recently, the past several years. So you guys, my point is, you guys stand out, right? You guys stand out in a crowded industry. So what's been the differentiator between you and some of your competitors?
John Webb
In my opinion, it's really our approach to businesses. We don't, we don't sell a customer a particular solution, okay, I don't go to my trunk and I have a machine in there and I put it on your counter, like, like, 15 years ago, and say, I hope this helps. You know, what we do is we utilize a consultative approach and find out what the customer does now, what and how they might want to do things, you know, in the future, and we give them ideas that they never even thought about. And so I kind of talk a little bit about the QR code a few minutes ago. They're not specifically asking for this QR code on the table. They're asking for ways to improve things and to speed things up. I'm the one that's telling them about possibly the QR code on the table, right? Or what that might look like, okay, and so, you know, we don't utilize a one size fits all approach. Each and every customer meeting is entirely different.
Matt Appenzeller
Interesting.
John Webb
And on top of that, you know, you mentioned airlines and hotels. Honestly, we help anywhere from a, I'm just gonna say, like a hairdresser doing $500 a month on her mobile phone to yes, Hilton and Delta, our largest clients, okay, and, and so we have a solution for every single business in between.
Matt Appenzeller
Very cool. So we've had this partnership together, US Bank, SOCA, for a number of years, and we've been able to grow this program. Why don't you tell the listeners about how the program actually works?
John Webb
Yeah. So, so basically, you know, essentially, businesses are inundated with all kinds of phone calls all day long. Okay, somebody trying to sell them new electric you know, they're trying to sell them merchant processing. You know, they get dozens and dozens of phone calls and so why should the business have to navigate this on their own? All right, right. So, basically, the SOCA program, and the SOCA, our program in particular, okay, SOCA has already done all of the interviews and the research. All of the partners of SOCA have been vetted and are deemed to offer a great service at a great price with great solutions, okay? And so it simplifies their process. The business owners process when they're looking to make a change or to save money, right?
Matt Appenzeller
And this, this really started to take off. And we've talked about this before, during the pandemic, like for, it's, it's really weird, just the juxtaposition of, you know, the entire economy was supposedly shut down. But then there were another group of businesses, ourselves included, by the way, who were busier than we have ever been, and you're one of those businesses like you probably didn't sleep for a week because you had so much business. Why don't you go ahead and tell the listeners how your life changed in the Merchant Services processing space during a time when people couldn't, you know, buy things like they normally would.
John Webb
Right? And we were, we were scared ourselves, or at least I was scared. I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't know if, you know, my job was going to shut down for the next, you know, six months. Or however, we didn't know how long it was going to be, a couple weeks, a couple months. Right? Nobody knew. And I thought for sure, well, you know where I'm going to be sitting at home doing nothing, you know? Well, as it turns out, you know, we, our responsibility was to keep these businesses afloat, and we had to help them in any way possible. And so what we had to immediately do was turn on a dime and figure out ways that we could help to keep these, you know, these, these business, these custom, these businesses in business. And we were able to leverage existing platforms, some of which were brand new to people at the time to accommodate those restrictions, okay, things like QR codes, right? Online payments, curbside pickup exploded. As a matter of fact, that's the greatest thing I think, ever that came out of covid, if we can even say that, okay? Because I personally, I don't want to interact with a restaurant, okay? I want to go online. I want to just order my food, okay, I want to go in. I don't want to talk to anybody. I don't want to wait in line. I want to walk over to that metal rack and look for my name, and I want to take myself and head out the door. Okay? And prior to covid, you know, Panera was doing it, maybe you know that exact method. But nobody else was right. Okay? And so I had, I specifically, almost the day after the shutdown, had a business in one of our small towns here reach out. They had two locations and he was like, I don't know what I'm going to do, you know, moving forward. Can you, because they did not have online ordering, okay, they were a restaurant, two location restaurant. They did pick up, you know, traditional phone call pickup and stuff like that. And so they're like, can you help us? And so that. So I immediately went on and got them set up with online ordering. Okay, we had them up and running in literally 48 hours so that they could, you know, take their orders and then, and then they could just bring it out to the cars, you know, to help them.
Matt Appenzeller
That's a great story. It's probably very personally gratifying to be able to help a business owner in that way.
John Webb
Absolutely. But the other, the other main business that I helped a lot during that time was churches. Okay, so there were there, they were just starting to do a lot of online donations or online tithing. But the biggest majority of churches did not have online tithing, okay? And people weren't going to church. And so right or wrong people, sometimes people think that they're going to donate and tithe when they go to church. Yeah, it's not always weekly or monthly, or, you know, whatever it's like, I donate when I go to church while they weren't going to church. Okay? And so I set up dozens and dozens of churches in that first month or two with online donations and having that ability to go and it's and it's evolved a little bit. I've, some of the churches, they're still doing the online tithing, but because they don't even pass the plate anymore, we've again gone back to this QR code. We, I create a QR code for the church. They put it up on their big screen during the announcements, and people just hover their phone and donate right then and there.
Matt Appenzeller
Who would have thought that that would be where we're at?
John Webb
Right? Exactly.
Matt Appenzeller
But here we are, right. Yeah, that's interesting. So anyway, like we've talked before, so like for you, your book of business increased substantially during covid, and then you were saying before, like, and it hasn't slowed down. So, like, tell us about that. Like, have you been able to continue that momentum? Right?
John Webb
Yeah, I think the momentum is, is mainly because of the ever changing payments market. Okay? And so I'm not just dealing with, you know, new businesses are opening every day, but I'm not just dealing with brand new businesses. I'm dealing with businesses that are already out there, you know, with existing payments or solutions, and what we're doing and what they're wanting to do is find newer and better ways to do things. And so you know that, and so that keeps me busy. You know, a lot of times you set up a system, and in my business, you sold them one thing, and you're done, okay, you got to find the next business. But the same businesses are reaching out, saying, now I want the next thing, or now I want to be able to do this, or now we have this technology. Do you have it available? And so it's just, it's getting busier and busier.
Matt Appenzeller
I'm sure it is. But like with every sort of leap or step in technology, there's also the concern of security. So how do you guys address that?
John Webb
So security is always one of those things where we try to never play catch up, okay? We're always multiple steps ahead, you know, when it comes to security, we actually adhere to all of the security that you know is set forth by the card brand, so they manage and maintain a lot of that compliance, and we're always above that, but we're always, constantly having to create new machines and new technologies that stay ahead of the criminals. One of the things that we do now is we have a solution called EMV 3D Secure, okay? And with EMV 3D Secure, issuers have more insights into each transaction before providing the authorization. So, Matt, you're buying something online, okay? You go to my online website to buy something. You put in your card, Visa knows everything about your life, whether you think, whether you want them to or not, okay, and they can use all these algorithms to find out, is this a normal purchase for Matt, for this person, for this person, does it match? Do all the things line up. And it's so it's not just, does the address and ZIP Code match anymore, okay? It's are the buying habits, right? Is the timing is, the is, all kinds of things, all these data points. And what they'll do is, let's say that Visa has a question about this transaction. And by the way, this is all happening in a 100th of a second. Okay, they're not waiting 20 minutes, you know, and sitting in a conference room and saying, should we let Matt buy this? Okay, it's happening in the, you know, faster than the blink of an eye. But let's say that something just doesn't seem right. They'll ,now they can throw out a little question, okay? And if, and if Matt passes that question, so to speak, we're, we're going to approve that account, okay? And not only do we approve that, approve that transaction, not only do we approve that transaction, but we'll, we're so confident that that's a legitimate transaction, that we’ll even guarantee the customer that that in case there's a charge back on that transaction. That's how confident we are with EMV 3D Secure.
Matt Appenzeller
And that happens in an instant. Like that happens in an instant. That is crazy. Yep, that is crazy. So what would you say, like, like, in your opinion, like, you've been doing this a long time. Like, what would you say are the technologies that you look forward to implementing the most? Like, what? What's coming out here in the market that excites you, so to speak.
John Webb
Well, again, any, any use that I can find for these, I just love QR codes, like it's, it's everywhere, okay, even.
Matt Appenzeller
Why is that so?
John Webb
So, why is it that I like that? Or, why is it everywhere? Because it can do so many things. And so I just set up recently, this, this week two basic nonprofits, okay, not churches, just regular nonprofits, and set them up with the donation link, but also got them QR codes. They can put the QR codes on their flyers, on banners. They can put it on their email signature and say, hey, you know, you know, donate to this special cause. It puts it, it puts the ability to accept payments everywhere, right, okay? And makes it a lot, you know, and makes it a lot easier for them, you know, I mentioned earlier the, let me tell you something that really bugs me.
Matt Appenzeller
Okay, all right, let's hear it. Here we go. Here we go.
John Webb
So, breweries. All right?
Matt Appenzeller
Well, I got to tell you, John, breweries don't bother me, right?
John Webb
So, well, they don't bother me either. What does bother me is going into a brewery which I visit quite frequently, okay, and I have to go stand at the bar in a line that's 30 deep to place my drink order, okay, and and, and they've got one server there or one waitress, and there's 30 people in line, okay, and and, and I'm out hanging out with my friends. Okay, I want to be at the table. I want to be chatting and having a good time and hanging out with my friends. I don't want to be standing in line for 10 minutes every 20 minutes when I finish my beer. And so I talked about QR codes again, and it's my mission right now to talk to all the breweries in town, okay, and have them put a QR code on the table, and so that while we're sitting there hanging out with my friends, I can scan that QR code and place my order for the next round of drinks, and they can just bring it out. Okay? They're spending the same amount of time as if, as if they were standing up there doing it, you know, doing everything behind the counter. Okay, it's just more convenient for the customer and a better solution. And so that's why, you know, that's why I really like QR codes. There's just so many things that you can do with it, and all it's really doing, you know, for people that don't know really what a QR code is, it's really just opening up a website. You know, there's something behind there. It opens up a website to do something, and we've created whatever it does behind that website. And so, you know, that's one of the, you know, that's kind of my favorite thing to talk about, is, how can I streamline your business with like, this one thing.
Matt Appenzeller
Well, Jon, you know, I do like a cold beer, but if I can have a cold beer faster because of the QR code, then you've done your job, right?
John Webb
That's exactly right. Yeah, you got it.
Matt Appenzeller
Okay. So let me, let me just ask, like, if I'm a small business owner out there and I'm just sort of getting started or no, let's use a different scenario. Let's say I'm starting to have some success, and I need to ramp up a little bit like, what would be the best piece of advice that you would give to a small business owner, as far as you know, payment systems and whatnot.
John Webb
So you know, what a lot of businesses are doing is they literally just go to Google, okay? And they do and they do a search. Well, all you're going to find out when you go to Google, okay, is who paid the most amount of money to advertise, right? All right. You're not going to find the best solutions. You're not going to find the most creative solutions. You're not going to find anything like that. You're just going to find the top three companies that put the most amount of money into advertising. On the opposite hand, by the way, you don't drive around town and see US Bank billboards. Okay, we don't, we don't advertise like that. We don't advertise online. Okay? We do everything grassroots. We want to, we want to meet with our clients. We want to discuss their needs and their challenges and stuff. And so, you know, I think businesses really kind of need to research a partner, rather than just who advertises the most. That's the best piece of advice I could give them when looking for, you know, a merchant services partner.
Matt Appenzeller
So, so, how would somebody find you then, rather than just a Google search?
John Webb
Well, you know, you know we're talking about SOCA right now. Okay, and I was actually at a lunch on earlier this week up in Columbus with with my team, and we were talking to the business owner there, and he was actually asking questions about some government laws and stuff that they're thinking about doing with merchant processing, but he started asking about a couple of other things. And no joke, it's not because, you know, I've got nothing in it. Okay? I said, do you belong to a Chamber of Commerce? And he says, no, I've thought about it. I'm like, listen, you know, a lot of people don't know why they join a Chamber of Commerce, but one of the reasons that businesses should join a Chamber of Commerce is because the availability, the availability of benefits that they can provide you. And so we started talking a little bit about health insurance, and we started talking about workers comp, and we started talking about, obviously, you know, credit card processing, okay? And so I think that, so I mentioned trusted partner earlier. I think businesses, their trusted partner could be that Chamber of Commerce, okay, and reach out to that chamber and say, hey, who do you recommend for this or or help me? What are the things I need to know to start a business or to run my business better?
Matt Appenzeller
Yeah, very cool. And you can learn, listeners can learn more about our partnership at joinsoca.com that's joinsoca.com. So Jon, when you look to the future, like you've already seen a lot of changes. You've talked a lot about, you know, QR codes like, what do you see sort of happening in the future with, with just the way that people are going to pay for things and how people will do business?
John Webb
So, so first and foremost, there's a new technology out there that most people don't even know about. Okay, okay. Amazon invented it, and it's and it's called, I don't know what their official term is, but it's palm payments. Okay, they already have it out at some of their existing Whole Foods. And what it is is it's a little wand that, instead of a credit card machine, it's a little wand, and you actually hold out your palm underneath of the wand, okay? And everybody's palm is different, just like their fingerprint is. And so your palm is now, so you're not using a chip card, you're not, you know, doing tap to pay. You're actually using your palm to pay for that particular transaction. And so I think those types of payment forms are going to be coming, you know. I don't want to say the retinal scan, you know, but, but, but that is, that is already there. The other thing I can say is, regardless of what it is, payments is a very important part of US Bank, and it will continue to be very important. So whatever it is that's to come, US Bank is definitely going to be at the forefront of it, and we're going to be out there in front of all of our competitors.
Matt Appenzeller
Yeah, now that you've kind of raised that, I mean, do you guys have your own, like, research team that, like, dreams up what, what they think the next forms of payment will be?
John Webb
You know what? I don't know if we actually have people doing that, but I do know that we have research teams that are constantly scouring every single bit of news to see what the talk of the town is. I don't know if we have the, I don't know if we have the guys inventing the next payments system. Okay, but we, but we're going to be there from the very beginning each and every single time, right? And, and, and, you know, we actually have a new, we actually have a new payment gateway that we utilize, and we, you know, so we do create our own softwares, our own point of sale systems, and we have this new gateway. A gateway is what connects softwares that a business might utilize, and our payment solutions, okay, credit card processing. So in between there is this gateway, and it's how they talk to each other. We've invented this new gateway that is going to just, it's going to change the way we do everything at US Bank, and we're just in the infancy stages of it right now. We're already using it. We've been using it a little longer in Europe, but it's going to be how our point of sales connect. It's going to be how we connect to all the other softwares, and it's going to be how we utilize all of our internal payments as well too. And so that, I mean, that's our own device. So yes, we are creating our own technologies and stuff, but I think it's to take care of the payments that are, that are, that are being created out there.
Matt Appenzeller
So I would think that as adoption of this technology increases, just among business owners like mom and pops, who never would have used this kind of stuff before as that sort of increases across the board, that you're going to be about as busy as you've ever been.
John Webb
Absolutely, you know. And I say that, you know, you know, we do our own, we didn't talk about all of our solutions, but we have our own point of sale, okay, you know, it's like, it's like the register, you know, you walk into a restaurant or a retail store and you see an iPad or a tablet there, okay, you know. So we have our own point of sales. And we have, like, with our point of sale, we can do gift cards, we can do loyalty programs. We can do online ordering. We can do QR codes. We can do curbside pickup. We can do kiosks where people can just walk up and order, just like those 60 inch plasma TVs at McDonald's, okay? But the reason I bring that up is you talked about mom and pop, we can give that little mom and pop shop the exact same capabilities that 50,000 Subway owners have at a fraction of the price. Okay? And so what they're they're going to get the exact same features and services. And they never knew that they could, right? You know, they think, hey, I'm just, I'm just a small guy. I can't have all these features that's going to cost me a million dollars. No, it's, it's already built into our solutions. We've already thought about that.
Matt Appenzeller
So it's, so it's awareness.
John Webb
Yep.
Matt Appenzeller
And then, you know, making the phone call and taking the next step, right, exactly. And then, you know, just start gaining some confidence in using the system, right? Yeah. Very cool. Very cool. Well, I do have one more question for you, right? Yeah, right. Every, every guest of the chamber on podcast has a very important role here. Very important question to answer. John, who is the greatest rock and roll band of all time? Is it the Beatles, The Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin?
John Webb
Those are some good choices, okay? Those are some good choices, however, oh, I, I particularly love me some Def Leppard. I love me some. Def Leppard, and I, that's what I grew up with and I just, I just thought it was awesome.
Matt Appenzeller
You know, the one of the great things about rock and roll, John, are, there are no wrong answers. No wrong answers. I know, right? That's cool. Very cool. So, John, thanks very much for joining us on the Chamber On podcast. Also, you know, just thanks for what the partnership that we've had together. It's been really cool to watch this particular program grow over time. So just thanks for what you do.
John Webb
And I appreciate your partnership. Thank you, Matt.
Matt Appenzeller
And thanks to our listeners out there for listening to the Chamber On podcast, Chamber On everybody!