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Independent Sales Organizations (ISOs) excel at merchant acquisition. But winning the deal is just the beginning. Increasingly, long-term growth hinges on how well the merchant is supported, especially during onboarding.
Many ISOs find that merchants disengage, delay activation or churn shortly after signing. Emerging data from across the payments ecosystem—including OvationCXM’s recent survey—points to onboarding friction and CX missteps as likely contributors to merchant dissatisfaction. In short: the experience after the sale is critical to getting to that first processed transaction and beyond.
Merchant Services Customer Experience: What the Research Tells Us
OvationCXM’s 2025 survey, The Business Banking Customer Experience Report asked 834 business banking customers about their experience in onboarding and using business banking products including merchant services products. The challenges and frustrations they note in the survey are valuable insights for ISOs too.
Here’s what the CX data found:
- Only 58% described onboarding as “smooth”
- Less than half (48%) said it was “easy”
, - And just 23% reported no frustrating experiences
The top complaints during onboarding?
- Confusing instructions
- Difficulty finding necessary information
- Too many handoffs across organizations
- Unexpected costs
This mirrors trends across the industry. In a 2023 report from The Strawhecker Group, 60% of merchants said they want clearer onboarding processes and faster access to service tools.
What Merchants Want from Onboarding—and Aren’t Getting
Transparency and simplicity are recurring pain points. In OvationCXM’s survey:
- Only 23% of merchant services users described the onboarding experience as “transparent”
- Nearly 3 in 4 experienced at least some friction or frustration
This aligns with McKinsey’s 2023 Payments Pulse, which found that CX now outranks pricing as the top driver of merchant satisfaction and loyalty—a signal that onboarding and support are core differentiators. This isn’t just a bank issue. Payments Dive reports that ISOs and PayFacs who fail to provide digital onboarding and responsive support are seeing slower growth and lower activation rates.
The ISO Reality: Merchants Judge the Whole Ecosystem
Even when ISOs hand merchants off to processing partners or banks, the experience reflects back on the ISO brand. According to ETA & TSG, ISO merchant attrition rates hover between 20–25% annually, often tied to onboarding friction, unclear pricing, and fragmented support.
OvationCXM’s research found similar signals among banking providers, reinforcing the idea that merchant services customers—regardless of who they buy from—share similar frustrations and priorities.
Journey Orchestration: The Next Advantage for ISOs
So how can ISOs reduce friction, improve retention, and differentiate in a crowded market? One emerging solution is journey orchestration—a way to design and manage the full merchant experience from sale to support.
Journey orchestration allows ISOs to:
- Map onboarding steps across all partners and channels
- Deliver proactive communications and guidance
- Share context with support teams to avoid repeated questions
- Monitor onboarding status and intervene when merchants stall
In short, it gives ISOs the visibility and control needed to create standout experiences without having to own every touchpoint.
7 Ways ISOs Can Improve Merchant Services CX Today
Based on our research and industry trends, here are seven concrete steps ISOs can take now:
1. Map the Merchant Journey
Document every post-sale touchpoint—from welcome call to activation—and identify friction points.
2. Centralize Communication Channels
Avoid confusion by giving merchants one consistent, branded support experience regardless of how many teams or partners are involved. Work as a unified team, sharing data in one centralized place so all interactions are visible to everyone supporting the merchant.
3. Automate Key Milestones and Follow-ups
Use orchestration tools, such as journey builders and AI automations, summarizations and insights to send proactive nudges, onboarding reminders and relevant updates. AI can streamline communication responses as well, customizing them for different situations quickly.
4. Equip Support Teams with Journey Context
Ensure everyone—from processors to ISOs—knows what the merchant has seen, done or asked and where they are currently in the journey process. Make it transparent, so everyone understands next steps and who is responsible.
5. Use Real-Time Dashboards to Monitor Journeys
Identify stalled merchants and address issues before they become frustrations by ensuring you can see journey status as it happens vs. a nightly batch feed with stale data.
6. Align Messaging Across the Ecosystem
ISOs, processors, and banks should all reinforce the same promises and next steps.
7. Measure Onboarding Quality, Not Just Completion
A completed onboarding isn’t success if it left the merchant confused or unsupported.
The Bottom Line
Merchant satisfaction today is driven more by experience than price. And while ISOs may not control every aspect of the onboarding process, they can influence it—through journey orchestration, proactive communication, and CX alignment across partners. By learning from what merchants are saying—through OvationCXM’s research and broader industry signals—ISOs can design onboarding that not only activates accounts but builds trust and long-term value.
Want to orchestrate better merchant journeys?
Talk to OvationCXM about how our CXMEngine platform empowers ISOs to deliver seamless support and onboarding—without the silos.
