Heartland Payment Systems Reviews

Pros

Great support
Outstanding IT
Great Management in my region
Fexible
Understanding
The WIN has changed this company made people more accountable
THE SKY IS THE LIMIT
Multiple product sales

Cons

Policy can get in the way
underwritting is extremely inconsistant
You are ALWAYS working - but someone once told me, It's your portfolio, it's your Job to keep it.

Advice to Senior Management

I happen to highly repsect my regional, divisional and territory management team.
But i think communication always can be better, doesnt matter how tight you think you are, always communicate, over kill is not a bad thing.

always remember to be encouraging sometimes people quit their managers not the job.

Pros

Broad information base available to every salesperson concerning all of the different products and services. Offering of multiple products can be a big benefit to more sales.

Cons

Simply not the company it once was.

Unfortunately, they are constantly sending out emails from all levels and divisions to "remind" the sales team how great the company is. The reality is that if the company was still great, they wouldn't need to keep reminding everyone. At the same time they are tooting their own horn, they are taking away the sales team's compensation and incentives. They reduced the salesperson's earnings percentages on many accounts to pay for endorsements and took away the incentives points programs that actually motivated many people to perform better. To replace the incentive points program they started to offer more company trips, but who really wants to "vacation" with hundreds of other people from the company. I turned down every trip they offered since they ramped the program back up again, and I qualified for every one of them. At the same time, they introduced the WIN program and began to micro-manage their 100% commissioned sales force to the point where they threaten a person's continued employment for missing goal in any given month. Not a great source of motivation or positive morale.

In short, this company is heading down the wrong path and has been doing so for quite some time. They have completely lost focus on the value of the individuals who grew the company. Those in leadership roles throughout the company, from top to bottom, are only concerned about one thing; themselves.

Most of their decisions are made with the sole purpose of driving the company's stock price and keeping stockholders happy to preserve executive postions. This strategy has worked well for the stock price, as it has continued to rise and reach new heights since it's dramatic plunge. Unfortunately, it has come with a heavy human cost that the executive team has no concern for.

Pros

Good People to work with and very knowledgeable.

Cons

New products are not ready for primetime. Fly by the seat of your pants implementation. Salary not competitive with the industry.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to the people that you hire. You hired them for a reason let them do what they do best. Get management training to your senior management staff. Communication needs to be enhanced so everyone knows what is going on. Make sure products are ready for primetime and not being tested in customer locations.

Pros

They make a large amount of knowledge available and seem much more technical than their peer companies in the educating their people.

Cons

Managers are not experienced in managing people. Seems to be a large turn over for a company that should be better than their counterparts in the industry. Advancement is not based on performance and leadership qualities. They had a service team that would be a great selling point to get and retain merchants but the group seems to have all but disappeared for no apparent reason. They tried several stratagies to sell in different markets but they all seemed to breakdown due to to lack of promoting them correctly or not providing support or followup on them. No consistancy on their commissions policy.

Advice to Senior Management

Spend time on training your middle managers to support the RMs and make sure they are paid what is documented in the policies

Pros

Not much. I like the freedom the opportunity offers. If you make the minimum, they leave you alone and you can do what you like on your own terms so long as you continue to produce.

Cons

Their expectations are so unrealistic it isn't even funny. The company desperately needs new sales people but they offer nothing to recruit with. They offer no base pay, no expense account, no car allowance, NO BENEFITS, no cell phone - nothing. Then they expect to grow the company with the very few people who will actually take the opportunity. As a result, they get nothing but B level talent and then management wonders why they can't grow the company. People would rather stay unemployed than do this.

They hired this new recruiting team to do all the recruiting. Expectations were high. We heard all about the amount of leads that would be given for new recruits. What happened? Nothing of substance - very few leads. Why? Because they don't offer anything. But management doesn't want to hear that. They just expect you to keep trying, keep pushing and find some warm body to hire. It's a joke.

They talk about all the benefits of becoming vested and having the 30X buyout on portfolio. What they forget to mention is payroll and the marketing program isn't eligible for the cash buyout. So 2/3 of the main products that you have to sell are not worth anything in portfolio equity. Huh?

As a territory manager, I'm expected to drink the koolaid and if I offer an opinion that is contrary to the delirious beliefs of my supervisor - my team gets cut and I no longer get leads for potential new clients. They just want a bunch of yes men.

Get a clue HPS. You can't grow your company isn't going to grow unless you hire QUALITY sales people. Very few skillful sales professionals will work for what you offer.

If you're thinking of working for HPS, just know that the opportunity isn't half as good as what they say it is. I would advise you to look elsewhere.

Advice to Senior Management

You have to put more meat on the bone. If you want to hire quality sales people, you have to offer more to potential recruits. You need to continue to ADD incentives to your sales force - not take them away. If the d*** I Pad is so great - GIVE IT TO US!!!! Are you kidding me?

Pros

Good sales experience & flexible schedule

Cons

Poor compensation, no loyalty to sales team & veteran employees, ineffective servicing, and true ups eat away your income.

Advice to Senior Management

Refocus on servicing instead of hiring. Treat employees fairly. Stop "propoganda" and overturn new regulatory fee for Durbin Act

Pros

State of the art service center in Jville, IN

State of the art IT in Plano

Lots of good resources and a good place to learn (self teach) the industry

Today, a "known" name in card processing

Portfolio Manager (web access to your portfolio) is very savvy and all in realtime

Cons

Sales people truly treated like children (red-headed step children) and sometimes like toddlers

1st year pay is comparable to competitors if you combine signing bonus and residual, but every year after not even close. Signing bonus of 44% of annual margin on most accounts with a 12% (yes! twelve percent!) residual on majority of accounts there after. The extremely low residual payment makes building wealth through growing a portfolio nearly impossible. Natural attrition makes it a break even or even a loosing battle for portfolio building of residuals. Most people are in the industry to build large monthly residuals. Unfortunately, this can no longer happen working for HPS.

Constant sales compensation errors. Coinsidentally, they are never in your favor. Unlike competitors, they do not provide you with the detail needed to accurately self audit your own pay. You will cause yourself REALLY big problems if you try to get answers on pay issues.

Heartland has arrogantly forgotten who buttered their bread. Sales people are treated as if they are lucky to work for the company. From the CEO all the way down to the telephone help at the service center you will find this to be true.

Layers upon layers of unneeded management. Aside from the $100 million service center to pay for, a large part of why RMs make so little residuals is that a part of your pay goes to TMs, DM, RDs, Sales Execs. DMs that do not work outside of their homes, hold 2 conf calls a year but send daily emails about making your WIN. There was a time when DMs were in the field all the time and usually were the best sales people in the area to teach and actually assist in people's success (outside of daily email blasts). RDs do the very same today as DMs except email daily to a larger geograghy. RDs used to constantly hold trainings and learning experiences. They would hold regional motivational contests, have very motivating kick off meetings that people would learn from and use in the field. All of that is out the window today. Just email blasts relating to WINS. No learning or real mentoring.

HPS is like a false profit in the industry. They put on the "white hat" strategy of marketing in varies ways. They have straight up PURCHASED state and national endorsements to build the perception of being a fair and ethical company. Greedy state and national associations simply endorse the highest bidder. That is a simple fact. Heartland purchases these endorsements by cutting sales peoples signing bonuses and residuals and giving it to these associations. Heartland does not spend any of it's own 85% of residuals. Just takes it from the sales force. The MBOR (merchants Bill of Rights) is another example of using the White Hat strategy, but all the while, creating JUNK fees to the merchant and renaming it with a very official title such as "Service Regulatory Mandate". That junk fee is $25 per month, per merchant and the merchant receives nothing in return. Other examples are proprietary equipment (E3) which old HPS majorly preached against as completely unethical. There are many other examples. A book could be written on this subject of the darkness of Heartland's "white hat".

Very poor treatment of medium and small merchants. The GMO, or minimum pricing, for small merchants is outragious! I absolutely do not respect gauging these small business people to the extent that it now takes place. It was totally embarrassing and you must swallow your soul as an RM to spin this pricing off as good for these small merchants. I could no longer do it and I am ashamed that I ever did.

A reminder to the small diminishing group HPS veterans left out there. YOU ARE IN DEMAND. The very best competitors out there all recognize this. HPS is not the only game in town and not even close to being among the best any more. I have heard over and over how CEO's from good competitors absolutely love all the Heartland veterans that have migrated away. We are among the very best trained and savvy sales people in our industry. I was told directly by a prominent CEO "I love ex-Heartland reps and I appreciate Carr spending the years and money to train them so well. But mostly, I appreciate how he turned his back on this elite group of great sales professionals". We take the skills, honesty, full disclosure and great servicing that we learned from OLD Heartland, and apply it to companies that also have great service but pay 5 times more than Heartland and do not gauge the merchants. There is life after Heartland. It's great being gone only one year but now make $5K in monthly residuals. Also love taking this month off work and relaxing with my family with ZERO flack from my company. They realize I am a straight commissioned sales person who is sharp enough to take my skills ANYWHERE I CHOOSE.

Advice to Senior Management

I believe it is too late for the current CEO and founder to bring it back and right so, so many wrongs at this point. To the stock holders: Replace Carr and seek out the veteran leaders of the past to bring back the old ways of true integrety, ethical treatment and positive motivation. The infrastructure is there and the great talent just might come back if "old" management ways returned as well as good compensation and fair treatment of all merchants. Invest in the sales people and place value there. It will pay HUGE dividends!

Pros

- Industry Experience
- Develop Relationships

Cons

- Micromanagement
- Incompetent Senior Leadership
- No Direction
- Relatively Low Pay
- Favoritism
- All About Numbers

Advice to Senior Management

Start treating employees with respect instead of constantly implying that they are replaceable. The 'Sales Executives' are totally incompetent and think they can bully employees and departments into giving them what they want. I was communicating with some of them daily and am shocked that they are able to keep their positions. The company direction is constantly changing due to poor decisions and employees are always trying to keep up. In my experience, unqualified and unprofessional individuals were given promotions and raises based solely on favoritism. HPS was tolerable but I would have a very difficult time recommending the company to a sales professional.

Pros

When it comes to service Heartland in my opinion treats the customer well and are very responsive to help.

Cons

Heartland commission structure should be looked at, signing bonus is good but residuals are slow to build at 15%

Advice to Senior Management

100% commission structure and bear all cost management should be there for support and nothing more.

Pros

Excellent Technology
Opportunity to learn so much about this crazy industry
Ability to expand outside the comfort zone

Cons

Management by Intimidation
Expected to work 24/7/365
TM's expected to get team RM's WIN's and personal WIN at all costs
Job threatened every month until WIN achieved

Advice to Senior Management

STOP treating RM's and TM's like little children by giving ultimatums. "Earn" the respect of the employees instead of "demanding" and "expecting" respect! Recognize that RM's and TM's are the foundation of Heartland and not to be run over and berated at every possible opportunity. Realize that Life Balance is the lifeblood of a successful organization!