To Our Clients and Business Partners;

These are strange times for sure. We are all in the same boat as independent business owners, but with our fates tied to each other through the franchise brands and the direction of the government. FPN and our sister company POLN8 are no different. As independently owned companies who service the franchise industry, we can empathize.

Rest assured, we’re open for business. You have peace-of-mind that we will be here for you. We’ll continue service through our normally established business hours. Our team is ready to not only give you the service levels you are accustomed to, but even go above and beyond to help you during these stressful times. Please remember as you’re looking at your finances that our services are based on actual transactions. If for some reason you are shut down for a block of time, we are charging you for the actual transactions that have already been processed.

However, we cannot control the response times of other vendors we are using to support you such as POS companies, Payment Gateways, etc… Please know that we will continue to be your advocate as it is our job to get you answers and timelines for resolutions as soon as possible.

We have taken the steps below to ensure consistency of service and safety of our team.

• We added staff — not laid off team members.
• We identified positions that are required to be in the office to enhance day-to-day operations and allowed others to work from home to limit the amount of people interacting in the office.
• We doubled up on our cleaning efforts.
• Our employees know to self-monitor and not come to work if they or someone in their family is not feeling well.
• Our management team meets daily on the status of COVID-19 to monitor and make any adjustments based on government updates.

I tell my team all the time that we are not in the payment processing or loyalty business, we are in the relationship business and now more than ever this rings true. We are here to support you and will continue to.

People in the franchise industry are all entrepreneurs. We have the ability to make changes to our business models quickly and keep our businesses not only alive but thriving as others may run scared or the larger bureaucratic corporate organizations struggle to make those changes. I challenge you all to take a look at your particular business to see how you can modify your operations a bit to not only service your current customers, but pick up new ones from those other businesses that may not have the foresight to shift gears in these times.

Entrepreneurs in nature are the most positive people and look at every issue as an opportunity to find solutions to help families, employees, customers, and our country. I encourage you all to look for ways to make the best of what is happening right now.

Stay safe and know that our team is here to help every step of the way.

Tom Epstein
CEO, Franchise Payments Network, POLN8