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Growing Your Business

Owning and operating a successful business is an amazingly rewarding experience. However, to stay in business long-term, you need to continuously grow your client base. To do so, you should always strive to provide exceptional customer service to your clientele. You can accomplish this task by training your salespeople well. You should also search for effective ways to advertise your business’s product or service offerings. Some wonderful places to advertise your goods or services include newspapers, magazines, your website, and the social media outlets you engage in. On this blog, I hope you will discover smart tips to help you succeed in business.

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Growing Your Business

4 Tips For Finding The Right Card Processing Partner For Your Small Business

by Claude Medina

The move towards a cashless global society is fast approaching, and more consumers are turning to plastic money as a replacement for cash. This move is good for businesses. According to research, people spend less when money when using cash. Consumers confess to spending as much as 83% more money when they use credit cards than when they pay in cash. Thus, businesses need to embrace card payments if they want to generate more sales.

The first step to setting up card payments is choosing a suitable card processing partner. Below are some tips for finding the right partner for your business.

Processing Rates and Fees

Businesses incur fees when processing debit and credit card payments from customers. When choosing a processing firm, check their fees and rates. There are two types of fees you will encounter:

  1. Transaction fees: These are charges incurred for processing a card transaction, and they comprise the merchant fee, interchange rate, and assessment fee.
  2. Flat fees: The fees are charged by merchant services or payment gateways, and they are payable every month.

Some processing firms also charge incidental fees for occurrences such as chargebacks and insufficient funds. The best type of company to work with should charge the lowest fees, depending on the amount of money you receive through card payments. For example, some merchants charge a flat rate for monthly transactions amounting to less than $3,000. This would be a suitable package compared to paying a transaction fee for every payment made to the business.

Range of Payment Methods

A good card processing company should offer a range of payment methods for your customers. Some customers prefer Visa, MasterCard, or American Express payments, while others prefer bank transfers. Consumers even use digital wallets such as PayPal, Google Wallet, and mobile money. The last thing you want is to lose customers just because their preferred payment method is not available. Thus, find a firm that offers a variety of options, especially the most popular ones.

When checking payment methods, look into the processing procedure too. Some processing gateways require customers to provide card information and other personal details on the business' website. Others redirect users to the merchant page for payment. No option is better than the other. What matters is whether the process is fast, smooth, and glitch-free for your customers.

Safety and Reliability

Credit card data breaches are common in the US. In 2019, there were over 270,000 cases of credit card fraud in the US. One way cybercriminals access consumer information is through online gateways with poor security. Weak security allows criminals to intercept data as it's relayed to the server. Since online payments are no-card-present transactions, scammers can use the card information to make purchases or even open new credit cards with the user's details.

A reliable card processing firm should have robust security that protects user information against being intercepted. It should provide a secure payment gateway that encrypts sensitive card and bank information, making it useless to criminals. For in-store card payments, your chosen processor should have security features in place to detect fake credit cards and protect your business from fraud.

Reliable Customer Support

Glitches occur when handling in-store and online card payments. An unreliable processing firm with poor customer support can hurt your business. If customers can't successfully make payments due to glitches with your processor, you will lose the sale. Thus, find a partner with reliable, 24/7 customer support.

They should offer a variety of options such as live chat, email and phone support. Before signing a contract, test their customer support to find out their response time. If possible, choose a processor that provides direct access to human support as opposed to automated bots. 

Being able to incorporate card payments into your small business is a sign of growth. Thus, finding the right partner can speed up growth and add value to your business. Consult a card processing consultant for professional help!

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