Regardless of whether you’re an established or new business owner, you require a way of accepting payment from your clients to make money. And thanks to technological advancement, you don’t have to be paid by checks as they’re too risky and should instead opt for credit card payments. This has been made easier with the list of credit card processing companies becoming longer with businesses and customers preferring this payment method.
But choosing a credit card processing company is often confusing and daunting as it involves a lot. However, you need not worry as this article advises on choosing a credit card processing company. A reliable choice impacts how easily you win over customers and the amount of sales.
1. Accepted Payment Methods
The last thing you want is missing out on a sale because your credit card processing company doesn’t accept specific payment methods. This is especially crucial today when customers wish to have as many options as possible, including how they should pay. Therefore, you should first ask the credit card processing company if they accept the different payment methods used by your customers.
Today, it’s essential that credit and debit cards are accepted payment methods. If your targeted clients might use prepaid cards, gift cards, or any other payment method, you need to go with a credit card processor that accepts these payments. It’s also essential to go with a company that provides you with mobile credit card processing and online credit card processing if your customers prefer paying using their smartphones or online.
2. Quality of Customer Support
There’s a high likelihood you’ll one day experience an issue when accepting payment from a client. This is expected from any credit card company occasionally, but you need to get quick attendance to this matter to have it rectified when this happens. Therefore, you should go for a credit card company with a reliable customer support team that’s quickly available to help you resolve the problem. If not, you might end up ruining your company’s reputation to your customers and making huge losses in the long run.
Knowing this, you must never ignore the quality of customer support offered by the credit card processor company. You can gauge how reliable the credit card processor company will be in case of an issue by finding out how the representatives will reach out to you, whether online, over the phone, or by text. In addition, you want to get 24/7 support as you never know when a problem might arise.
3. The Setup Process
You must also find out how easy the setup process is before choosing the credit card company. After all, you don’t want to miss out on possible sales because the setup process took a lot of time to finish. Therefore, you need to ask the credit card processing company how fast and complicated the installation process is, even though many business owners often ignore this. Doing this will save you from any headache and losing money due to a prolonged setup process.
In addition, it’s crucial to confirm from the credit card processing company whether they’re any additional charges and if they can offer you any help during the setup process.
4. Fees and Costs
How transparent is the credit card processing company? This is another important question you need to ask yourself, as pricing transparency tells a lot about the credit card processing company’s reliability. One of the fees you need to know about is the interchange fee, which ranges between 0.5% to 3% per transaction on the final buying price. The interchange fee varies depending on various factors, including;
- Transaction size
- Payment method
- Online or in-store purchase
Other fees you should confirm whether the credit card processing company will charge you include monthly fees, payment gateway fees, the setup fee, support fees, and fees for terminating your contract. While all this might appear overwhelming, it shouldn’t be an issue if the card processing company is transparent with all the costs.
5. Security and Fraud Protection
With an ever-rising number of cybercriminals, you shouldn’t overlook security and fraud protection when choosing a credit card processor company. This is the only way to ensure that your customers and business data don’t end up in the wrong hands. Knowing this, you should always go with a credit processing company that values security and has fraud protection tools in place.
A reliable credit card processing company should safeguard your data through tokenization and encryption for purchases made online and offline. You should also confirm that the processor supports CVV2 certification and SSL certificates to make online payments safely. In addition, make sure the credit card processor is PCI-DSS compliant to safeguard data sharing through your system.
