4 Key Features to Look for in a Payment Software Solution
We’ve all been in situations as a customer where our interaction with a business was going well. But then it turned sour when it was time to pay. Perhaps you were presented with an invoice that stated, “Payment via cash or check” when you were only prepared to pay with a credit card. And as seems to be so frequent these days, maybe you paid for a service with a credit card which then became compromised.
Field service companies are not immune to these types of situations. When they happen, customers are left with a bad taste in their mouth and the company is left without the repeat business. However, using payment software that is integrated with your field service management platform to manage financial transactions is an imperative piece of not only making your life easier, but making your customer’s overall experience seamless.
We’ve put together a few items that you’ll want to watch for as you consider different solution providers.
Credit Card Payment Processing
It never fails: When things break or go wrong in a home, it’s at a most inopportune time – an HVAC unit dies in the middle of summer, the roof springs a massive leak during rainy season, a pipe freezes and bursts in the winter. These can be expensive fixes that a customer might not be able to pay for outright. If their only option is to pay for your services with cash or a check, this creates a problem. Don’t be surprised, either, if your customer tells you they don’t even use checks – the U.S. Federal Reserve reported in its 2019 Federal Reserve Payments Study that check payments are on the decline by more than seven percent
Data Security and Payment Software
A sure way to lose a customer is to compromise their credit card information – and they’re certain to spread the word, which will cost you even more revenue. With credit card fraud more than doubling between 2017 and 2019 to 271,000+ reported cases in the US, customers no longer hope that you will keep their data secure: They expect it.
Using payment software as part of a field service management platform adds a level of security to your business that may only exist currently in the form of a locked file cabinet or a paper shredder. You want to look for a solution that offers features like point-to-point encryption and tokenization to protect sensitive cardholder data. If your business caters to recurring customers, ensure your solution provider can not only store your customers’ payment information, but does so securely. With the right provider, you should also benefit from reduced administrative time and cost associated with maintaining PCI compliance.
Lighter Lifting in the Office
How much extra time do you have at the end of each day for reconciling invoices and transactions and entering them into multiple platforms? What about drilling down into transaction details, pulling reports, or performing voids, refunds, and other similar actions? Our guess is that you could think of many other things you’d rather do with extra time – if you had it.
Low Fees
As the saying goes, “It takes money to make money.” It makes sense – you invest in your business every day on tangible things like equipment, vehicles, and other types of assets. But if you are new to credit card processing, you may not be familiar with the costs associated with the business of accepting card payments from your customers (our friends at CardConnect have put together a Merchant Services 101 to help walk you through it).
Moving Forward
You want to leave your customers feeling good about their start-to-finish interaction with you and feeling confident in continuing to do more business with you. A payment solution is just one piece of a complete field service management solution, but it is an important one that goes a long way in giving your customers secure payment options and lightening the load for your office staff. We consider that a win-win!