Businesses are always looking for ways to attract more customers and increase their sales, and convenient payment methods can certainly make people more likely to spend money on a product or service. After all, each individual manages finances differently and has preferences when making purchases. That is why optimizing your payment solutions can impact your profitability and success. It doesn’t matter how small your business is, choosing the right payment strategy is not only essential for multinationals and well-known companies but is also an important aspect for all types of businesses including startups and local businesses. When it comes to payment processing, you need to find efficient and secure solutions. Lucky for you, in this article, we’ll be discussing how you can optimize and secure your payment practices.
Payment processing requires a lot of time and effort. If you want this function to be done in-house, you’d probably need a whole department. This means you need to hire personnel to handle your finances and utilize a program to track your sales. If you have limited resources, partnering with a payment provider can be a better option as they are more experienced and can handle this complex process. Thereby, allowing you to focus on your core functions. However, you need to partner with a well-known and reputable payment processing provider with industry expertise. Your provider should be using up-to-date technological tools and methods that facilitate payments for businesses and customers, thus helping you increase your sales and market share. Furthermore, the provider should offer payment methods that’ll appeal to your market to ensure your business will benefit from arranging a partnership.
Generally, there are two types of providers; payment aggregators and dedicated payment processors. Payment aggregators are corporations that manage the payment processes of several companies. They process clients’ transactions and handle their payments using shared accounts. While dedicated payment processors can customize their services according to every clients’ needs. This allows each company to use its own merchant account to process payments.
When customers are purchasing an item using their credit cards and your system constantly declines their payment, this can be quite frustrating. It may also cause them to shift to competitors or other businesses with smoother payment processes. You need to ensure that you always have the latest updates to avoid any inefficiencies and disrupted sales.
Also, you should have all the requirements needed for a customer to finish the payment process. For instance, if you’ll debit the account through an Automated Clearing House (ACH) network, you should have an authorization form for the provider to fill in. If you need assistance setting up your ACH payment form, click here.
As the customer payment experience has been a major area for advancement and innovation, you need to consider how you can satisfy your clients. You need to provide customers with more than one payment option to accommodate their needs. Focus on improving their payment experience. People may not be aware of it but many successful businesses adopt secure EMV payment solutions. This allows them to accept Visa cards, Mastercard, and Europay. Having more than one payment option will enable your customers to utilize the payment option that is most convenient to them. Thereby greatly affecting your business as well. Try to choose a payment system that is compatible and accepts many payment methods including:
In some cases, you can set up a feature wherein your clients can save their payment options on your site. This way, they won’t need to input their details every time they buy a product or service from your company. Overall, always upgrade your systems to support a wide range of credit card terminals and accept trusted brands.
Anti-fraud protection and Fraud Management should be a top priority due to the increased rates of fraud. According to the 2019 American Express Digital Payments Survey, 69 percent of the companies in the U.S. are spending tremendous amounts of time and money to deal with fraudulent transactions. Fraud and cyberattacks can revoke a seller’s ability to process payments.
It can be detrimental to their reputation, so credit card companies stop partnering with them. So, you should check whether your payment gateways are secure. You don’t want your business or clients to encounter trouble due to poor website security. Your customers may risk getting their private information stolen if your payment system has bugs that may compromise their accounts.
In addition, to increase security, you should implement:
These are protocols on your online site to help you encrypt sensitive data that customers provide like their credit card passwords. An SSL certificate makes any business more credible and trustworthy. Furthermore, it’ll put customers at ease as they know their information is safe with your site.
Compares the buyer’s IP address to the billing address information provided by the Credit card owner. This ensures that they both match and that the buyer making the transaction is the credit cardholder.
Use two-factor authentication or more than one element in the authentication procedure. You can use fingerprints, phone numbers, or voice recognition. Don’t forget to require strong passwords for your systems to protect clients’ accounts. These can protect clients from unwanted purchases and ensure they won’t pay for something they didn’t buy.
Train your employees so that they know everything about secure payment processes and practices. That way, they will be able to detect fraudulent activities and security hacks. They will also be able to handle these incidents and respond immediately. Thereby, reducing breaches that result in huge losses.
Nowadays, millions of people are using credit cards and advanced payment options more than ever before. That is why it is of utter importance for all businesses to move forward and plan how they can improve their payment solutions. You want to better match the rapid changes and dynamic business environment. Keep these tips in mind if you want to adopt the best and most secure payment solutions, and boost your profitability.
