Businesses change with time, and one aspect that’s changing very quickly is payment methods. These days, small businesses that accept digital payments have a 20% higher conversion rate than those that don’t.
With that said, just accepting digital payments isn’t enough. There are a range of ways of processing payments, and you need to keep the customer in mind when thinking about how your business will handle transactions. Seemingly simple decisions can have a huge impact on the success of your business.
In this guide, we’ll go over some payment acceptance best practices so you can adjust how you handle customer payments to achieve the best results. Keep reading for more.
Be Flexible With Payment Methods
In recent years, payment technology has improved dramatically. Customers can use their debit/credit cards, smartphones, applications, and more to complete transactions.
Everyone has methods that they like and methods they don’t. Being flexible with payment methods will allow more customers to buy from you with ease.
If people can’t use their preferred method(s) they may look to your competitors. This is much more common for eCommerce businesses. Plenty of customers will simply abandon their basket if they can’t pay how they want to.
If you’re flexible and support a wide range of payment methods, you won’t have to worry about this so much. You can allow payment channels like PayPal and Stripe, digital wallets like Google Pay, and some businesses these days even support cryptocurrency payments. The more options you can give your customers, the better.
Support Account Creation
If you sell anything online, you should make things convenient for your customers. Account functionality is one of the easiest ways to do this.
Customers can use accounts to save information such as their name, contact information, and even card details. After creating their account, any future purchases will be faster and more streamlined. The fewer barriers there are between your customers and their order completion, the more conversions you’ll be able to generate.
Some companies even have a “one-click checkout” option. This makes the whole buying process incredibly simple which will help you retain a lot of customers.
Choose the Right Secure Online Payment Processor
A good way of improving security is by reducing the number of parties involved in the overall payment lifecycle. You can do this by using an end-to-end payment solution.
This helps bring together the acquirer, gateway, and processor functions. Not only does this streamline the process, but it ensures data flows seamlessly between these different stages. It also minimizes the exposure of data to third parties helping to reduce risk.
Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
While allowing users to store card data can be very convenient, it also presents a level of risk. You need to take measures to minimize this risk, and MFA is a simple yet effective approach.
It requires users to enter a second set of credentials after their login details to access their account. Common examples include PIN codes or one-time passcodes (OTP).
This acts as an additional layer of security that makes it significantly harder for malicious actors to access accounts that aren’t theirs. Card information held online is always a security risk, but this makes things far more secure.
Require Card Verification Value (CVV)
CVV is a security feature for debit and credit cards. It helps merchants verify cardholder identity during transactions when they’re not physically present. This should be standard for any online purchases.
When a buyer submits their card details with the CVV, the merchant receives a CVV response code. This confirms that the person making the purchase is the legitimate cardholder. CVV codes aren’t stored on the magnetic strip or chip of a card or embossed on it, so they’re unlikely to be stolen in a data breach.
Ensure Your Website Platform Is Secure
Regardless of whether your business is partially or entirely online, you need to make sure your website platform is secure at all times. A data breach could be devastating for your business, so you need to make security a priority.
To maintain a high level of security, you should:
- Keep software and plug-ins up to date
- Require users to have strong passwords
- Implement Transport Layer Security (TLS)
- Use a firewall
- Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
- Monitor for suspicious and fraudulent activities
Cybercriminals are constantly looking for ways to exploit companies. Stay on top of your security to keep your business and your customers safe.
Use a Recognizable Business Name and Purchase Description
This is something a lot of people don’t think about, but it can greatly benefit your customers. If you have a recognizable business name and purchase description, it will make it easier for customers to understand their purchase history. This is true both when they’re making a purchase and when looking back at statements.
If customers don’t recognize your business name, they might mistakenly think a fraudulent purchase has been made using their information. They may then contact their card companies to initiate chargebacks or other disputes.
This can have an impact on your business reputation, and as a result, your profits. Ensuring you have a recognizable business name is easy to do and it can help you out a lot in the long run.
Provide Support and Information
Making things as easy as possible for your customers will help, but they may still run into issues. When this happens, they should be able to get assistance.
You could have a FAQ on your site to help people with common areas of confusion. For other issues, they should be able to contact your support team with ease. A chatbot can also be a great tool that customers can use to quickly resolve issues.
Improving Payment Acceptance
If you want to improve payment acceptance overall, you should make things as easy and safe for your customers as possible. Allow them to create accounts and use various payment methods. Keep things simple and take steps to build a robust security system.
Trinity Payments offers the most suitable payment solutions for your business such as point-of-sale systems, mobile payment systems, and eCommerce payment systems. We can provide enhanced reporting capabilities, dispute and chargeback management, robust integration capabilities, and more.
Take a look at who we serve to see how our solutions can fit into your business.
