Credit and debit cards are heavily relied upon for most transactions. Cards are ubiquitous, fast, and convenient for customers to use. If your business already offers the ability to take orders over the phone, you may also consider changing the way you accept payment.

Why You Should Upgrade Your Payment Options

Businesses who want to be successful will look for ways to benefit both themselves and their customers. One option that fits the bill is allowing customers to pay over the phone when they order.

Customers will love the convenience of ordering and paying at once. It’s one less step when they pick up their order.

Having that extra touch of customer service and convenience can help retain customers, and may also make them more apt to recommend your business to others. An uptick in sales is worth the minimal prep work and set up needed to upgrade your current pay systems.

How To Upgrade Your Payment Options

If you come to the conclusion that you want your business to be able to take payments over the phone, you just might find the process is far easier and faster than you may think to implement. There are generally three main ways you can accept payment with the card not present (in this case, over the phone).

Ways to accept phone payments include:

1.Using Your Credit Card Terminal: Assuming you are not a cash-only business, you should already be equipped with a credit card terminal. A really simply option is simply having customers tell you their information and keying it into your terminal while on the phone with them. You’ll need the card number, security code, and expiration date to process it manually.

2.Using A Virtual Terminal: Virtual terminals are web-based payment processing applications. They allow payments to be taken without needing to have a card reader device. All you need to do is manually enter the pertinent information into the terminal and you’ll be on a roll with payments by phone in no time.

In some cases, using a virtual terminal actually helps bring costs down by allowing your business to be charged less for processing. You can be charged less because there are extra steps of verification that ensure authenticity in each transaction.

3.Using A Mobile Payment Processing Application: Some credit card processing companies have mobile phone-based applications businesses can use when they are accepting and submitting payments. You can use one of these applications to take phone orders for your business, too.

Is It Worth It?

There are really no downsides to opening up your payment options for customers. One area of concern when payments are done without the card being present is fraud. However, you must consider that fraud may happen even if someone presents a card in person.

Taking phone payments promotes customer satisfaction, may attract more business/sales, and often will take little to no extra equipment or set up for your business to being implementing.
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