Increase Your Sales - Accept Credit CardsWritten by Sue and Chuck DeFiore
Many people today simply prefer convenience of paying by credit card. If you want their business, you must be able to accept their credit-card payments.In part one of this series we will discuss why you should accept credit cards, and basics of getting merchant status. Part two will deal with objections you might get, which credit cards to accept, and check paying option. Obtaining merchant status, which allows you to accept credit-card payments, might seem like an unnecessary hassle, especially for those in business where majority of their customers pay by cash or check. But by not accepting credit-card payments, you lose sales. This is especially true if yours is a mail order business, or consulting business. Just look at majority of business today, all of them accept credit cards, and becoming more and more popular all time are debit cards. As many businesses have found, up to 70 percent of people never mail check, so accepting credit cards is crucial. When customer places an order, he’s excited and eager to buy. Faced with prospect of sending a check, waiting for it to clear and then awaiting shipment, his interest is likely to wane. In meantime, you lose sales. The Basics of Merchant Status In order to accept credit cards, you need to work with a bank that will transfer money into your account within a day or two of sale, and then collect money from customer. In return, you pay bank a commission of 1.5 percent to 5 percent for each credit-card transaction; a set, per-transaction fee; and a setup fee. You will also have to pay monthly support or equipment-rental fees for a point-of-sale terminal—the machine used to swipe card—depending on contract.
| | Whatever Happened To Customer 'Service'?Written by Lorraine Pirihi
Do you remember last time you went into a shop and person 'serving' raced over to you, greeted you with a lovely smile, heaps of enthusiasm and said, "Welcome to our store, what can I help you with today?" And then listened attentively to what you had to say?Doesn't happen very often does it? In fact, while I was writing this, I couldn't recall when I had experienced it. I'm sure I must have yet it would have been so long ago, I can't remember. Let me tell you what happened this week… I belong to a well-known trade exchange which I have found very useful for my business. I wanted to purchase a suitcase from a particular store which usually takes trade dollars. From time-time store will limit use of trade dollars if they have reached their maximum for month. Anyhow I quickly discovered this wasn't going to be my lucky day. I walked in and assistant who was sitting down behind counter (and remained there), didn't smile. She barely acknowledged me with what looked like a scowl. I had interrupted her reading time. (She was so busy, there was no-one in store). I then politely (yes I can be polite sometimes) asked her if they were accepting trade dollars as I wanted to purchase a suitcase. She turned around to owner who was sitting behind her doing some bookwork and repeated my question. The owner stayed seated, didn't look up and told her assistant "No".
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