Factors to Tick Off Before Partnering with a Merchant Service Provider

A merchant account is a must-have if you want to collect electronic payments for your business. This includes debit cards, credit cards, HSA/FSA cards, and ACH, or e-Check, payments. Despite a merchant service provider being a crucial tool for business success, not all processors are created equally. Choosing the wrong merchant service provider could be a ticking time bomb for revenue loss. Eager to know the factors to consider when partnering with a merchant service provider? Read on to review what makes a standout processing partner.

Payment Security

As convenient as e-payments are, they’re susceptible to fraud. As a merchant who wants to build and maintain your customer base, you must be very keen on payment security. The ideal merchant service provider for your business should be PCI compliant and have a wide array of fraud management tools,  such as encryption and tokenization. The more focused on secure payments your merchant service provider is, the less your business needs to worry about out-of-pocket losses.

Supported Payment Solutions

Another factor to consider is the types of payment solutions offered by a merchant service provider. Generally speaking, the more ways you give your clients to pay, the greater your chances of receiving payment. Popular payment solutions include:

• Fee-Free Payments™
• IVR
• Pay by Text
• Recurring Billing
• Web Payments

It is best to partner with a merchant service provider offering a variety of payment channels – this makes it easier to scale your business as time goes by.

Reliable Customer Support

As discussed, payment processing is crucial to running a successful business today.  Should you run into any problems accepting payments, you must be able to resolve the issue quickly and thoroughly with your merchant service provider. Your processor must offer knowledgeable and immediate customer support, FAQs, and comprehensive troubleshooting guides. Be sure to set your customer service expectations high when reviewing your payment processing options and choose your company’s best fit.

Understand Processing Limitations 

By this time, you should have an understanding that not all processors are created equal. Many will try to win your business over with low rates and too-good-to-be-true offers. Before signing on the dotted line with any merchant service provider, be sure to understand what you are signing up for fully. Are you able to process all card types? How quickly will funds settle in your bank account? Are processing fees deducted per batch or monthly? Is there a hard limit on the dollar amount you can process monthly? Any penalties for going above or below your approved processing volume?

Any processor worth your time will go above and beyond to ensure all your concerns are thoroughly addressed. Ask some tough questions; it’s better to know on the front end what you are receiving instead of figuring it out after the fact once locking into a lengthy contract term.

Additional Considerations

After your initial call with your prospective merchant service provider, you should understand if they are viable option moving forward. Additional factors to consider include the pricing structure and how long the processor has been in business. Most importantly, make sure they have clients in a similar business venture as yours. Still confused on where to start looking for a reputable merchant service provider? Give Payment Savvy a shout. Since 2010, we have helped all facets of businesses achieve organizational success with our first-rate payment solutions! Let us create a custom and complete payment system for your business today!