Even for non-profit businesses, merchant service providers make up an important part of the business process. They bridge the financial gap between the business and clients. Using the wrong merchant service provider may not only keep away potential customers, it could also lead to expensive overheads. To avoid this, here are five tips you should work with.
Run the Company through your needs
You need to make a list of the type of services you require from your merchant service provider as a non-profit business. Apart from the standard requirements, you need to work out if you need extras like recurring billing and credit card storage. You have to ensure all your required services are bundled together so you won’t have to juggle various providers. You also need to work out how quickly you want funds deposited into your account and this varies from one provider to the other.
Find Out Details on Outsourcing and Exclusivity
It is important to find out if your chosen merchant service provider handles all your credit card transactions or if they outsource to a third party. If you are working with banks, they will most definitely outsource. The disadvantage this has as against working with niche-specific providers like Dharma for Nonprofits is the hassle of going through a middleman when complications inevitably arise. In this day and age where customer personal information can be stolen rather easily, outsourcing also increases identity theft risk.
It is also important to work out if you are expected to use exclusive point-of-sale (POS) software or if you can choose yours.
Work Out the Costs
As a non-profit business, you need to ensure all ends are covered in terms of expenses. It is important therefore to ask questions regarding hidden fees, extra charges, programming fees, annual fees, etc. How many credit card transactions are you allowed per month? How will they handle international cards? All of these will make it easy for you to place a number on costs and work out if your business can afford the company or not.
Analyse Customer Service and Tech Support
It is ideal to only work with a company that guarantees round the clock tech support. If they don’t offer round the clock service, they should be able to offer support during your work hours. You should also ensure that the customer service personnel are knowledgeable individuals instead of go-between that will have to get help from actual support staff. This will reduce the amount of time it will take for any problems to be sorted.
Check for References and Reviews
The best types of reviews are those that come from businesses in your niche. This is why you should watch out for merchant services companies that have worked with non-profit businesses in the past or continue to work with them today.
Picking the right merchant service provider for your business involves a lot of factors. These five tips will ensure you are well equipped to make the right decisions.