So you’re finally ready to take your business’ show on the road, but perhaps you’re having a hard time choosing between the many mobile payments processing solutions out there. With a glut of solutions on the market, each with varying feature sets, value-adds, and functionality, it can be hard to wade through the hype to find out what’s truly important in a mobile payments solution.
Fortunately for you, we’ve already done the homework so when you’re considering different options, you’ll know what’s important to look for in a solution. Below, we’ve outlined some of the things to look for in a mobile payments provider:
1. Does it provide highly secured transactions?
When choosing a mobile payments processing solution, it’s important to consider the security protections your new mobile solution provides. When taking payments via a mobile phone network or WiFi, the possibility that someone might be snooping your connection to steal valuable personal payment data is ever-present. Ensuring that your mobile payments solution incorporates state-of-the-art payment security measures like tokenization and encryption, as well as is EMV-compliant, will go a long way in assuaging your customers’ (and your own) worries about transaction security in the mobile setting.
2. Does it provide multiple support options?
Imagine this nightmare scenario: say you’re doing business away from your storefront, whether you’re a mobile service provider like a locksmith or plumber making a 3 AM emergency house call, or you’re testing a new product at the local weekend farmer’s market, and your mobile payment processing solution goes down. What do you do? If your provider only offers online chat support during weekday business hours, or even worse—will email you back in as little as two whole business days, you may have a line of angry customers causing you to lose a day’s worth of business – or worse. Make sure any provider you choose offers multiple avenues for contacting support and adequate hours of availability so you’re backed up wherever, whenever a problem might arise.
3. Is it flexible enough to grow as your business does?
Today you may just be the little guy, but who knows, tomorrow you could be opening your tenth store in a year and have potential franchisees and investors knocking down your door to get in on your growing business. Does your provider offer customization options so that as your business grows, your mobile payments solution can grow along with it? Make sure that any solution you choose offers the ability to search for and select inventory items quickly, as well as the ability to incorporate add-on features like analytics, reporting, scheduling, appointment setting, and many other functions a growing business might need to service a rapidly expanding business.
4. Is it truly mobile?
Of course, a mobile payments processing solution should be mobile friendly – most via a card reader that plugs into your mobile phone or other device. But the mobility we’re talking about is the ability to log into your solution’s dashboard from anywhere. Say you need to run yesterday’s numbers for a meeting in minutes but you left your business’ tablet in the truck. Does your solution offer the ability to log in from any laptop, mobile phone, or other mobile device? Part of the advantage of a mobile payments solution is that the solution is able to go wherever you do so you’re not chained to a register. Make sure any solution you choose doesn’t chain you to a single mobile device either.
5. Does it allow multiple users at multiple levels of access?
One of the most important features we’ve noticed in a great mobile payments processing solution is flexibility for multiple users and the ability to assign different levels of access for different employees. Perhaps you’ve got several junior employees helping you out at your pop-up restaurant. Having the ability for everyone to log in to a single device with multiple access IDs, plus the ability to switch users in the app, to grant an unlimited number of employees access, and to assign different levels of access to each user goes a long way in bringing the full functionality of a traditional register to the mobile setting—and it’s what we’ve observed as the difference between just a good mobile payments processing solution and a great one. Are you in the process of vetting a mobile payments solution right now? Or have you already chosen a solution—what was the most important factor in your decision?
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