Picking a quality vendor with industry experience is just as valuable as finding the lowest priced payment processing service. After all, you want a partner that understands the internal and external concerns your business faces.

Think about all the ways your relationship with your payment processing software can impact your business. Choose the company that has your best interests in mind. Ask yourself:

Perhaps the top concern for your business is finding a payment solution tailored to your unique industry concerns.

• Does the payment company you’re considering understand the internal processes your company follows?

• Do they know what external factors are affecting your cash flow?

Ask how they have helped others with the same pain points you are looking to solve. The right payment software company will have unique insight to help you improve operations.

Payment software isn’t the only tool you’ll need for your business. You may need your accounts receivable software (ARM) or customer relationship management (CRM) to work with the payment features you choose.

Find out what the solution integrates with or look for an option that allows you to integrate through open APIs.

There are many factors to payment processing. It’s important to not only trust the organization as a whole but to know the actual people who manage your account and help you with customer support.

A solid relationship with the account managers and customer service staff shows confidence in the payment processing services the company offers. This relationship is crucial when:

• New regulations are introduced to your industry and you need to know if your software complies.

• You are considering adopting new technology in your business and have questions about simplifying your processes.

• You are considering different merchant service providers or want to use multiple providers and need to know if you can maintain the products and processes already in place.

• You need hands-on support for training and an employee adoption plan for implementing the new software into daily operations.

New tools should simplify your life, not make it more difficult. Consumers need a system that is easy to understand and can bring them to a payment resolution quickly. But efficiency can be measured in many other ways too.

• Is it easy to get started? How long does it take to get up and running with new software? Once you’re ready to make a change, you likely want systems available as soon as possible.

• Is it easy to train your employees to use? Once management has been onboarded to a new system and it’s ready to use, a big hurdle is passing knowledge on to frontline employees. Employee training and adoption can take a lot of coordination and time. The easier it is to learn the new system, the better. Companies that offer free training can make the transition go even faster.

• Does it simplify interactions with consumers? Positive customer experience is an important factor in keeping escalated calls and consumer complaints low. Customer experience statistics also show the better the experience, the higher your revenue.

• Does it allow customers to easily self-serve? Can they pay through an online portal or set up their own recurring payment schedule? Other self-serve channels to consider are pay-by-text or via email.

• Does it improve cash flow? Features in your payment system should make it faster and easier for consumers to pay their bills, speeding up the amount of money your business brings in.

• How easily does it scale as your business grows? Can you add new users without a significant cost increase? Look for cloud-based solutions and understand their data storage policies.

PDCflow can complete simple consumer setups in as little as 24 hours. Once your desired back-end features have been chosen, our customer success team will set up a personalized training session for you and your staff.

PDCflow’s Flow Technology makes it simple for your customers to complete payment requests through email or text, increasing your cash flow.

By guiding consumers through the payment process while still on the phone, employees can provide excellent customer service, remove risk, and build trust, since the customer enters payment information themselves.

High-risk or heavily regulated industries are tasked with a host of compliance regulations and hurdles. Taking payments also comes with its own regulations to follow. You must align yourself with payment processing services that make it easy, as well as compliant.

PCI compliance is essential when taking credit card payments. However, achieving and maintaining that compliance can become costly. At a time when many employees have shifted to remote work, finding payment processing services that facilitate remote PCI compliance is essential.

With Flow Technology, PDCflow allows businesses to take payments from consumers while limiting PCI scope. Agents never need to see sensitive card data from consumers, but can still guide them through the payment process to ensure payment is made before the call ends.

Other security options to consider include payment detail verification for both credit cards and ACH payments. When staff or customers type incorrect credit card or bank account information to be stored and used later in your sales process, you won’t know until the day the payment comes due. The time and resources needed to follow up eat into the pursuit of new business.

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