Small businesses today often meet their clients where they are. That personal contact provides an opportunity to build long-standing relationships and a reputation for excellent services. With that goal in mind, your point-of-sale system is the ideal way to make a good impression.
Point-of-sale payments are perfect for businesses on the move, like displaying your offerings at tradeshows and farmer's markets, or if you have a home-based or mobile-based business. This technology may also benefit direct service providers, like plumbing and heating businesses. Point-of-service programs often provide software support, contactless and chip card readers, and USB charging cables. Your provider should also deliver end-to-end security with new and improved encryption, tokenization, monitoring, data scanning, and anti-virus technology.
Most customers expect instant and convenient payments today. Modern point-of-sale services help create a trustworthy interface between you and your best customers. The following considerations could help you add power to your own point-of-sale systems.
Offer a wider variety of payment methods
Savvy customers understand the many payment options available these days. Businesses that only accept certain forms of payment are behind the eight ball and, in most cases, will need to adapt to keep up with modern offerings. Traditional payments like credit and debit cards are still popular, but new options like digital wallets and Buy Now, Pay Later services have been growing in use over the years.
With PNC's end-to-end payment processing solutions, for example, you can select from several devices that work best with your business model. If that suits your needs, you can accept payments anywhere with a mobile system or stick a payment processor in your back pocket or apron to carry around with you on the go. Payments can be made online, over the phone, or in person with a swipe, dip, or tap, made manually or through a mobile wallet.
Ensure a fast checkout experience
Customers want options for payments and a seamless payment experience. In fact, research from Cornell found that customers who signed up for an online retailer's "one-click" checkout service increased their spending by an average of 28.5% from previous buying levels and visited the website more often, resulting in the purchase of a wider range of merchandise.[1]
Depending on where your customers are making payments, there are a few things you can do to help make the checkout experience as painless as possible:
- As mentioned above, offer as many payment methods as possible. It's helpful to ensure that your POS system provides contactless options — like tap to pay — as they keep lines moving quickly when payments are being made in person.
- Pick a POS system with intuitive search functions if customers need help making a payment and sales associates are not readily available.
- Have a system that maintains accurate inventory data on your POS system to avoid issues that can bottleneck the payment or pickup process.
Provide advanced, up-to-date features and services
Besides the obvious — the ability to take multiple forms of payments from your customers from various locations — an advanced POS system will offer plenty of additional bells and whistles that might help keep customers happy and engaged. Some of those offerings include:
- Dynamic pricing
- Loyalty program integration
- Self-service kiosks
- Seamless omnichannel customer experiences
- Advanced customer relationship management (CRM) that leads to more targeted marketing based on personalized customer data
We have all the products, information, and insight you need to keep your customers returning for more.
