Best Merchant Services For Your Business

How to Choose The Best Merchant Services

When choosing a merchant services provider, there are several key factors to consider to ensure you get the right fit for your business. Below, we discuss some of the most important criteria to evaluate when making your final decisions.

Payment Options

The payment methods accepted by a provider are crucial as they dictate how and where you can process payments. As such, it’s important to find a merchant services company that offers a wide range of payment methods and processing solutions.

When choosing a provider, be sure to understand the following:

• Does it support in-person payments via chip, swipe, dip, and tap?
• What about ecommerce transactions–does it integrate with the top payment gateways?
• Can it facilitate recurring billing for subscriptions and membership models?
• Does it support mobile payments and newer methods like digital wallets?

If you accept payments in person, you should also look closely at the hardware options available. Some providers offer everything from a mobile card reader to a full POS solution with all the bells and whistles. However, each provider works with different hardware companies. So, it’s important to understand what your options are and make sure you can get what you need.

By ensuring you can accept payments anywhere with the hardware you prefer, you’ll get a solution that works no matter how (and where) your customers want to pay.

Pricing

Merchant fees can really add up, especially for businesses with a lot of low-value transactions. Different providers offer unique pricing structures and the best one for you depends on your volume, business model, and the size of your transactions.

When evaluating the overall price of each solution, be sure to look at:

• Per transaction fees for different types of payments
• Monthly or annual membership fees
• Setup, PCI compliance, and cancellation fees
• Other hidden fees like batch, gateway, and software fees
• Contract length requirements

Many providers aren’t transparent about all the fees that could apply to your set up unless you talk to them and get a customized quote. So, it’s crucial to get on the phone and ask for a breakdown of all the potential fees before making any decisions.

Customer Support

Most, if not all, merchant services providers have 24/7 support options. However, they’re not all equal in timeliness and quality. Some companies are only able to help with payment processing questions and don’t have the knowledge to assist with technical issues, like getting started and integrating with your existing setups.

Others claim to be available any time but outsource after-hours and weekend support to third parties. And still others have millions of customers and slower than average response times.

The best way to evaluate customer support is by reaching out yourself. When doing so, look for:

• 24/7 live support for payment, tech, and onboarding issues
• Quick response times no matter when you reach out
• An account manager dedicated to your business
• Educational and DIY troubleshooting resources

You can also ask questions regarding the type of support you’ll get, whether the provider outsources to third parties, their average response time, and the operating hours for different support channels.

Analytics

Many merchant services providers don’t have their own software. Instead, they piece together third-party products into a complete payment solution for you. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean that the analytics you get may depend on the software and hardware included in your solution.

Simpler setups with basic terminals tend to get stuck with less-than-ideal analytics features while those with full POS solutions get significantly more insight into their data.

Because of that, we prefer providers that offer their own analytics so you don’t have to rely on the variability of other companies.

Some of the most important features to look for include:

• Customizable and interactive dashboards
• Ability to see crucial key metrics at a glance
• Filtering by date, product, location, employee, and more
• Pre-built and customizable reports
• Option to schedule and automate recurring reports
• The ability to export your data

Robust reporting allows you to extract real-time business insights and make better decisions. As such, it’s an important, yet often overlooked feature to consider.

Ease of use

Merchant services are notoriously confusing, so it’s crucial to choose a provider that makes the entire process as straightforward as possible. From filling out your application for a new account to setting up hardware, integrating other tools, and every day use for your employees, ease of use can make or break your experience.

The best providers make it easy to get in touch, ask questions, and apply. They also give you multiple ways to apply and make the application process as fast as possible so you’re not sitting around waiting for an answer.

After approval, setup will likely take a bit of time but shouldn’t be overly complicated.

To help simplify the process, look for providers that offer free and unlimited onboarding support plus detailed documentation to help you get started.

Beyond initial setup, you, your team, and your customers should have no problems using the solution–including hardware and software. Neither should get in your way, cause unnecessary disruptions, or slow operations for any reason.

When evaluating providers, be sure to look closely at:

• Application process and timeline
• Navigation of terminals and POS systems
• Intuitiveness of the online portal and various pieces of software
• Ease of finding what you need on mobile
• Features that help streamline initial setup

The best solutions are as simple and straightforward as possible without unnecessary complexity, unintuitive software, or drawn out application processes.