As is often said of payment methods for your small business, never put up a barrier between your customer and their paying for a product. On a general level, that means accepting as many payment methods as possible; this is a growing list that includes NCF payment methods, QRC payments, and, yes, even Bitcoin. As the types of payments grow, the odds of your customer wanting to pay with one grows apace, and accepting credit cards as a small business becomes the bare minimum for offering flexibility to your customers.
In the same way, enabling your customers to pay in a way that works for them can also extend to the flexibility you offer them in paying for your products. Sellers of low-cost items online will most likely not bother with too wide a flexibility, but larger price tags, such as for sellers of luxury items, or those with monthly charges, may benefit from different options, like payment plans.
For anyone who hasn’t set up a payment plan before, the immediate realization you’ll likely have is that it takes legitimate effort to keep track of these payments. The last thing you want to do is to drag out the annoyance of hounding a customer for a payment once to the unbearable situation of hounding a customer for 4 or 5 payments over an entire year.
To fight this, it’s helpful to know what you’re capable of doing beforehand. In the event that a customer is behind in payments, it’s best to consider two possible options of repayment that can give a customer the flexibility to choose the payment plan that works best for them. That way, they will be more likely to pay. You’ll want to also ensure that the details of the agreement are fully known so that the customer has a clear picture of what is expected of them. Likewise, be sure that the discussion you had with the customer is well documented on your end, and you know the timeline for following up, as well as the threshold for when additional action will be necessary.
Additionally, it’s good to take a look at what kind of technology is out there for simplifying your life. Apps and integrations, such as Partial.ly, can streamline the monitoring of payment plans, and enable you to do more for your customers without causing a back-office nightmare for you. You can also leverage your Customer Relationship manager to keep track of payment plans, if you don’t intend to regularly offer payment plans as a solution. All in all, listen to your customers, and work with them, to the extent that it makes sense for your business. whether it’s accepting credit cards as a small business, accepting any of the other novel payment options out there, be open and flexible. It’s one way of injecting the “human” element that makes small businesses so great.