Posted by Allen Wolff
Co-authored by Jeff Slusarz, PaySimple Customer Support Manager

What is customer service? We think the composition of the words is actually misleading as it should really read “servicing customers” with the priority on the service. As a small business owner, you should ask yourself: Do we train adequately on customer service? Where does it sit on our corporate values? How do our resources align with its place on our value chain? These are all questions that surfaced in our discussions with regards to our intention of how service should play a role at PaySimple. If you raise these questions, though, you’d better be prepared to address them–as you might be surprised by the answers.

In our experience, we have found three components that are critical to creating raving fans through our service. They are simple, but go a long way:

• Don’t just listen to what clients say, but hear them.

• Have empathy. We’ve all needed customer service, so assume you’re helping your neighbor or grandmother.

• Make communication as high a priority as the resolution. If you can’t resolve the issue today, then be proactive in letting the customer know that.

More often than not, when we pass along the customer service reigns to team members, we ask them to listen to the issues and work diligently to resolve them. Listening, however, is only one step. For when we really take the time to “hear” a customer’s feedback, the impact can be well beyond the one issue at hand.

We’ve made improvements to our own customer service—and here’s what you think:
We want you to know that we are listening. We have recently implemented a trouble ticket and survey system to get feedback for each support issue. To date, we have found:

• You think we passionately take ownership of an issue and effectively resolve it 82% of the time.
• You think we complete issues in a timely manner 78% of the time
• You think we are 82% effective in respecting your time and following up.
• We close 90% of support issues within 24 hours.

We appreciate the feedback and pride ourselves in improvement and growth, which we will share via posting on our website – hopefully illustrating the outcome of our listening skills.

If you have contacted us in the last few months, you may notice the way we answer the phone is slightly different. Although feedback is mixed, our aim is to answer each call authentically and prepared to assist you to our best ability. In a recent Wall St. Journal small business article, a customer who visited our office referred to us as “hippy-ish and reminiscent of the dotcom startups of the late 90s.” Wow, if we can establish a reputation of providing “Peace, Love, and Payment Processing,” we’d consider ourselves pretty successful. Maybe it’s not so much that we’re “hippy-ish,” but that Passion, Authenticity and Happiness are foundations of our company values.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Posted by Jeff Gardner

I’ve spent the last couple of days at NACHA Payments 2008 meeting a variety of industry leaders in the payments space as well as doing my fair share of learning. The conference–hosted by NACHA, a non-profit organization that oversees the ACH Network–offers an abundance of sessions, many of which were highly appealing. It is one of the biggest conferences of the year in the payments space, and it was great to be in attendance as both a student and a representative of PaySimple.

I also had the pleasure of leading a session on small business payment preferences and trends. The basis for the presentation was the findings of a recent survey on small business payment behavior commissioned by PaySimple, and conducted by Market Platform Dynamics. My co-presenter, Karen Webster gave an excellent overview of the state of electronic payments within small businesses today. We were able to glean some very interesting nuggets of information from the study. Among them:

• Collecting online payments is a top strategic business priority for many small businesses
• 52% of those surveyed would give up coffee for a week if they could collect payments from customers faster and less expensively!
• Tech savvy businesses are more likely to accept electronic payments
• 61% of respondents have a Web presence; only 26 % accept payments on their website
• Less than 13% use electronic means to generate and send customers invoices
• Small businesses that accept electronic payments want a better solution and are willing to switch providers to get it
• Roughly 70% of the survey sample believe that within the next two years 50% of their payments will be via electronic methods

You can download the full results of the small business payments survey here. All in all, NACHA Payments was a fantastic event and I’m glad to have attended the last couple of years. PaySimple is forging a new path in payment processing for small businesses and we look forward to continuing to be both a value added provider as well as an industry resource for years to come.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Posted by Allen Wolff

How much gratitude do we express in our daily lives? To our family? To our friends? To our colleagues? To our top customers? To our high-maintenance customers?

I’d venture to guess not enough. I am constantly amazed at how often we fail to be grateful for what we have and instead focus on the challenges or what’s missing. A well known author awakened this realization for me and provoked me to pour my daily glass of gratitude:

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
– Wayne Dyer

This philosophy comes in handy when there are difficult situations relating to interaction with our clients. I strive to be grateful that our customers are engaged enough to let us know how they feel about our product and customer service, positive or negative. This has helped shape our development and contribute to our success, for which I am equally grateful.

If you are having trouble tuning in to gratitude, visit youtube.com and run a quick search on Randy Pausch for videos of the Professors lectures, including his last. Or, pick up a copy of his recently published book entitled The Last Lecture. The Carnegie Mellon Professor became an overnight inspirational speaker when he learned of his diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer. It may just help you start pouring your daily cup of gratitude.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Posted by Eric Remer

What does it mean to go all the way? We all do it at various points in our life, but rarely do we have the inner knowing to live our entire life in that mindset.

How do you know when you are going all the way? To me, it is that uneasy feeling you get just before you commit yourself to take the leap—combined with the absolute knowing feeling you have directly after the jump. The place in-between holds most of us back from really going all the way in every aspect of our lives.

Every small business owner at one point made the decision to go all the way. They took that leap of faith into the unknown, betting that their passions and desires to create something would make a difference in people’s lives. Yet many small business owners, after they courageously make that leap, unknowingly become like every other business. All of their unbridled passion and love for why they originally started a business becomes lost in a fog of uncertainty and fear, and their passion becomes much more work than a labor of love.

It is my belief that if we all continued to go all the way and trust that inner feeling/knowing that we all possess, regardless of the “norms” we are going against, the level of innovation, productivity and overall happiness would be off the charts.

The reality is, if you are truly following your inner voice and going all the way at all times, you’re not only going to succeed, you already have!

Popularity: 11% [?]

Technorati Tags: small business, business owner, innovation

One frequently asked question and how it relates to small business’ revenue and profitability.

Posted by Jeff Gardner

At PaySimple, our dedicated employees have the wonderful job of guiding small business owners towards enhanced profitability. As such, one of the frequently asked questions our staff encounters is: “What payment types should I accept from my customers?” Merchants want to know if they should offer ACH (also known as eCheck), credit cards or both. Today’s blog will explore this question.

The first criteria we’ll explore is the fee charged for each transaction type. To do this, you must first determine the size of your average ticket. Are your customers buying inexpensive items such as a $5.00 monthly subscription to your newsletter or are they buying $500 digital cameras? Based on PaySimple’s rates of $.55 per ACH transaction and 2.28% + $.24 for a qualified credit card transaction, you would prefer ACH if your average ticket is less than $14.00. This is a very low break-even point which might drive you and most business owners to prefer ACH over credit cards.

But it can’t be that easy, right? The next criteria we look at and question we ask is “How strong is your relationship with your customers and what other options do your customers have?” If you own a childcare center and have a waiting list for students to get into your school, I would say that you have a very strong relationship with your customer and you should require ACH. However, if you own a Web Hosting company and the customer has dozens of other options, then I would recommend you offer your customers as many payment options as possible to avoid lost sales.

Another thought to consider is the net revenue gained by offering credit cards as a payment alternative, despite the additional cost. In addition to the potential of losing sales by not accepting credit cards, Visa will also tell you that your average ticket will be higher if you accept credit cards. The statistics show that Visa purchases are consistently higher than those made with cash.

Let’s take an example of a typical customer that may spend $40 with your company when paying via ACH, but who may spend $60 when using a credit card. Although your cost for these transactions is $.55 for an ACH and $1.60 for the credit card, your net revenue is almost $18 higher by accepting the payment via credit card.

In summary, if you have a strong customer relationship and a high average sale amount, requiring an ACH debit as payment form may be the way to go. In just about every other situation, you are better off providing your customer with multiple payment options to maximize customer satisfaction and your overall profitability.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Technorati Tags: small business, ACH, eCheck, credit cards, payment alternative, Visa, profitability

Posted by Evan Berlin

There’s a lot of doom and gloom out there. Economists from around the country seem to agree that the US economy is in a downturn. How deep or how long it will last is anyone’s best guess. Even the ever optimistic Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffet, said recently, “My general feeling is that the recession will be longer and deeper than most people think. This will not be short and shallow.”

While recent research from the National Small Business Association (NSBA) survey of Small and Mid-Sized Businesses and American Express OPEN seems to back up those assessments, many small business owners remain optimistic about their ability to have a successful year. Among the highlights:

• Increased energy costs have led 37% of businesses to increase their prices, yet 18% have invested in energy efficient equipment or upgrades

• 70% of small business owners remain confident in the outlook of their own business

• 70% of businesses have been able to secure adequate financing, up from 67% in 2007

• 71% of business owners plan to grow their business over the next 6 months

• Almost 40% of small business’ plan to hire in the next six months

• 86% of entrepreneurs describe themselves as “ glass half-full” people

As Eric so eloquently spoke of in his recent post, and Sarah discussed last Monday, small businesses provide the fuel that powers the US economic engine. On the heels of small business week, and in the midst of what most experts believe to be a recession, we at PaySimple wish you all the best in 2008. We know things are tough yet we remain confident in your ability to remain strong in the face of adversity. We are 110% behind all of you who strive for better lives and a piece of the American Dream.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Technorati Tags: economy, energy costs, small business, recession, American Dream.