CRM Customer Relationship Management Software

Last Updated on Monday, 11 January 2010 04:40 Written by CC editor Monday, 11 January 2010 04:37

Customers are the life blood of consumer business, so it does companies a favor when they try to keep their customers loyal and satisfied. To stay in the market, companies need customers to buy their products, and keep coming back to buy them. A large part of ensuring this process is providing good customer service. If customers are treated well, they’re more likely to return for more services. However, a negative experience can cause customers to give their patronage elsewhere, and fewer customers means less money. Companies don’t like it when they get less money, so they try to prevent that from happening.

Starting a small business online

Last Updated on Friday, 8 January 2010 02:07 Written by CC editor Friday, 8 January 2010 02:03

In these financially troubling times, with daily reports of layoff all around the country and world, job security is not something everyone has. Quite opposite to these trends are the Internet businesses that are, relative to their brick and mortar competition, enjoying a boom. Here lies the online advantage, as starting a small business of the offline type can mean substantial overhead, while starting a small business online can be done on a virtual pocket change budget. If you want or need an extra trickle of income, perhaps more than a trickle, perhaps you should look in to the possibilities of starting a small business online. 

Small Business Owner

Last Updated on Sunday, 3 January 2009 04:55 Written by CC editor Sunday, 3 January 2009 04:49

Many people dream of owning their own business, but out of all of those people, only a few will actually try to make that dream a reality. Of those that try, even fewer will be a success. The economy, location, and other variables can mean the difference between success and failure, but sometime it is the person that is running the business that is the main factor. Some people are just not cut out for doing something of that magnitude. There is nothing small about being a small business owner. Only certain personality types can really make a living off a business on their own.

How to accept credit cards online

Last Updated on Wednesday, 30 December 2009 02:32 Written by CC editor Wednesday, 30 December 2009 01:03

Businesses that sell products need to be able to collect payment from their customers, either they collect it in cash form, check, or charge a credit card. When a business sells a product online, credit cards is the only practical payment form.

How to accept credit cards online?

There are 3 clear-cut options to accepting credit cards online, and each has their pros and cons.

Credit card processing for small business

Last Updated on Monday, 11 January 2010 04:38 Written by CC editor Wednesday, 30 December 2009 11:22

Are you having difficulties finding a bank or service that will process your business’s credit cards?

The problem with merchant accounts

A problem many small businesses have, home-based, Internet, mail-order, a like, is finding a bank or financial institution that will process their credit card orders. For starters, there are not many banks that offer merchant accounts to small businesses. Merchant accounts are also expensive to set up, with the bank usually charging you a one time set up fee, in addition to the costs you will have configuring and programming a gateway (where the actual order is placed). Setting up credit card processing for small businesses with a merchant account is simply to much hassle.

3. party processing account

Skipping all the other arguments against a merchant account for a small business, if you can even get one, we have the third-party credit card processing accounts. A third part processing account is, in simple terms, an account supplied by a company that let’s you use their merchant account. In reality, companies that offer these products are highly specialized, often focusing solely on providing their customers with credit card processing facilities. This includes back-end services like online account statements, statistics, refund options, etc, and on the front-end they usually offer a configurable payment gateway that you can brand to your liking, or a payment interface that you can plug-in to.

Advantages

The advantages for a small business that need to process credit cards is that the third-party processing accounts are usually a lot cheaper and easier to set up then merchant account. Remember, the companies offering these services have specialized in providing small businesses easy to use services. Here is a list of the common features:

• Low set up fees
• Minimal paper-work (if any)
• Advanced fraud protection
• Recurring payments
• Management account
• Virtual merchant account (or Internet merchant account)

Conclusion

If you are own a small business and need to accept credit cards, and a merchant account is out of reach or is simply too expensive, then a third part credit card processor might be the solution. As I mentioned above, the minimal paper work, low set up fees and easy customization of the payment gateway mean you can be up and running in no time. Credit card processing for small businesses has never been easier!