Customer Service

I recently had some repair work done on my house and the payment experience got me thinking about our recent article on credit card use. One company was accepting credit cards on the spot and the other simply handed me an invoice. This means one company got paid immediately. The other is going to have to wait for me to either send a check through my bank or wait for me to write a check and send it through the mail. Both ways of paying by check mean that the company is waiting for the check to arrive (this could easily be a week) and then waiting for it to be deposited. While you may not be worried about the time, the facts are that by encouraging payment by debit/credit card, you make the payment portion of the transaction much more customer friendly and you get your payment immediately. This reduces issues with collections and is simply more efficient for the business. At the end of the day, the more efficient a business can be, the more it can automate, means the more time it can spend on its core purpose.