Anyone who is looking for hard work, excitement, and a constantly changing environment should consider running a small- to mid-sized business. If you fall into this entrepreneur category, you already know that each day is different from the last, particularly when it comes to your customers, their shopping behaviors, and even the ways they prefer to pay. With this in mind, it should come as no surprise to learn that if you have not already brought mobile point of sale (mPOS) payments into your ecosystem, you should strongly consider doing so sooner rather than later.
Boost the quality of your customer service with a mobile card reader.
What is it about mobile point of sale (POS) equipment that can take your rapport with buyers to the next level? The key lies in its portability. Instead of a customer spending interminable minutes in a checkout line, hand-held, wireless mobile card readers can be carried by a sales associate anywhere in the store — or outside of it as well.
The result is customer service on steroids.
- The flexibility to accept payments from anywhere.
- The ability for an associate to use the hand-held device to view stock quantities in real time while speaking to the customer.
- Faster access to product information to provide accurate answers to questions.
- The ability to quickly process exchanges and refunds from anywhere on the floor.
- Sales associates are enabled to recommend additional products that are compatible with a customer’s interests.
This immediate, efficient, and individualized attention gives buyers the personalized care they are seeking in today’s increasingly curated sales environment. When shoppers are given the impression that they are cared about, unique, and special members of an elite club, they are much more likely to make repeat purchases and to refer friends and family.
Although your mobile card reader will be small and portable, it is integrated with a system designed to provide additional features that will also help customers to feel like your highest priority.
- Customer loyalty capabilities to reward patrons for frequent purchases, and to send discount coupons and encourage referrals.
- Database tools enabling buyers to opt into receiving email promotions, newsletters, and updates.
- Payment acceptance features that allow buyers to make purchases using their method of choice, including credit and debit cards, gift cards, echecks, and recurring billing subscriptions.
With every step you take toward increased personalization through the use of your mobile point of sale equipment, you enhance the shopping experience you provide to your customers.
Unrivaled security.
Not so long ago when cash was king, buyers spent only the amount of bills and coins they carried with them at any given time. Both customers and merchants were at risk of being robbed and record-keeping often hinged on the saving of tiny paper receipts.
Now that credit cards, debit cards, and digital wallets have largely taken the place of cash, the payment landscape has been forever changed. Despite its diminutive size, your mobile card reader should be packed with safety features that protect customer data from hackers. Secure payments should be made possible through the use of certified, point-to-point encryption and tokenization that masks the buyer’s payment information, transforming it into single-use random strings of digits that criminals cannot hijack.
In addition, mobile payments that are integrated into your POS system make record-keeping easier for both you and your shoppers. Receipts can be printed or sent instantly via email, and every transaction is recorded in your POS for easy retrieval later should questions arise.
Cost savings.
Your mobile card reader can also streamline many of the day-to-day operations that take time and are prone to errors and oversights. For instance, you can hand over the important task of inventory management to the payments software contained in your mobile card reader, thus freeing up staff to complete other tasks that are best done by humans.
With portable card readers, you won’t need to devote so much counter space to bulky POS equipment such as stationary card readers and cash registers. Even so, your mobile solution’s cloud-based software gives you 24/7 access to your back office from anywhere with an internet connection, including the ability to generate reports, manage employee schedules, and communicate with customers and staff.
Your mobile system might not have a big physical footprint, but it comes loaded with features that can make your single- or multiple-location retail store run like a well-oiled machine. Those features include the following.
- Database capabilities to hold employee and customer contact information and buying histories.
- Inventory management that enables you to integrate with your barcode scanner to track items, monitor what is selling and what is not, easily change prices and include discounts on the fly, re-order stock before it runs out, and more.
- Seamless integration with accounting/financial packages that make payroll administration, bookkeeping, and tax preparation a breeze.
- Scalability as your business grows that allows you to accept multiple forms of payment and integrate new hardware and software into your business ecosystem.
- Commitment to payments security that minimizes the danger of fraud, tracks transactions for easy traceability and assists with chargebacks and other disputes.
With each way that your mobile POS works seamlessly with the other systems you have already put in place, your business’s overall operations become smoother and more efficient. The result is fewer mistakes, higher productivity, and task automation that enables you to focus your attention and insights on creating the customer-focused, product-centered business you have always wanted to run.
Once you incorporate a mobile POS solution and card reader into your business model, you will soon wonder how you ever functioned without one. Thanks to its built-in features, you can employ it to foster a targeted customer experience, bolster your digital security perimeters, and even bring in more revenue each day. Best of all, these systems are affordable, easy to use, and widely available to any entrepreneur who wants to take their retail store to the next level of service and profitability.
