A CPA, or Continuous Payment Authorities, is a recurring payment that is organised by the merchant for a customer, utilising the information on their debit or credit card.
The customer must first provide permission for the merchant to collect recurring payments, which is known as ‘standing authority’.
One of the most common types of businesses that use CPA’s are gyms, collecting your payment every month on the same day following initially getting ‘standing authority’ for future payments.
You will also find these with many other subscription based services, as well as services that require a membership with a monthly payment plan. They’re also increasingly common with payday loan companies that want to receive a payment on a set date.
It should be stated that these are different to direct debits, but I’ll go into this in just a moment.
What Is An Example Of A CPA?
I’ve already mentioned gyms, which are some of the most common CPA’s we know of, but in recent years we have seen a huge growth in businesses that use this model, such as Netflix and Amazon Prime.
Magazine and newspaper subscriptions largely work on the same basis, being the original subscription services before online versions became so popular.
How Do Continuous Payment Authorities Work?
The customer will initially provide their debit or credit card details when signing up with a website or business that runs CPA’s. The key details include the name on the card, expiry date and the 3 digit security code on the back.
The customer will have to make a transaction at the start to begin the process, which could be the month paid in advance, or with gyms they make you pay a ‘sign-up fee’ sometimes.
However, from that moment onwards, the company can repeatedly take payments from your card, not fraudulently I should add.
The amounts aren’t always consistent, for some it might be a set monthly payment, but after 12 months it might increase, or for companies such as Amazon Prime, the amount will vary drastically based on the item purchased.
If you see a CPA on your bank statement and you don’t recognise it, you can raise this with the company and if you don’t manage to resolve the situation, you can raise this with your bank.
How Do You Stop CPA’s?
The customer should have the ability to cancel the payments whenever they like, subject to the terms and conditions, via either contacting the company, or as a secondary option they can also contact the bank.
Sometimes the creditor may inadvertently use the details to take further payments, such as if they hadn’t noted the cancellation of membership. If this occurs, then the customer is within their rights to file a continuous payment authority refund with the bank or through the company, as these weren’t authorised payments.
It is worth highlighting that in the UK, the CPA to be stopped requires is one working day before the payment is due by the close of business. This means that if you cancelled on a weekend, or you cancelled on the day of the payment, then you won’t be due a refund.
How Are Continuous Payment Authorities Different To Direct Debit Payments?
With a direct debit, you setup a direct debit mandate, which is a contract stating the exact amount which will leave each month on a set date.
In contrast, a CPA can change the amount to be paid, such as if the monthly subscription service increases their rates or if you purchase a single item through your subscription on top of the regular payments.
This is also the same with standing orders, which are for a set amount on a set date, making them different for the same reasons.
The cancellation method is also slightly different, as through a CPA you will seek a refund through the company if they have taken payment without permission, whereas if this happens with a direct debit or standing order then the bank will refund you.
Open banking is an interesting alternative to CPA’s, with variable recurring payments in place through third party providers in much the same method.
These are a great option both for merchants and customers, with merchants able to take payments instantly without the high debit and credit card fees, while customers will benefit from the high level authentication process built-in helping to protect their data security.
CPA Benefits
I have mentioned a few negative aspects of CPA’s for both the merchant and the customer, so I wanted to equally highlight some of the advantages to using this system:
CPA’s can be very useful for customers as they remove the need to remember to pay a set amount on a set date, or they mean you can skip any lengthy process of putting in your bank details each time. Remembering your payment details removes a frustrating part of the purchasing funnel, especially with many using mobile devices to order, which can be slower to input details.
For companies such as gyms, this method allows for repeated payments from customers even if they’re not actively using their membership, which is the basis of their payment structure, as they oversell knowing most people won’t use their services heavily.
As previously mentioned, unlike standing orders and direct debits, different amounts can be taken, meaning you can easily order via Amazon Prime for different amounts without having to go through the whole process of putting in your details.
CPA Negatives
You have to be careful to read the terms and conditions when signing up with a company, as they may set you up on a CPA basis after a set time period and if you forget to end your subscription after this date, the regular payments may be more expensive than you’re comfortable with.
As the CPA’s allow the companies to take payment whenever they feel it is due, this could mean money leaves your account on a day you’re not expecting it, which could leave you in financial trouble if not planning effectively.
In something commonly known as the ‘subscription trap’, it may not be that you forgot to cancel the membership, but you may not have been fully aware of what would happen after the trial period and exactly how much money would be taken. There are many services offering 7 days, without heavily going into the costs after this period or how long you will be tied in.
Ever lost your bank card and had to go through your gym membership and subscription services to input all your new details? It’s frustrating, but something that has to be done with CPA’s, as they can’t use your old card details. This means that a payment failure would go through if not updated in time, which could prevent you from using the service.
We have looked at how you can control your stock so now let’s explore how you can keep people buying it. It’s more cost-effective to have repeat customers than getting new ones so improve your customer retention and treat your customers with the help from your trusty EPOS system.
Loyalty Scheme
Everyone loves a freebie whether it’s collecting points or offering direct discounts. The information you can collect (providing the customer consent of course) can give you a valuable insight into your business.
Loyalty schemes are not just the domain of large companies, any business can offer a scheme to customers. With loyalty software, you can reward your loyal customers and encourage new ones to sign up and invest in your company. With EPOS you can tailor-make the scheme to your business by:
Offer points on purchases to be redeemed later against future transactions
Exclusive member-only discounts
Buy X amount and get your next free
All of these are easily manageable with an integrated system. You could use traditional loyalty cards that are kept in the customer’s wallet or integrate with 3rd party apps.
Customer Experience
Let’s face it, the British are renowned around the world for many things one of them being queuing. We don’t have to be asked to queue we just do it, but in all honesty – who likes queuing? We are all busy people so an easy-to-use EPOS system makes the point of sale processes quick and your queues shorter. It is a win-win – your staff can serve more customers quickly and accurately while keeping customers happy.
For the tech-savvy customer (or the ones who can never find the paper receipt) you can email receipts directly and encourage them to interact with your business. Why not add a link to the email with a survey or incentive to give you accurate customer feedback, allowing you to evaluate your service and adapt quickly to customer demands.
Customer Insight
Build up a picture of your customer base using your EPOS systems. It can store a lot of data (with customer consent of course) to help your business. If you have some stock which you would like to move on for an example and you can see that several customers buy this, you can market this to your customers on a special offer.
Marketing
If you have the info on the who, what, and why from your EPOS system this is going to make marketing and promotions and your life much easier. Use this information to market products to people based on their buying history e.g. you wouldn’t promote a special offer of juicy succulent steak to someone who has only ever bought vegan food!
People deal with people in business to build relationships and retain them. If you can speak the customer’s language this is only going to improve your business with a little help from your EPOS system.
A typical household will pay no more than £2,500 annually for its gas and electricity bills from the start of October, Prime Minister Liz Truss has announced.
In the first major policy announcement of her premiership, Ms Truss said the new price guarantee will last for two years and save the average household in England, Wales and Scotland £1,000 a year on future bills.
The policy, which Downing Street believes will curb inflation by up to five percentage points and will be enacted through emergency legislation, builds on the £400 payment to households set out by former chancellor Rishi Sunak earlier this year.
A six-month scheme for businesses, schools and hospitals will provide equivalent support over the winter.
Further targeted support for specific industries like hospitality is set to follow after that, with a review in three months to decide which sectors should benefit.
There is currently no cap on energy costs for businesses and a specific figure on support has not been given due to differences in how the wholesale energy market operates compared to the retail market.
The price guarantee will not affect those on fixed contracts for their energy, but ministers are confident discounts will be offered to those customers in due course after talks with suppliers.
It’s hard enough running a small-medium business before you even begin to contemplate credit card fraud and illegitimate refunds.
Sadly, chargeback fraud is not just prevalent nowadays, but it is also increasingly common, therefore we wanted to dive into the subject and share some advice on how to avoid chargeback fraud.
What Is A Chargeback?
A chargeback is when a customer has successfully claimed a return of funds from a purchase which they have disputed.
The transaction reversal works by the bank withdrawing the funds that were placed into the sellers bank account.
If the recipient can successfully dispute the charge as invalid then a bank will apply the chargeback.
This may occur if an item was not delivered or arrived damaged. This can also prove useful for customers if the merchant has ceased trading.
Also, if the seller isn’t responsive to messages from a customer, such as if the items didn’t arrive, then they can take the next step by completing a chargeback claim to the card provider.
What Is The Chargeback Process?
The first step involves the cardholder filing a chargeback to the issuer bank the card matches. There are template letters online, while often this can be done with online banking nowadays.
Following this, the issuer bank reaches out to the acquire bank to file a chargeback request. The acquirer bank will then reach out to the merchant, detailing the request and it will then fall on the merchant to either accept the chargeback or battle it.
This is where the process splits, if the merchant simply accepts the claim, then they lose the chargeback, plus a fee, while the money is credited back into the customers bank account.
However, if the claim is deemed to be invalid by the seller, they can contest it and will then have to provide sufficient evidence to the bank.
The evidence could involve a photo of the buy receiving the item, or evidence of a signature, depending on the nature of the claim.
The acquirer bank will forward this evidence on to the issuing bank, who will then review it to see whose claim is to be believed.
If the cardholder is believed, then the chargeback will go ahead, whereas if they believe the seller then it will be passed on to pre-arbitration, where the buyer and seller can have another chance at resolving the situation. Normally, new evidence would be required for a verdict to be changed.
What Is Chargeback Fraud?
Let’s say you sell a product to a customer, the fraudster then contacts their bank to dispute the purchase and requests a chargeback, despite the product arriving successfully.
These fraudulent claims are relatively new, since the launch of online retailing, while they are becoming increasingly present with the growth of e-commerce.
When May Chargeback Fraud Occur?
You may find that your business is hit with fraudulent activities if any of the below occurs:
A supposed customer claims that they haven’t received an order, despite it arriving
They claim to the bank that they hadn’t authorised this payment
If it’s a subscription payment or a recurring payment, they may claim that they cancelled but their request wasn’t met
If the item didn’t meet the acceptable terms of the Trade Description Act 1968/2011, then they can claim against this, despite the product meeting the attributed description
If they claim they returned the product to the seller but the return was never processed
How Much Does A Chargeback Cost?
This is the reason why many online businesses are struggling. Because not just do they lose out on the revenue from the sale, they also lose the item that they were selling, plus there are added fees.
On top of this, if your business is repeatedly called out for chargebacks, you may receive added penalties.
In the UK, a chargeback fee is often around £10-£20 per claim, while in the USA it is somewhere around $20-$50.
If your chargeback ratio increases too much, with many having a threshold around 0.6%-0.7%, you might be placed on a monitoring programme and the monthly fees will then go up until the ratio drops back further.
So all in all, you’ve lost on the sale, the inventory, extra charges and general operational costs to handle the process.
How To Prevent Chargebacks As A Merchant?
It can be incredibly hard to decipher between genuine customers who have had a bad experience, such as a product not arriving or being damaged, and the dishonest claimants who are trying to save some money.
Many business owners will weigh up the pros and cons of claiming against a chargeback and will leave it, but it is important to battle any disputes you may have, to deter these fraudsters from continuing this act.
Many brand representatives have spoken about repeat abusers, where someone will make multiple claims, knowing they got away with it the first time.
So how do you protect your business against chargeback fraud? Well some of the steps below can help:
3D Secure – This added step means the customer has to take an added step as they’re redirected to their bank’s website to authenticate the payment. A code might be sent to their phone or they might have to enter a password. This form of 2-factor verification is becoming commonplace and customer expect it, so you don’t have to worry about frustrating people at the final step of the purchasing process. You can also set certain rules or filters based on what products will require 3D secure, while there are solutions in place that can target high risk transactions.
Thorough Checking – It might sound like a long and arduous process, but you should be checking over your orders and look for orders that ring alarm bells, as they don’t appear like a usual customer. It could be a large number of items being ordered at once, or orders being made in quick succession. Another thing you could look out for could be orders with different card numbers but the same address. You can reach out to the cardholder to verify a few details about their order and it is completely up to you if you complete their order or simply offer them a refund instantly before sending anything out.
Make sure to get a transaction receipt via the payment gateway. These will include the Address Verification Service (AVS) and Card Verification Value (CVV), to ensure the address and card details matches that of the card holder. It might be off-putting for the customer to put in more details, but you want as much security at the checkout as possible. Partnering up with a payment provider will allow you to integrate AVS and CVV onto your e-commerce website.
Product Descriptions – it is completely possible that your product descriptions simply don’t match up to what is provided. It could be that the size dimensions aren’t stated clearly on the page, that the colours aren’t clear from the photo used or that the description might be a little far-fetched to increase interest in the product. Don’t oversell the product, they’re on the page because they’re already interested, you just need to provide the facts.
Contact Details – Make it as easy as possible for customers to reach out to you, whether that’s a phone number being provided, having an email address that is checked regularly, or if you have the resources, you could have an instant chat available (but make sure someone can respond efficiently otherwise they’re not worth it and may cause more frustration for the customer). Ideally, you will be able to resolve the customers issue before it gets elevated to a chargeback request.
Confirmation Email – Once someone has successfully made a purchase on your website, you should have an automatic email that goes out to them detailing the product they have ordered, the amount they have spent and when they should receive it. If they’re committing fraud, they might claim they forgot they made an order or it wasn’t authorised, whereas this helps to prove that wasn’t the case. If they’re a legitimate customer, this can help as a reminder of all the details around the purchase.
Signature/Photo On Delivery – Once the product has arrived, you should get a signature from the customer, while you should also get a photo of the product just inside the house with the door open, to show that they 100% received it. This proof of delivery is arguably the best tool you can use to demonstrate the product was received at the correct address.
Open Banking – Open banking helps you to move or manage your money, using 3rd party access to financial data with API’s, so you can see consumer banking information. This form of secure account information sharing can help to prevent fraud, while there also isn’t a chargeback mechanism in place.
Research Chargeback Codes – You might think ‘I’ve already done this’, but did you know the codes can change each year? It’s important to stay on top of the codes, so you know the reason the claim is made and how you can successfully dispute it. On top of this, if a consistent chargeback code keeps applying, then it could hint to an issue which you might be able to tackle to prevent future claims.
Different Types Of Chargebacks
It’s important to understand the fine lines between the different forms of chargeback that might occur.
Merchant Error
Let’s face it, not every claim is illegitimate, many will involve an error either being made by the merchant, such as a poor product description or sending out the wrong product, or it could be the delivery service, where they delivered to the wrong address or left it outside and it went missing.
Criminal Fraud
This could occur if someone’s credit or debit card has been stolen, or the details for their card has been stolen and they’re making orders without the cardholder’s permission.
A claim would then be put in by the legitimate customer once they have seen payments leave their bank account for something they haven’t ordered.
This is why it is important to look for ‘red flags’ with the customers information, such as the delivery address not matching the usual address or the bank account address, or the orders being an exceptionally high number of items.
Friendly Fraud
This is known as friendly fraud as it is purchased by a real customer rather than a scammer, however they dispute the charge with the bank. They will often use believable excuses such as the product not arriving or whether they didn’t approve the purchase, making it hard for banks to deny.
The majority of chargeback fraud is ‘friendly’, even though there isn’t anything friendly about this practice. It’s simply used as the person is an authorised cardholder rather than someone pretending to be one.
A growing area is ‘family fraud’, especially with children making orders on their mobile phones using a parent’s credit card details. They will dispute that they never authorised the payment and make a claim for their money back.
It is important to understand as well that not all friendly fraud claims are people trying to run a scam, it could be that they simply don’t remember or recognise the payment that went out from their bank.
This is why it is sometimes known as ‘accidental fraud’. This is why it is important to have you contact details available and to have strong customer service skills, in order to handle the complaint sufficiently before they raise it to a bank.
Managing cashflow as a small business is critical to staying alive, especially if you’re in the first two years of running, where money can be tight, so it is critical you handle cashflow sufficiently.
Many of the most well known brands had cash flow issues in their earlier days as they balanced operational and growth costs with incomings.
We have therefore created a list of tips, but first, let’s go over the basics.
What Is Cashflow?
Cashflow is the net amount of money and cash equivalents going in and out of a business, effecting liquidity.
Cash flow will either be positive or negative, which can be found by calculating the incomings versus the outgoings from the opening balance to the closing balance.
If positive, you have more cash at the closing point than you did at the start of the period, whereas if it is negative then you have less cash.
Cash flow statements are therefore prepared to analyse where the cash is flowing in and out of the business
Why Is Cash Flow Important?
Understanding the payables and receivables can help to highlight whether you can cover your costs or whether you will have to find ways in order to increase cashflow into your business.
Failure to pay your bills on time can lead to late payment fees, you may face credit issues or struggle to pay your employees on time.
Therefore, by conducting a thorough cash flow analysis, you can work out what periods your cash flow will be negative and potentially find ways in which you can improve the speed at which money is brought into your business to cover those costs.
We have created a list of tips from our team of experts on how to improve cash flow for your business:
You can offer your customers an incentive or a discount if they pay their bills ahead of the set due date. The buyer can save money on their purchase, while you can gain funds more quickly, therefore both parties are happy with the outcome.
This may take the form of an email sent out to customers that receive 30-day invoices, stating that they can pay 1-3% less (depending on amount chosen) if they pay within 10 days of receiving the invoice.
You may alternatively want to give them a call so that you can directly reach the person in charge of payments and can ensure the email simply doesn’t get lost.
It’s important you work out your profit margins so you don’t eat too much into this before offering a reduction, while you also need to effectively communicate this discount to your customers so they’re motivated to quickly take action.
2. Send Invoices As Soon As Possible
Your customers might be ready to pay, however they simply can’t pay until they have received an invoice, so don’t delay this task and get it done as soon as possible.
Considering your terms will often state that payment must be made within a certain amount of days from the invoice being issued, for every day you’re not sending over the invoice, you’re adding to the length of time until you might receive payment.
Some brands fail to send invoices until the end of the month, however this might not be in your businesses interest if you require a continual cash flow to cover new costs.
3. Chart Of Accounts
As they say, failure to prepare is preparing to fail. You must have a Chart of Accounts (COA), which is a comprehensive list of financial accounts setup, allowing you an overview of where your business is spending or earning money.
This will also prove useful for a book-keeper to keep track of incomings and outgoings, detailing expenses, revenue, liabilities, equity and assets.
4. Cash Flow Forecasting
Before jumping ahead into the day to day tasks, you should spend some time forecasting the money that will be coming in and going out of your business on a weekly and monthly basis.
This should be set for a 3 month period, however in the long run, you might want to set this for 6 or 12 months, to offer a greater overview.
By conducting a thorough forecast, you can easily spot periods of time where the net cash balance will be negative, therefore you can plan around this and conduct some of the recommendations on this list.
The forecasting shouldn’t be produced once at the start, you should continuously update it, as well as adding accurate details of expenses and invoices with your bookkeeping. How often you update your forecast will largely depend on how much you might be relying on a positive state of cash flow to sufficiently run your business.
5. Offer Multiple Payment Options
You need to make it as easy as possible for your customers to pay you quickly. It could be that a simple bank transfer is ideal, or they might want to pay via PayPal, while you may want to have a mobile card machine in place.
One other great option is to have a pay by link message you can send to customers, so all they have to do is click through and input their details to promptly make a payment.
If you don’t have a pay by link option available, then make sure to check out our merchant panel to allow for pay by link pages, while matching your companies colours and branding. This could also be handled through a virtual terminal.
We have also seen a growth in QR code payments, taking you straight through to the purchase page after scanning the code with your phones camera.
6. Make Your Idle Cash Work For You
It’s common for businesses to have idle cash sat in the bank, waiting for a rainy day when it will be needed, but other than some miniscule interest rates you might be getting from the bank, there are much better ways in which it could earn you extra revenue.
You could invest the money into growing your business, you could put the money towards marketing, so you have a greater customer base and an increase in sales, while you could also look to placing it in a high interest rate account.
Just the same as you offering discounts for early payments, you could look over your expenses and see whether any of these businesses will offer a discount for early payments, allowing you to pre-pay these off.
If you have excess funds available, you could see whether buying a larger quantity of stock could lead to a greater discount per unit.
But as always, we would express caution about spending funds unless you’re confident they won’t be needed.
7. Highlight Penalties For Late Payments
We previously highlighted the incentives you could offer in order to achieve an early payment, but on the flip side of this, you can get equally good results by highlighting the punishment for late payments.
If you charge a hefty fee, this might scare people into paying early, in case they forget to pay on time.
This could take the place in the form of an email highlighting that they have ‘X amount of days left to pay’ and then covering the costs for late payments.
Remember you can’t add these fees later on, they have to be clearly stated at the point at which the sale is made, so the customer is aware of any late payment fees that will be applied.
8. Consider Leasing
Whether it’s a company car or equipment for the office, leasing can lower your initial costs, allowing you to spread them out over a number of years, meaning it will be easier on your cashflow.
While it means you won’t own the asset at the end, for many SME’s, initial costs can be catastrophic, so by leasing instead of buying, they can ensure they have a healthy cashflow and not waste too many funds until they have a greater level of revenue to cover these costs.
9. Second Hand Purchases
Whether it’s office chairs and desks, printers or folders, many of these can be found second hand for heavily discounted prices or even for free.
You can find some great deals for office equipment on Gumtree and Facebook Marketplace, while Gumtree even has a ‘freebie’ section.
SME owners often want to buy new stylish equipment when they launch their brand, but your revenue could be used for much more critical purchases elsewhere, so don’t worry about ‘looking the part’ and instead focus expenditure on what will provide you with the greatest ROI, such as PPC ads.
10. Increase Your Prices
Many companies don’t want to increase their prices, as they’re worried this increase will put off customers, however it might be imperative to cover your costs.
You should have a look at the market and work out what others are charging. You might need to increase your profit margin, or maybe you’ll have to go back to the suppliers to see if you can work out a better deal.
A freelancer might raise their prices for clients by 10%-20% and while they may lose a client, the concept follows that they should still keep most of their clients, while the added income means they earn more per day and they can now look to gain a new client for that extra time available at a higher rate.
The perceived value concept is truly fascinating. By keeping your prices low, you may be creating an image in the buyers head of it being a lower value item.
By increasing your prices, the perception of value can completely change. An example of this is with Peleton, where they were struggling for sales when charging a lower amount, so they increased their prices by 66% and the sales actually increased.
11. Sell Off Obsolete Or Poor Selling Stock
Not every product you try to sell will be a success. You may have a number of products in a warehouse burning a hole in your wallet, as they cost to be kept, while they’re not earning you any money on your initial investment.
It might not be products you’re struggling to sell, it could be items where the Use By Date or Best Before Date is getting closer, or it could be items that are now considered outdated.
You could therefore look into ways of selling these off so you can still turn a profit, or at least get some revenue back so you can re-invest it.
You might want to put a discount on these products on your website, or you may want to create a clearance page or a special offers page.
Alternatively, you could send an email to your customer base offering them a unique discount on these items, therefore creating the feeling of value to email subscribers while helping you to push out old items.
To successfully sell off these items, you should do a stocktake or go through your systems to see any products which you’re struggling to shift.
12. Check Account Payable Terms
Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be efficient, you may want to have a read through the accounts payable terms, which is the terms for payments going out of your business.
It is quite possible you’re paying before a payment has to be due, whereas by holding onto the cash till a later point, it could help you to balance the books in the short term.
Also, many vendors are happy to negotiate on the payable terms if you let them know in advance, so you can see if you can extend the payment terms to prevent a cash shortage.
13. Analyse Unnecessary Costs
Over time, the vast majority of businesses will find they have costs for services they no longer need or they’re not making the most of, or for products they don’t use. They may also have costs that aren’t a top priority when cashflow is tight.
Some of these examples are included below:
Software – Brands will often sign up to a number of software platforms, for marketing, accounting and many other reasons, which will charge a monthly fee, but if they’re not being utilised then it might be time to ditch them.
Company Incentives – Whether it’s monthly music subscriptions or luxurious items, these can help improve employee morale, but at times of tight spending, they might not be the top priority.
Trade Show Payments – Trade shows might be a great way to increase awareness of your brand or to help get you in front of buyers, but the costs involved can be hefty and they might not be imperative if you’re struggling to balance the books.
Marketing Costs – Marketing is pivotal for increasing traffic and sales for your business, however not all efforts are successful. If you’re running PPC ads at a profitable margin or you’re investing in SEO to grow your businesses online presence, then it will most likely be money well spent, but if you’re spending a fortune on social ads without seeing a great ROI, then it could be worth cutting back, at least temporarily.
14. Run Credit Checks
It is commonplace for a customer to not want to cover a cost in cash, especially with the growth of Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) schemes. But you need to ensure they have the means in which they can cover those monthly costs, so you should always run a credit check on anyone you’re providing credit for.
If they have a poor credit rating then this might be someone who will miss payments, therefore messing up your cashflow forecasts and potentially pushing you towards being in a negative position.
You can setup systems and processes in order to make more informed business decisions based on a customers financial position and history, to ensure they fulfil their credit commitments.
15. New Sources Of Income
Great ideas can come from anyone in the team, so it could be worth setting some time aside for the employees to debate different avenues for revenue.
It could be ways to upsell products during the sales process, ways in which costs could be cut or ways to expand into a new market.
You might find that you could highlight a provided service when selling a product, or you could push the sale of other products that work well with the purchased product.
Increasing your customers order value can be even more worthwhile than finding new customers, which is a costly act if running ads.
16. Increase Your Conversion Rate
If you had 1,000 visitors to your website in April and 10 made a purchase, that would mean you had a conversion rate of 1%.
By looking at Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO), you might find ways in which your website can be improved, to increase the number of sales from the same amount of visits, such as a smoother purchasing process, a faster page speed load, less pop-ups or less steps in the purchasing funnel.
A 1-2% increase could make a significant difference to your cashflow situation. Making these CRO changes won’t just increase your sales, but it could also increase your customers lifetime value, being how much you earn from them through every purchase they make with your business.
You may also learn more about your customer base and can then improve your website in the future, while it will also help to improve the ROI on any PPC ads you’re running.
17. Merchant Cash Advance
A small business loan from a bank or a merchant cash advance can help to cover your costs in the short term so you don’t face any liquidity issues.
Your eligibility is based on your previous card sales history, while unlike taking a small business loan with a bank, you won’t have to secure it against an asset like your house.
18. Diversify During Seasonality
All brands will have peak periods for certain products. If you’re in the travel industry, then January is the peak period, often making twice as many sales as any other month, for the summer ahead.
The issue is ensuring you’re earning money during the quieter months, which is why diversifying your business during this period can help to increase cash flow.
An example could be an ice cream truck, which achieves incredible sales figures during the summer, but if they sold the same products during the winter their sales figures would decrease significantly, therefore they could diversify to sell hot food such as burgers or hot dogs during the colder months.
Not all diversifications are based on completely new areas, you could horizontally diversify, by offering new products closely associated with your current products, such as a pyjama company introducing a line of slippers or a children’s pyjama selection.
19. Establish Methods For Debt Control
It’s not something you want to think about, but not all payments will be received on time and at that point, you need a debt recovery process in place.
Once they’ve passed the agreed set payment date, then you should chase up on the invoice. You may also wish to apply a late payment fee to the total cost.
Once you have provided a final notice, you can then begin legal proceedings to settle any outstanding payments.
This may involve you going to a small claims court, or you may wish to utilise a debt collection specialist.
20. Learn Customer Payment Cycles
If you’re B2C then this might not be as relevant, but if you’re B2B then the companies you deal with might pay invoices on a set date.
By adjusting your scheduling of invoices and ensuring you get it over to them in time for their payment window, this will ensure you get paid efficiently.
This is an important step in credit control system which is often overlooked by most businesses, but if you miss their payment date, you may have to wait another month.
Missing customer calls is never a good thing. It means losing business opportunities, losing customer loyalty, and losing out on valuable interactions with your customers. Lost calls are serious business.
Yet, many businesses see it as an inevitability. After all, during peak time it can be difficult to get to all your customers, and many of them will hang up before talking to an agent – it’s just one of those things you can’t change, right? Well, not quite.
While there will always be a few lost calls here and there, there are also ways to minimise that number and ensure your business gets to your customers when they need it most.
In this blog, we explore four tools that can help you cut down the number of lost calls in your contact centre solution – say goodbye to lost calls and hello to satisfied customers.
Knowledge is power: Queue announcements
Do you know what’s better than on-hold music? No, the answer isn’t “anything” – although that’s also true. The answer is “useful information”.
And who can blame them? We’ve all been there – you call a business, you wait on hold for ages and then you hang up just seconds before getting through to an agent. Wasting time, losing patience, and having to look for a solution elsewhere – often a competitor of that same brand you were trying to get in touch with.
An easy way to solve this is by giving your customers a little more information about their wait time. Ever been to a store, found what you wanted to buy but decided to leave it because the queue was too long? Or vice versa, you popped in to get something quickly because you could see the queue would’ve only taken a couple of minutes?
Queue announcements give your customers that same power by letting them know either what position they hold in the queue, or how long it will take to get through to an agent. It’s then up to them to decide whether they can wait or whether they should call back at another time – either way, you set the right expectation and provide a more personalised experience to your customers.
Most of the time, having a clear idea of how long it’s left to wait or how many people are left in front of them will be enough to keep them on the phone long enough to reach an agent – significantly reducing the number of lost calls.
I know what you’re thinking – wouldn’t an announcement be counterproductive if the queue is really long?
That’s certainly a possibility, but many contact centre solutions will have other features, such as call overflow or intelligent routing, to ensure your queues are never longer than they need to be. Poor management of call load is one of the main causes of missed calls in a contact centre, which is where our next few features come in…
Goodbye on-hold music: Callbacks
You’ve set up queue announcements and you’ve told your customer they have to wait five minutes before getting through to an agent – but their colleague is calling on the other line and the cat needs feeding. Five minutes is way too long to wait on hold.
The easy solution to this conundrum is to offer your customers a callback. A callback is not simply the process of giving them a callback whenever your agent finds the time. It’s a clever feature to ensure your customers don’t lose their place in the queue, while also allowing them to hang up the phone and get on with their lives.
Think of callbacks as the flashy buzzer you get at some restaurants: you ask for a table, they put you on a list and tell you the buzzer will flash once they reach your turn. You take the buzzer, hang outside the restaurant checking your emails and even reply to a few. The buzzer then starts flashing, you go back to the restaurant and the table is ready. Not only you didn’t have to wait, standing at the door and staring at all those people enjoying their meals, but you also managed to get a few things done in the meantime.
With callbacks, your customers don’t have to suffer through on-hold music or get a sore ear waiting to get through. You can set up an automatic message giving them the option to receive a callback, and if they choose to, they can hang up and simply receive a call as soon as one of your agents reaches their spot in the queue.
Callbacks are great but can get tricky if it’s peak time and your agents are really busy. Realistically, it might take them hours to get through that long queue and call back customers.
As a business, you probably know whether your Mondays are busier than your Tuesdays – which is why you should definitely start using a call slot feature.
We’ve already discussed the importance of respecting customers’ time, and we’ve all suffered through the pain of waiting for a call for hours and hours, only to receive it at the worst possible time.
Call slots allow you to give your customers the option to get a call at a specific time and day, so they don’t have to wait around for your call. Plus, you have the luxury of calling them back at a quieter time – taking away some of the stress and pressure on your agents and fostering a better call management culture.
Sure, it’s not the best approach for urgent calls, but it’s a great way to deal with any query that can wait a few hours or days.
Data, data and more data
We’ve mentioned that as a business you already know which days are busiest – or do you?
A lack of data and poor call management is the key cause of lost calls. If you don’t know what calls are lost, at what time and day, and from what numbers, it can be very hard to do something about them.
As a customer service manager, it’s fundamental to understand what’s going wrong (or right) and act on that data to implement the right tools and features.
Callbacks and call slots are only valuable if you know when and how to use them – do you know the average length of your queue and how long it takes to get through five people rather than eight? Do you know whether your agent availability is better in the morning or afternoon? If you can’t answer those questions, your lost calls are bound to skyrocket.
Wallboard is the one tool you need to have in your contact centre and that will truly make a difference in the way you manage customer calls.
Automate it
Said that – we know patience is scarce these days, and there will be instances when customers won’t even wait to listen to that well-crafted queue announcement or callback message.
This is where automatic callbacks come in. A modern cloud-based contact centre can give you the option to automatically call back anyone that had put the phone down before speaking to an agent or even chose one of the options given to them.
With call data at hand, managers can even check at the end of the day how many and what lost call customers didn’t manage to speak to an agent that day so that this can be rectified as soon as possible.
Conclusion
Respecting your customers’ time and solving their issues as soon as possible is key to delivering a good customer experience. Lost calls can mean poor customer satisfaction and a loss in revenue.
While there will always be some calls that go unanswered, there are plenty of tools and contact centre features that can help you reduce this number to a minimum. Another tip to reduce your queue length and manage calls better is to offer omnichannel services.
However, the first step towards that is giving your managers the visibility necessary to implement those tools appropriately based on your contact centre’s unique requirements.
A 2020 study concluded that callers to SMEs spend 20% of call time on hold, which means you’ve got time to engage callers in your products and services, and make their experience of getting an answer to their question as easy as possible. But how can you use your phone system as a tool to improve CX?
Make it easy for callers to get the answers they need
Fidelity Studio’s professional prompt recordings create truly useful IVR menus that help callers quickly reach the right person to resolve their query. What’s more, informative and sincerely empathetic in-queue messages help direct callers to other communication channels that may be better suited to their reason for calling, which helps to reduce caller frustration, and take the pressure off when you’re receiving more calls than normal.
Prompts can also be used to keep callers informed of known disruptions to service. Here’s an example:
Your local travel agent has 10 employees. Several flights have been cancelled to destinations in Spain and Greece and they are therefore receiving an influx of calls. This is creating a long wait time for people who are calling for more info on their cancelled flights, callers wanting to make new reservations, or check on bookings that are unrelated to the cancelled flights.
Fidelity Studio enables you to quickly and easily write and set live a text-to-speech message, that lets the affected customers know you are aware of the flight cancellations and that they will be contacted by a member of your team shortly. These callers can then end their calls, satisfied that their enquiry is in hand, instead of growing more frustrated as wait times grow. Plus, queue length is drastically reduced for all other callers.
So it’s easy to see how these tools can lead to direct increases in CSAT/NPS scores.
Relevant, up to date marketing
Once a caller is waiting in queue, they are a captive audience for promotions and marketing messages. Playing marketing messages to waiting callers keeps them updated with all your promotions, and helps them engage with the products and services your offer. Harnessing this opportunity to engage and delight customers has led some businesses to increase sales, with 93% of customers saying they would be likely to make an additional purchase with companies who offer excellent experiences.1
Showing callers your brand
It’s estimated that consistent brand presentation increases revenue by an average of 23%,2 and Fidelity Studio makes it easy to extend your brand across your phone system using bespoke recordings. What’s more – our bank of 300+ professional voice artists makes it easy to sound local, wherever you operate, with one small monthly cost included in your telephony bill.
Why not talk to us about how Fidelity Studio’s can help you meet your customer experience objectives?
Interested? Fill in the quick contact form below and we’ll call you back.
Unlike your household energy, if you let your business fall on out of contract rates you will be paying a significant premium. We have seen some business customers unknowingly pay between 200-500% extra then if they were on fixed term contract rates instead.
Wholesale gas prices have surpassed UK records this year due to the energy crisis and the conflict in Ukraine.
Suppliers can amend their out of contract rates for businesses when they wish and have been increasing their deemed rates each month in order to afford the elevated wholesale prices of gas and power.
What does this mean for your business?
Wholesale gas has peaked at over six-times the pre-2021 record and market analysts say there is no sign of downward pressure on prices for the next few years.
Energy markets are also heavily dependent on how the conflict between Ukraine and Russia develops further.
We can support and guide you through these unprecedented times, to help you make the best, most informed decision for your business.
Wholesale gas peaked this year at over six-times the record reached in 2021 at the start of the energy crisis. Market analysts say there is no sign of downward pressure on prices for the next few years.We can support and guide you through these unprecedented times, to help you make the best, most informed decision for your business to try and mitigate the risks of the volatile energy market.
The Ofgem price cap only applies for domestic rates, so businesses approaching the end of their tariff or who are out of contract will be paying significantly more for their energy than they were previously.
2. It is not just gas…
40% of the electricity used in the UK is generated from gas, so the high wholesale gas prices has also impacted the cost of electricity contracts.
3. Check your contract end dates
If you are out of contract, yours ends in the next 6 to 18 months or are in a longer term one, speak to us now so we can advise you on the next steps as there will be different options depending on your end dates.
4. Do not accept your initial renewal offer
Your renewal offer is unlikely to be the best price available, and 9 times out of 10 a cheaper tariff is available. We can help you compare the market to get the best rate.
5. Monitor the market
At the moment prices are changing all the time. We can compare the whole market to help you get the best deal now and help move you to a lower cost tariff when prices begin to fall
By working with a wide range of suppliers we ensure that we have access to the best market pricing available. Prices can
vary by 28% between the highest and the lowest quote for each customer. If you only check the price of one supplier, vary by 28% between the highest and the lowest quote for each customer. If you only check the price of one supplier, it’s
rare that their prices will be the lowest on offer. We take away the pain of trawling the market looking for the best deal.
Live chatisn’t just an option for customer service anymore – it’s something your audience expects. More than 30% of customers expect live chat on your website, and 42% say they prefer this method to email and social media.
Of course, not just any live chat experience will do. As a component of your complete customer experience strategy, your live chat needs to be tuned to your target audience. The right strategy ensures you can highlight the unique values of your brand, delight your customers, and even take a little pressure off other customer service channels.
So, how do you use live chat correctly for customer service?
1. Use the Right Technology
Using the right technology is the foundation for all your live chat efforts, so start with a live chat solution you can trust. LiveChat is one of the most popular tools trusted by 27,000 companies worldwide, and it integrates directly with Akixi 3000 for excellent omnichannel reporting – with customisable chat widgets to help keep you on brand, and a centralised environment making it easier for your customer service team to keep track of multiple conversations at once.
2. Maintain a Human Vibe
It’s important to remember live chat and chatbots are two different things. While people love the speed and simplicity of live chat, they don’t always love the idea of speaking to a robot. With this in mind, try to maintain your ‘human’ essence.
Encourage your employees to be creative with their chat responses, provided it doesn’t go against your brand image. You might want to bring your chat to life with emojis, to make you seem less robotic. It’s also important to be empathetic and engaging with your responses. Make sure your employees aren’t giving curt or complex answers to questions. A set of canned responses to common questions that your employees can adjust to suit their needs may be helpful here.
3. Focus on Speed
Speed is essential for a good live chat experience. Around 79% of customers say they prefer live chat as a means of communication, because of the immediacy it offers over other channels.
Looking for ways to improve your employees’ response times can be a great way to boost the quality of your live chat strategy. You might want to consider the following:
Providing template responses for your employees to use when necessary, can help to speed things up – so that they can send immediate answers to frequently asked questions.
Making it quick and easy to proofread and grammar-check a comment by embedding spellchecking systems into your live chat app.
Using automatic routing to send chat messages through to the team member with the most availability, or the right skills to solve a specific problem.
4. Provide Positive Customer Experiences
Just because live chat is more fast-paced than other forms of customer service, that doesn’t mean it should be any less engaging, or positive. Embedding your live chat technology into an ecosystem where you can also access contact centre and CRM information will help your employees to personalise conversations and customer experiences more quickly and effectively.
Providing training to help employees show more empathy to customers, and ensure they remain patient during difficult situations is important too. You might even use dashboard metrics and tracking statistics to help inform team leaders when a hybrid working agent is having trouble with a customer. This will ensure even those working remotely can get help when they need it.
Additionally, encouraging your employees to use phrases that express possibilities such as “That’s an excellent idea, I’ll bring it up with the team” rather than those with negative terms, like “We can’t do that”, helps to reassure the customer that you understand their frustrations.
5. Offer Users the Option to Go Beyond Chat
Chat is fantastic for getting quick answers to issues, but it’s not always the most appropriate channel for every need. You may also need to invest in video and audio-conferencing tools, so your customers can request a conversation when necessary. Provide your customers with buttons to click if they need to move the chat to the next stage on an alternative channel.
Another option could be to offer screen-sharing tools, so your agents can collaborate with your customers in real time and guide them through various complicated processes. This, along with other forms of more advanced communications, can make it quicker and easier for your agents to deliver impressive experiences to your audience.
6. Record and Measure
The best way to improve any form of customer service is to analyse and learn from every interaction. Start by determining how you’re going to record your conversations for training, compliance, and educational purposes. You may need to implement specific strategies to ensure sensitive information is removed from certain records to avoid compliance issues.
If you’re going to be recording any conversation, remember you need to ask for your customer’s consent, and ensure you have a secure environment in place for storing those recordings.
Once you’ve planned your recording strategy, determine how you’re going to keep track of important metrics with analytics. Tools such as Akixi can help you to measure historical and real-time metrics such as:
First-response rate: How often you solve an issue in the first response
Total conversions: The total number of conversions initiated by live chat
Total users or conversations: The number of conversations your employees deal with each day.
Response time: How quickly your employees respond to a live chat request
7. Pay Attention to Customer Feedback
Finally, don’t forget to pay attention to the feedback provided by your customers on your live chat application. Many solutions come with the option to embed requests for feedback into the conversation as an automated response. When the chat ends, this triggers the system to ask your customer how they would rate the service.
You can also ask your customers to leave more specific feedback by providing a message box where they can share any additional comments which they think are relevant to their experience.
This will give you an excellent opportunity to pinpoint the areas where you might be able to improve the live chat experience for your customers.
Embrace Live Chat the Right Way
Live chat is a fantastic tool for today’s businesses, particularly as customers continue to embrace digital forms of communication to interact with brands. If you want the best possible chance of converting and impressing your customers with live chat, follow the tips above.
I used to be a customer of one of the major UK networks. Billing or tech queries took a hours of waiting. Each time I contact Fidelity Group they get back to me promptly with the answer. The service is impeccable.
★★★★★
AA Lighting Group.
/Business Manager
Our preferred provider, Fidelity Group, came to our rescue. Other companies pretend to be the best but Cristian was not just a step ahead – he was miles ahead!! Thank you, Cristian, Thank you Fidelity Group!
★★★★★
Emma
/Business Manager
We have been a customer of Fidelity for a number of years now and the service is always impeccable….SIM cards are sent out next day, which is extremely helpful for our fast-paced business. I would highly recommend working with Fidelity Group.
★★★★★
George Serbanescu
/Business Manager
My old supplier took hours of me waiting on hold and I was never able to get a clear answer. Each time I contact Fidelity Group they get back to me promptly with the answer regardless if this is about billing, a technical issue, roaming. The service from Fidelity is impeccable.
★★★★★
Gwen S
/Business Manager
We moved to Fidelity 2yrs ago. Moving to Fidelity was extremely simple and the saving was significant. The service received from you is amazing. You always deal with everything in the a professional manner responding to all queries in no time.
★★★★★
Julia Connely
/Business Manager
I have had difficulties using Horizon on my mobile and Carl has helped me to get the new hub connected with a lot of patience. Found out that my broadband provider had to give permission for connection as it wasn’t their hub I was using anymore. He has been very calm throughout.
★★★★★
Mac McGlone
/Business Manager
I spoke with Carl after my system was down. He guided me through the problems and kept me informed. The follow up was excellent until the problem was resolved.
★★★★★
Richard Davies
/Business Manager
We recently changed from a standard broadband line to a leased line with Fidelity. It was installed within two months of signing (and that included the Christmas/New Year break), so much quicker than we expected. And it is far superior to our old line. A very efficient service.
★★★★★
Matthew Finn
/Business Manager
Been a hosted telephony customer of Fidelity now for almost a year and be delighted with the service. The tech support is first class as you get a dedicated adviser to handle your case all the way through, which I love! I would definitely recommend.
★★★★★
Neeta Patel
/Business Manager
Marco has helped a great deal on the problem and has helped to improve the services after discussion, some of which I did not realise were available. He kept in touch until we were fully happy.
★★★★★
Mike Hawkes
/Business Manager
Great company, helpful and always available when required.
★★★★★
Kevin Dowling
/Business Manager
Fidelity is an excellent telecoms provider. The levels of support we receive pre and post-sales are second to none.