Have you heard? None of your customers want to use cash anymore. Not only that, but they don’t want to touch your credit card terminal either. And it’s not difficult to understand why. Welcome to the new normal.
According to a recent article on Bloomberg, “Even with retail stores cleaning more often than ever—if they’re open at all—handling cash or touching payment keypads stands out as a major risk.” Customers don’t want to touch anything at the point of sale.
Interestingly enough, many merchants feel the same way. They don’t want their customers touching anything either. This was confirmed by Linda Kirkpatrick, a Mastercard executive, who said “I know a lot of merchants are putting signage up at the point of sale, ‘Please use contactless’.”
If you haven’t gone contactless yet and you’re still on the fence, you can always look to others for guidance. How has the nation’s number one retailer responded to customer concerns? “A couple of weeks ago, retail giant Walmart Inc. tweaked its self-checkout system to go completely contactless.”
For better or worse, nobody wants to hand you cash or touch your terminal anymore. The only question left to answer is, when will you make the move to accommodate them? The good news is that the technology already exists and making the change is painless.
There are two main forms of contactless payments today: 1) using a smartphone to wirelessly communicate with your terminal and 2) waving a credit card, which uses technology embedded in the card, near the terminal. This last technology is called near field communication or NFC.
When using a smartphone to make purchases, your customers will use an app on their phone to do so, and almost without exception, that app will be either Apple Pay or Google Pay. So, when you make the transition to contactless at the point of sale, you must make sure the terminal you choose can accommodate Apple Pay, Google Pay and NFC.
You may be wondering if these technologies are as safe as swiping or inserting a card. They are just as safe, because they send the same unique, one-time token to the terminal for each transaction. The token does not contain any card details, so if the purchase is compromised, that token cannot be used to make another purchase. In other words, going contactless does not compromise security.
If you haven’t transitioned to offering contactless payment options at the point of sale yet, you’re going to start missing out on sales—if you haven’t already. Accepting contactless payments is now a criteria customers use to choose retailers. There’s no reason to lose any of yours.
It’s time to give your customers what they demand and there’s no better way to do that than with the variety of social distancing payment options offered by AppStar Financial. AppStar’s unique suite of products and services are designed to improve safety and promote health for both merchants and customers by addressing contactless payment requirements. This includes touchless processing on most terminals (Apple Pay/Google Pay NFC technology), customer facing Bluetooth card readers and customer facing PIN pads with extra-long cables up to 15 feet.
AppStar Financial has been around since 2002 and offers state of the art equipment with the latest technology and software, along with the best customer service in the industry. When you’re ready to go contactless, give us a call.
