1. Cash flow is king
One of the main advantages of taking credit card payments in Salesforce is the ease of taking payments right after a sale.
Imagine a scenario where a salesperson is talking with a customer over the phone and the customer is ready to pay with their credit card. You probably would not want to delay that payment, you would want to take that then.
Or imagine a service company sending their technicians to the field. If, after completing the service, the customer is ready to pay with their credit card, you would want to take that too. That would save you time from having to chase payments afterwards.
By arming your sales and service teams the ability to take credit card payments, your payments are on-time, ultimately improving your cash flow.
2. Keep your data in one place
Salesforce has become the system of record for most companies. Salesforce is where your customer data lives, so it makes sense to do your other business functions there as well, as opposed to using other systems where you have to duplicate your customer data.
There’s a lot of manual entry involved in maintaining multiple systems. These systems can be integrated but there’s likely complications involved during and after the integration, not to mention the work involved in dealing with multiple vendors.
By taking credit card payments in Salesforce, you’re simplifying your tech stack and you have payment history right where your customer data lives.
3. Automation
After a business gets paid for their products or services, there’s generally a series of activities that need to be done, whether it’s to fulfill the order, to schedule a project kickoff meeting, or to simply send a thank you email.
In Salesforce, automating these activities is possible, if not simple. The Salesforce platform comes with workflow automation tools that are relatively simple to use. And while other systems in general have limited automation capabilities, Salesforce has few limitations, if any.
4. Your customers can self-serve
Many businesses come to Salesforce for its “portal” capabilities. With this capability, they are able to offer their customers the ability to login to a portal where they can serve themselves, such as create support tickets or view their invoices.
Through your portal, you can also have your customers pay or update their credit card information for future payments.
5. Security
The Salesforce platform comes with state of the art security and the latest encryption technology. They maintain a comprehensive set of compliance certifications and attestations, including PCI Compliance.
If you’re taking credit card payments, it is important to protect your customers’ credit card information. Doing so in Salesforce ensures your customers’ payment information is protected. This helps build trust, leading to more business in the long term.
How can you take credit cards in Salesforce?
The first step is to sign up for a merchant account or a gateway. If you have one existing, you should be able to use that.
Once you have the merchant account or the gateway, install an app like Kulturra’s Payment Center in your Salesforce org. Using an app like this gets you up and running quickly and helps you take advantage of the benefits of taking credit card payments in Salesforce!
