Find the Right Payment Processing Partner for Your Restaurant
With 71% of diners preferring to pay with credit card when dining at restaurants, your business has to accept cards to stay open. However, interviewing and inevitably, choosing a payment processor for your restaurant can be a complicated endeavor. Choosing the right payment processor can save you countless headaches trying to decipher endless fees. The wrong one, on the other hand, can add unnecessary stress to your business.
So what do you ask to make sure you’re bringing on the right payment processing partner for your business? Download our free payment processing interview questions to cover all your payments bases, and come out of it all with the best partner for your restaurant.
How to Choose a Payment Processor for Your Restaurant
If you aren’t yet ready to interview payment processing partners and don’t know where to get started, follow these steps to learn how to choose a payment processor.
1. Assess Your Payment Processing Needs
Interviewing payment processors without assessing your needs is like going to the grocery store hungry without a shopping list – you’ll be swayed by marketing tactics and end up getting more than you need.
If you already have a payment processor, make a list of the things you like about them (great customer service, for example) and the things you don’t like (high credit card processing fees could be a factor). Think about what’s missing from your existing partner.
If you’re starting from scratch, ask industry peers what they value most in their payment processing partners.
2. Create a List of Payment Processing Partners
The next step in choosing a payment processor is to research new options. Ask fellow restaurateurs for recommendations on the best payment processor for small business and conduct your own research online.
3. Assess Payment Processing Partners
Now it’s time to narrow down your list. Begin with the easiest research: read payment processing partners’ websites, reviews, and testimonials. See if you can find their rates online.
Then, schedule interviews with your finalists. With payment processing companies, these interviews are a little more technical than asking for somebody’s greatest strength, so use the questions in our free guide to help you.
4. Compare Payment Processors
With detailed notes from your interviews, you have what you need to eliminate all but one prospective partner from your list. Compare the best payment processors for small businesses based on how their answers stack up against the list of needs and wants you created in step one.
Compare payment processors based on factors like:
- Customer support availability
- Card processing rates
- Pricing structure
- Payment specialties (mobile payments, online orders, etc.)
- Partner reputation
- POS integration capabilities
- Contract length
- PCI compliance
If two partners seem to offer fairly similar services, follow up with more questions. And if even after more questions they still have similar rates and services, see if they’ll compete with each other to give you a more compelling offer.
5. Choose the Right Payment Processing Partner for Your Restaurant
By carefully interviewing payment processing partners for your restaurant, you’ll be able to find one that fits your business’ needs, offers competitive rates, and can provide support when you need it. Download our free Payment Processing Interview Checklist to know the right questions to ask.
Disclaimer: All of the information contained in this downloadable asset is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, accounting, tax, or other professional or compliance advice. It is your responsibility to determine whether credit card surcharging is permissible in your jurisdiction. You are solely responsible for ensuring that your activity is compliant with the card network requirements and all laws applicable to you. Non-compliance may result in regulatory consequences or fines.
