Good Customer Service is the key to whether you will succeed or fail.  Some companies, like Nordstrom or Amazon, do an outstanding job, which reflects in their bottom line. Poor Customer Service will put you out of business. One area people often forget to have a policy for is how you collect payments from their customers.  Your policies go a long way to define your customer's perception of your Customer Service. 

       Are you exclusive enough to have a cash only policy; or do you offer several options?    Most stores today do accept cash, but also, credit kcards, debit cards, and occasionally checks.  If your business has a storefront presence these are all pretty easy to use.  The problem arises when you charge a fee to use some of these service, like debit cards.   You will be perceived in a  better light if you just include those fees in the price.  Customers assume that part of their payment is dedicated to your costs of doing business.  Seeing these fees pulled out and charged separately is very annoying and can cause you to lose a customer who doesn't agree with the policy.  If you are concerned that the people who use the service are subsidizing those who don't, take a survey of you customers to see what they think.

        If your business is online or mail order you have another set of concerns. Ease of use is the key. Many people are very concerned with identity theft so they won't put their credit card number on the web.  For these groups the best resource is Paypal.  It will give them an account number to use without revealing their credit info to the World. You can also use PayPal in the brick and mortar world to take payments or deposits.

        Do you have a PayPal account?  You will get better response than hoping someone will send you snail mail with a check; and you can also easily serve those that are concerned with security. There are two sides to PayPal that can help you streamline your business and help you attract customers to grow your business.

       All of these benefits, from both the customer and the business point of view, make PayPal a very good system for the health of your business and to help make your Customer Service money transactions award winners.