Lately reports of the amount of credit card information that has been compromised are staggering. It’s getting a little scary to be a consumer in these times, let alone a business owner who might be held accountable if fraudulent transactions happen on your customers’ cards.
What’s an entrepeneur to do?
Well, one option to help keep people from stealing customer information would be not to keep any cardholder information around.
One way to keep the burden off your business is to use customer lookup and card on file functions (something like the features offered in the Intellivative Payments API and Intellivative Merchant Portal). These functions were originally designed for convenience, but when used in lieu of storing the sensitive customer information at your business, they can also act as fraud prevention tools.
By using these two features in tandem, you can save customer billing, shipping, and cardholder account information for later retrieval on a secured server. This allows you quick access to the information, but you don’t have to worry about how to protect it from fraudsters. You leave the burden of protecting your customer information to an expert in security–unless security is your business, you may be better off leaving it to the experts.
That doesn’t help if your payment solutions provider is compromised for some reason, but hopefully they are taking steps to ensure that doesn’t happen. I know we are continually updating security at Intellivative. We make it our mission to keep your customer information safe and secure.
You will also need access to previous payment receipts in case there’s a chargeback, so make sure your payment provider offers secure access to those as well or you’ll end up keeping copies of receipts around, which kind of defeats the purpose.
If you’re worried about how to store your customers’ information safely, perhaps the best solution is just not to store it at all!
Lately reports of the amount of credit card information that has been compromised are staggering. It’s getting a little scary to be a consumer in these times, let alone a business owner who might be held accountable if fraudulent transactions happen on your customers’ cards.
What’s an entrepeneur to do?
Well, one option to help keep people from stealing customer information would be not to keep any cardholder information around.
One way to keep the burden off your business is to use customer lookup and card on file functions (something like the features offered in the Intellivative Payments API and Intellivative Merchant Portal). These functions were originally designed for convenience, but when used in lieu of storing the sensitive customer information at your business, they can also act as fraud prevention tools.
By using these two features in tandem, you can save customer billing, shipping, and cardholder account information for later retrieval on a secured server. This allows you quick access to the information, but you don’t have to worry about how to protect it from fraudsters. You leave the burden of protecting your customer information to an expert in security–unless security is your business, you may be better off leaving it to the experts.
That doesn’t help if your payment solutions provider is compromised for some reason, but hopefully they are taking steps to ensure that doesn’t happen. I know we are continually updating security at Intellivative. We make it our mission to keep your customer information safe and secure.
You will also need access to previous payment receipts in case there’s a chargeback, so make sure your payment provider offers secure access to those as well or you’ll end up keeping copies of receipts around, which kind of defeats the purpose.
If you’re worried about how to store your customers’ information safely, perhaps the best solution is just not to store it at all!
Usually I turn to eMarketer to give me facts, figures, and analytical insights, but today I found a refreshing entry from their CEO, Geoff Ramsey, on how staying positive through these hard times can be good for your business.
His main points:
- There’s no sense worrying about what you can’t control (like the sad state of our economy)–or worrying about the things you can. If you can’t control it, you’re wasting energy worrying about it. If you can control it, you’re better off doing something about it than worrying about it.
- Limit the time you spend reading the bad news. Instead, focus on more inspiring business news. In Geoff’s words:
“Does it really help your situation to dwell on the detailed misfortunes of other companies or leaders, whether in your industry or not? Choose to read the article about Amazon’s remarkable 18% rise in revenues during the past quarter, and how they did it. Skip the one about Home Depot laying off thousands (unless you’re Lowe’s).”
- Focus on the opportunities. For every challenge you’re facing, there’s an opportunity laying below the surface. Look for those opportunities and use them to help your business survive–and maybe even thrive.
- Use data to your advantage:
“… pore through primary internal research, especially customer and Web analytics data, as well as secondary market research and trend data, with the goal of identifying potential opportunities, both large and small. Use the data to build hypotheses that can be tested inexpensively, often online.”
- Invest in the future. Spend some time each week planning for the future—so you’re prepared for when the economy picks up and ready to take advantage of the upswing.
I encourage you to take a moment to read Geoff’s words. He’s got some good advice for business people.
I ran across a blog post from Brendan Regan of FutureNow on one of my own pet peeves: disruptive advertising on the internet. He describes an annoying Domino’s ad popping up on MySpace and literally interrupting the music he was listening to. He was so angry he had to blog about it. Hey, I’d be mad too. My task flow has been rudely interrupted many a time on the Internet, and every time it does, I make a mental note never to do business with that company again.
Invasive ads are the norm on television and nobody gets upset (they might skip over them, but they don’t get mad about it …), but on the Internet it’s a different story. Why?
Active vs. Passive Medium
Television is a passive medium. Someone watching TV is usually sitting there, not really doing anything important. On a passive medium like TV, you can interrupt the viewer with ads and suggestions (hey, wouldn’t you like a pizza right now? Look, yummy, hot, cheesy piiiiizza …) and it might even tempt them into buying something.
The Internet, on the other hand, is an active medium–when someone is on the Internet, they are trying to get something done. Users on the Internet are focused on the task at hand (even if the task at hand is Play), and they can get more than a little upset if someone interrupts their task, especially if the interruption has absolutely nothing to do with what they were trying to accomplish.
On the other hand, if someone supports the task at hand with helpful information, products, or services, Internet users respond positively. In eBusiness, if you can find a way to support the user’s task at hand, you win customers and therefore, more business. This is why ads that interrupt the user’s flow tend to get ignored, or worse yet, drive business away. Those who criticize performance-based marketing on the Internet just don’t get the reality of this active medium.
It’s almost funny how many big businesses (like Domino’s Pizza and Dell computers) don’t understand the difference between passive and active mediums–they keep interrupting users from their task. It’s like walking up to a football player on the field in the middle of a game and asking him if he’d like to buy a computer. It’s not going to work. First of all, you’re not going to stop him from his task. He’s playing football, you idiot, and he’s going to do whatever he’s got to do to get back to it. If that means plowing over you in the process, he will do it. And then (after the game) he will tell all his friends how stupid your company is. If he’s a blogger, that bad press might find it’s way all over the Internet.
So think of the user’s task as the football game. If you offer him an incredible football or some awesome cleats before (or even after) the game, he might go for it. But he’s not going to stop the game to go buy your product or service–it would be foolish to even try to interrupt him in the middle of the game.
Success for your eBusiness
So if you want to succeed at eCommerce, then, you have to find a way to suggest your products or services just at the right moment–and no moment is better than when they are searching for it. Search engine optimization is so critical on the Internet. The second key for eCommerce success is the usability of your site (the ability to help the user through their task). Every aspect of your eBusiness strategy, from advertising to checkout, has to focus on supporting the user’s tasks, offering helpful information when they need it, suggesting your product or service just when they need it, and ensuring you make it painless and quick for them to get it once they do decide to buy.
Usable Payment Systems
So your payment processing system has to be painless and quick, right at the point the customer makes the decision to buy your product or service. Your payments solution should:
- Be available at the moment when the user decides to purchase (even it it’s at 3 a.m. on a Sunday night).
- If your payment system is not ready to go when the user wants to purchase, you’re most likely going to lose the sale.
- Offer payment options that fit your customers (not too many payment options, though!)
- Offering too many options tend to overwhelm the customer and get in the way of completing the task.
- Most customers on the Internet tend to pay by credit card.
- Fit seamlessly into the flow of your eCommerce site
- Your web site has to be straightforward and simple, so the user can readily accomplish what they want to.
- If they can’t figure out how to pay, or if it’s too much work, there are plenty of other eCommerce sites out there that will be glad to help out your customers.
- Securely process the payment and protect the customer’s private information
- Security on the web is a very major factor. Make sure you check the methods that your payment processor uses to protect the customer’s information to make sure it’s the highest level of security available.
- Offer the user assurances at the point of sale–tell them why their credit card information is secure, how it’s secured, and who is securing their payment transaction. Calming the user’s fears goes a long ways towards getting the sale.
Oh, and speaking of payment systems, if you’re looking for a flexible, secure eCommerce solution for your business that will fit into the flow of your web site, give you all the popular payment types, and work with your shopping cart software, take a look at the Intellivative Payments API.
