Fast and furious isn't just a movie title - it's how you’ll describe your ticket sales after reading these best practices for online credit card processing. ThunderTix strives to provide you with the very best tools to sell more tickets. And after reading these best practices for credit card processing, you'll see how our tools can be even more helpful in you saving time and money!
1. Processing Fees: Nightly vs. Monthly
One the most popular aspects of having a ThunderTix account is the liquidity that comes from nightly deposits of your tickets sales. Those nightly deposits we make may come with nightly fees charged by your choice in credit card merchant account processor (Authorize.net, PayPal).
Did you know that you can ask your online credit card processing service to change your fees to be monthly, instead of nightly? By changing your fees to be drafted monthly, all batches will be deposited to your account nightly - and in full - and will match your ticket totals verbatim. Of course that means at some point, on the date set by your external processing service, all your processing fees will be charged in one big batch, greatly simplifying your accounting tasks. Once a month processing isn't for everyone, but if the idea sound right, ask your service provider about this online credit card processing best practice.
2. Display Card Logos to Lessen Declines
They say a picture is worth a thousands words. When it comes to displaying the brand names of the credit cards you accept, a picture is worth something even more important - time.
Displaying the logos of the cards you accept will help your customers know which cards to use before clicking through the purchase process. Providing the information up front, in a visual way, will make a better experience for your customer. And equally as important, it will lessen the number of declines you see in your ThunderTix reports - saving you time.
After checking with your online credit card processing, login to your ThunderTix account, and click on the “My Account” tab. Then click on the name listed under "Venue". There you’ll see the boxes to check for the credit cards you accept. You’ll be helping your customers and yourself!
3. Finding Decline Reasons Quickly
And speaking of making declines easier to manage, inside your ThunderTix account is the ability to view any declines that have occurred. Often, when a decline happens, your buyer immediately picks up the phone and calls the box office. The issue may be just a typo, or something more tangible (invalid card number, duplicate transaction, incorrect expiration date, etc).
You can quickly provide support over the phone by using the search tool to show "Declined Orders Only." By identifying the exact reason for the decline, you can explain the action your buyer needs to take, which will make for a better experience compared to generically stating that they try again. Once the correction has been made, your business will be back on track toward another ticket sale and that is what’s important!
4. Completing an Order on Your Customer's Behalf
Finding out why a card was declined is most likely just one of the types of telephone support calls you perform. Another is processing a customer's order over the phone, as they read you their card number aloud. Not only is this intimate, personal touch a best practice, it can be a real time saver in certain circumstances.
Your ThunderTix account will help you, or your staff member, process the card on your customer’s behalf by skipping the physical billing address fields. From your customer’s view, buying tickets online requires they enter a physical address that matches the credit card’s billing address (and rightfully so, for the purposes of security). However once you are speaking to your customer, you have the ability to not enter any address information at all and then quickly complete the transaction. The order is processed sans one or more address fields and the customer’s needs have been served.
5. Instilling Even More Buying Confidence
Just like displaying the logos of the credit cards you accept is helpful, so too is displaying the logo of your online credit card processing service. Instilling a sense of buying confidence with the Authorize.net logo, for example, helps speed the purchase process along. Of course your customer’s credit card already has several layers of protection, and ThunderTix uses the https security protocol, so adding the Authorize.net logo just adds to the peace of mind.
To learn how to add the Authorize.net logo to your ThunderTix powered purchase process, please see our support forum on the subject here.
Bonus!
When does five really equal seven? When we share two extra, more advanced, best practices for online credit card processing based on our years of experience.
6. Support for Credit Card Readers
Did you know that you can purchase a USB credit card swipe that integrates with the ThunderTix checkout page? If you sell tickets from ThunderTix at the window, or on the night of an event, a credit card swipe can help speed up the time it takes to process a transaction and keep the line moving. The same industry authority we wield for handheld barcode scanners also applies to credit card readers. And as a ThunderTix customer you'll enjoy the same highly regarded customer support for card readers as you do for barcode scanners.
7. Enabling Orders with International Billing Addresses
If your online credit card processing service provider is Authorize.net, you can enable orders for customers with international billing addresses. The security measure for international addresses is called the Address Verification System (AVS). It is used to verify the address of a person claiming to own a credit card. The Authorize.net AVS will check the billing address of the credit card provided by the user with the address on file at the credit card company.
ThunderTix customers accepting orders from outside of the United States should know that by default the Authorize.net gateway rejects these types of transactions. However, these settings can be altered so the majority of international transactions can be processed. To learn how to alter the settings, visit our support forum here.
ThunderTix Online Credit Card Processing
If you are not one of our beloved customers you may being feeling a bit jealous right now, since your current online ticket software doesn't help you with your online credit card processing tasks. But it's not too late - you can sign up for free trial today!