Opening your business to phone payments is a smart move – even if you’re already taking payments from smartphones (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay). There are a number of benefits to keeping that old-fashioned landline.
Turn your phone line into a sales channel
For all the advances we’ve seen in payment technology, the landline is still a powerful payments tool. A Virtual Terminal turns yours into a payment channel by making it possible to take payment when the cardholder isn’t on your premises.
What types of businesses accept over the phone payments?
A Virtual Terminal is really handy if you work from home, with no need for a shop or other kind of premises.
Even if you have premises, a Virtual Terminal is still useful. Despite an explosion in online shopping over the past few years, some people still aren’t happy to share their card details online. For them, the ability to pay by phone is reassuring – and offering phone payments ensures you don’t lose a single customer.
For start-ups, a Virtual Terminal is essential. Your first sales are the ones you’ll remember the most, so you don’t want to miss a single one. The more ways you can enable payment, the fewer sales you’ll lose.
Delivery services, including taxi companies and food outlets, are also especially suited for Virtual Terminals.
For businesses who make or sell valuable, one-off items (jewellers, artists and artisanal products), a Virtual Terminal is useful as transactions made by phone aren’t limited by the £30 contactless limit.
How to process phone payments with our Virtual Terminal
Using a Virtual Terminal offers other benefits to your business.
Our Merchant Management System is designed to make transactions simple. There are just three steps:
- Log in. When your customer calls, sign in to the system.
- Enter the details. Add the amount, card details and your customer’s billing address.
- Accept payment. You can generate and email a receipt to them, if they need one.
You can log in to our Merchant Management System from any computer, tablet or mobile – so as long as you’re connected to a network or landline, then you can take card payments on the go. Need more info? Read our guide on how to take card payments over the phone.
The benefits of taking payments over the phone
Be local. Sell global.
A customer doesn’t have to be in your premises or even your country to make a sale. A Virtual Terminal can open you up to the world.
The personal touch
A Virtual Terminal doesn’t stop you from dealing with people. Quite the opposite: it’s an opportunity to engage with customers and answer their queries. Who knows, you may even be able to cross-sell or up-sell something.
Multitask with ease
Running a business may feel like hard work at times (trust us, we’ve been there)
but that doesn’t mean taking payment should be. As you process a transaction using Virtual Terminal, you can also take payment with your card machine and EPOS.
A Payments plan B
A Virtual Terminal makes a handy payment back-up in case you should break or
damage your card machine. (And don’t forget – we can replace card machines in under 24 hours.)
The fastest way to start taking payments
We pride ourselves on delivering card readers to our customers in three working days. But when it comes to a Virtual Terminal, we can have you up and running in
under 24 hours. There’s no faster way to start taking payment.
Phone payments security
Our Virtual Terminal protects you and your customers with the same encryption technology as Chip and PIN and contactless transactions. It also includes other security measures including AVS and CV2 security checks (lightning fast identity checks in each transaction), SSL certification (ensuring your phone line is secure) and PCI DSS compliance.
How much does it cost to take payments over the phone?
Not only is a Virtual Terminal one of the fastest ways to accept card payments, it’s also one of the cheapest. Our prices start at £8.30 a month, and we’ll give you 12 months’ use for the price of 10.
For an accurate quote, take a moment to tell us a few details about your business. You can do so here. Just like setting up a Virtual Terminal, it won’t take long.