As a venue manager, one of your key responsibilities in the event management process is ensuring that event payments come in on time. Your customers want a seamless and secure payment experience, and it’s your duty to ensure that happens.
With the rise of digital payment options, it’s becoming easier to streamline transactions and earn customers’ trust and loyalty. In this guide, we explore some of the best practices for event payment processing.
You will also get tips on how to implement these practices for your venue. As a result, you can ensure that customers have a positive experience from start to finish.
How to Offer Easy Event Payments, Step-by-Step
Offer a Variety of Payment Methods
Each client has a preference for how they would like to pay for your event venue services. For example, some prefer credit cards while others use ACH debit, online transfers, or a wallet service like PayPal. Offering different online payment processing options on your website to accommodate everyone can provide several benefits, including:
- Satisfied customers: Clients will appreciate the convenience of being able to pay using their preferred method.
- Greater reach: Your business can appeal to a broader customer base as you meet the market with various payment options.
- Competitive edge: Multiple payment methods can give you an advantage over your competition that has limited options.
- Quicker payments: By accepting different payment methods, you can receive money more quickly. Customers can transact immediately without arranging finance approval or waiting to access funds.
Automate Payment Reminders
Automatic payment reminders are convenient for you and your clients. Set up automated payment reminders in your venue management software to send to clients to ensure they make payments on time.
On your end, this reduces the need for manual follow-ups. For your customers, it provides a streamlined reminder system. There is no need to note down or check payment dates, as they receive regular emails outlining dues dates ahead of time.
Set it and Forget it
Another way to ensure event payments arrive on time is to ‘set it and forget it.’ In your venue management software, schedule future credit card payments. Set future payment dates to charge the cards automatically and have the system send updated invoices to your clients.
To do this, agree on payment dates with your client beforehand. Ensure these are outlined in your event contract. Send reminders a week in advance, as well as 24hrs before the card is charged. This ensures everyone is on the same page and payments go off seamlessly.
Offer Payment Plans
Depending on the size and date of booked events, it can be beneficial to offer payment plans to your clients. Payment plans are excellent options for customers who want to spread the event cost over several months. But, this will likely only make sense if the event is high value or booked far in advance.
To set up payment plans, you must decide on payment terms, such as payment amount and frequency. When setting up payment plans, communicate the terms clearly to your customers. Include the schedule in the contract, so everyone knows exactly when payments are due.
Streamline the Refund Process
There may be times when you need to issue refunds. This could be due to event cancellations or a change in the original contract agreement. In any case, streamlining the refund process helps you provide better customer service.
The simplest solution to issue refunds is directly from your event management software dashboard. If clients have loaded a payment method that your system securely stores, processing the refund directly to the original payment method is simple. There is no need to ask for your client's bank details, and potentially take days to process the refund.
Safely Store and Process Credit Card Details
Many people are hesitant to give out their sensitive credit card information. This is understandable; after all, security breaches can happen when processing online payments.
However, providing a credit card payment method is necessary for your event venue. As a business, you are responsible for protecting clients’ information when processing payments on your platform. If the payment process goes awry, you risk losing trust, which is costly to your company.
Luckily, you can protect clients’ information by being PCI compliant. The best way to do this is to use compliant venue management software when accepting payments online. Reassure clients at the start of your interactions that your event payment system meets the standards and that their details are safe. This will help them move forward with your business and transact with confidence.
Use Venue Management Software
Venue management software has cropped up repeatedly in this guide on how to offer easy event payments. The software provides a comprehensive solution for processing and managing booking payments. Platforms like Perfect Venue offer features like automatic payment reminders, secure credit card processing, and real-time reporting. For both you and your clients, this makes interactions around collecting money more streamlined.
With venue management software, you can track all customer payments, including deposits, remaining balances, and additional payments due. This helps you stay on top of your finances and ensures that you get paid on time.
Many platforms also integrate with known payment processors, so you can easily trigger transactions within your software. This reduces the need to switch between different systems, making the process more streamlined and efficient.
Conclusion
It’s critical to take your time and figure out your client’s needs and requirements around online payment processing. Every event payment that goes through your system should be stress-free and secure.
Adding an event management system to your setup introduces automation. It also introduces other aspects that make online payments a breeze.
With Perfect Venue, you can easily process payments, issue refunds, and offer multiple payment options. Start your 14-day free trial to test the waters and see how Perfect Venue can positively impact the payment process.
