Postal Service cost cutting to make getting paid by mail even harder
Small businesses could find it much more difficult to collect payments quickly following the U.S. Postal Service’s decision to stop its next-day delivery.
Forced to downsize considerably, the U.S. Postal Service announced last month that it would shut down half of its 500 processing centers, fire 28,000 employees and eliminate its service of delivering mail the next day. According to the USPS, about 40 percent of all first-class mail is delivered the next day.
New research from REL Consulting indicates that the change could cost up to $100 million per year for businesses that collect payments by mail.
All the ways you can accept online payments in 2012
The New Year brings new opportunity to add revenue to your bottom line, and what better way than to join the rest of businesses that accept online payments.
The reasons are obvious and plentiful for why you should start offering online payment options. According to the most recent 2011 Billing Household Survey, options are what your customers want the most from your billing services. A fifth of customers indicated that they change the way they pay their bills every month, with 59 percent having already used a direct billing website, 53 percent having used recurring billing and 38 percent having paid their bills through online banking services.
In addition to making it convenient for your customers, statistics show that businesses get paid faster when they accept online payments. Instead of hassling your customers to remind them of bills being due, you could set them up on a recurring payment system, or accept a payment over the phone.
