When people come to a hair salon, they expect to leave feeling happy and confident, and they expect an experience that is stress-free and tailored to their needs. Your hairstyling expertise is just one aspect of creating a satisfied customer. In order for your clients to consistently leave happy — and keep coming back — you need to consider every aspect of their visit, from their check-in all the way to the payment process.

The Benefits of Great Merchant Services

Your salon will enjoy a number of benefits by investing in the right merchant service provider.

Accept More Payment Methods

Offer convenience to loyal clients while opening the doors to new ones by accepting a wider range of payment methods. Modern POS and payment terminals allow you to accept credit and debit cards with ease, whether they swipe the magnetic strip, dip their chip, or prefer contactless payment with their enabled card or their smartphone’s digital wallet.

Reduce Your Fees

Rather than choosing a payments provider that focuses on high-volume, major chains and charges you exorbitant fees, opt for a provider that specializes in small businesses – like National Merchants Association (NMA). In doing so, you’ll greatly reduce your costs while enjoying faster setup and better ongoing service.

With our focus on local businesses, we’re able to offer programs that help cut back on your costs — like our surcharge program that allows you to pass any processing fees on to the customer, saving you potentially thousands of dollars in fees in a given year.

Remain in Compliance

It’s now a requirement for every business to be in compliance with PCI Security Standards and the right merchant account service will help you get there. At NMA, all of our terminals are PCI compliant out-of-the-box and we help every business achieve PCI compliance through hands-on resources. The result is a more secure salon where clients can feel confident that their payment information is in good hands.

Reinvent The Salon Experience

As a salon, you have the opportunity to reinvent how your clients expect their visit with a stylist to go. For example, rather than lining everyone up at the counter, mobile payment terminals can enable you to bring the payment options right to your station, bringing speed and ease to the payments process. Meanwhile, modern features like “email my receipt” allow you to improve your customer follow-up and help you meet evolving consumer needs as they happen.

What to Look for in a Payments Provider

No two credit card processing companies are created equal and, when it comes to powering your hair salon, it’s important you choose to partner with a provider that understands your needs. You’re a small, local business with unique requirements, and that means selecting a provider that can meet all of the following criteria.

  • Industry Specialty: Your payments provider should be familiar with your needs as a hair salon. An understanding of how you do business, and what you prioritize when it comes to processing payments, is essential to providing you with great service and solutions.
  • Updated Hardware: A reliable payments provider will stay on top of consumers’ wants and needs, like the increasing use of contactless payment systems. In turn, they help your hair salon better satisfy clients through updated hardware that offers a speedy checkout experience.
  • Simplified Administration: The right software and hardware combination will make generating reports substantially easier, allowing you to adjust tip amounts quickly and break down statements by stylist. This makes reconciliation simpler and saves hours of backend labor.
  • Industry-Leading Service: Even with the best software and hardware solutions on the market, no payments provider will be the right fit unless they offer around-the-clock support to help you work through technical issues. After all, if your payments system is down, you’re losing business.

With these factors in mind, it’s important that your salon compares apples-to-apples to find the merchant account that fits the bill to help your business sustain its customers, thrive and grow.

Red Flags to Avoid

As you make your comparisons, it’s important to look out for these red flags that could make a merchant services provider a bad fit for your salon.

  • Unresponsive service: Support should be quick to respond to questions and concerns, not just before the sale, but throughout your time with them. Read reviews to understand how responsive support actually is.
  • Limited hours: In addition to hearing back from support promptly, you should also be able to reach them around-the-clock. Having to wait until Monday when you’re trying to service clients on the weekend simply isn’t good enough.
  • Outdated systems: Security and customer convenience should be top-of-mind concerns for your salon. A provider with outdated systems and solutions could be putting your business at risk.

If you spot any of these red flags when considering a merchant account provider, move on to the next company on your list. By doing your research, you’ll be able to find the right merchant account for your salon — one that works with you and for you.

Find a Merchant Account That Works for You®

At National Merchants Association, We Work for You®. We believe every small business should have the right payments partner by their side, every step of the way. That’s why we focus on providing services that matter, whether it’s our surcharge program that puts more money into small business owners’ pockets or our commitment to providing 24/7, around-the-clock customer service and technical support.

When you choose NMA as your merchant services provider, you’ll also enjoy a number of membership perks that will help your small business thrive. Through our resources and education initiatives, we help salons like yours claim new ground while keeping existing clientele happy, allowing your business to sustain and thrive year over year.

Interested in learning more about what NMA can do for your business? Explore our offerings.