I feel like I’ve been transported back to the 1950s lately. Why? Because I’ve been faced with several situations where I’ve been at a loss for how to pay for goods or services because the establishment insisted on cash or checks.
One of the four P’s of marketing is place. Place encompasses a lot of things, but at the end of the day it’s how you get the product or service to the client. A portion of that includes payment terms, including the forms of payment you’re willing to take as an establishment.
As a provider of goods or services, it’s your job to make it easy for me to take delivery of your service, in order that I might want to repeat the experience or recommend you to others. Not taking the single most common form of payment in use today does not make it easy, and it certainly doesn’t make me likely to recommend you to others.
There’s a caveat to that. If you don’t take credit or debit cards, please make it known to me before I’ve gone to the trouble to shop, or in the case of some services, consume your service. A small sign on the door doesn’t cut it. If cash and check are your only accepted forms of payment, you should remind me at least three times before I have the opportunity to buy, in great big letters. Disappointing the customer is worse than not satisfying their needs.
Maybe if you have to go to the expense of having a huge sign printed, you might find a way to cover the small expense of taking credit or debit.