Ask a Payments Product Manager Anything

[Tom]

Hello Sellers! On July 8th at 11am PT / 2pm ET, we hosted a virtual office hours opportunity where sellers posted questions to this thread and heard back from our Payments team!

@Sean is a product manager on the Payment Products team at Square, and he took the lead in this session. Having worked on the Seller Community team as a community manager previously and with more than 7 years of experience at Square, he's always excited to hear from sellers and ensure that their experiences are taken into account with product decisions.

Click here to learn more about Square Payments.

A few example questions:

• How can I offer a seamless payment experience to my customers?
• How did the COVID-19 pandemic impact Square payment products and services?
• How does Square's referral program work and how do I track my free processing balance?

Note on account-specific questions: For your privacy and security, we are not able to address issues related to specific payments, deposits, or account status details in our public forums. If you need assistance on one of those related topics, please contact our Customer Success team and they'll be able to take a deeper dive into your account.

[ELIZABETHT]

Hi @Sean - is there a way of doing this thread that is in a different format going forward. I'm getting bombarded by emails from everyone on this thread! I daren't unsubscribe in case I miss the response from you!

Question 1: It seems counterintuitive that I have to do on an app, something that you'd expect to be able to do from the main terminal. I do all of my scheduling on my computer as it's much quicker.

Question 2: Square appointments came too late for me.  I was looking at it in 2019 when I was moving software, but at that time, square appointments was only available in the US. I now have a practice management system, so won't be changing to square.  I use card on file for a client who rarely remembers to pay the invoice when i send it through.  I still send through the invoice as normal, as I do with my other clients, however after my session, I take the payment myself.

Question 3 - thank you for re-raising the question of consent.

Question 4 - I've seen the ability, however it's a time limited trial. I didn't want to invest in doing something that would then be reversed. The key thing I would want to do is add formating to the email, be able to use placeholders (such as customer name)   I'd also like the ability for reminders to continue to be sent until the invoice is paid rather than a limit of only a few reminders.  If a customer ignores the reminder, I then have to remember to check whether or not it has bene paid.

[shamilrizvi]

As a restaurant we need to print out customers address on the receipts printed through the square terminal. It’s really annoying as restaurant to use the terminal as a customers address is extremely important for delivery and customer reassurance. Hope to solve this issue as soon as possible. Good luck on the meeting. 👍

[Sean]

Hi @shamilrizvi. Would love to learn a little bit more about your workflow so I can follow up with a good suggestion. Are you taking orders over the phone for delivery? Or do you take orders online with 3rd party delivery apps? Thanks!

[SammyGrace2414]

I don't know if this helps, however our work around for this is to Name our Tickets "Customer Name, Phone, Address" so that it prints. 

[shamilrizvi]

Can we also get cash payments con our online orders. Having only card is not enough we also need a cash payment option. Thanks you.

[Sean]

Hi again @shamilrizvi. I’ve definitely heard this request before, as well! I feel like cash is a little tricky since you won’t know for sure if the customer will have the cash on hand when you show up at their door with the order, this is especially problematic for restaurants where they can’t resell items. Having said that, I know it’s important to be able to have your customers pay how they want to and each business can set their own risk thresholds. I’ll share the feedback with our eCommerce Team!

[SammyGrace2414]

@Sean 

Cash and/or E-Transfer for us Canadians! Please!  

The option for businesses to be able to enable per payment type would help. Then only the businesses that want the feature use it. 

[sharonrose]

1) My new Terminal makes a surprisingly obnoxious loud beep with every sale. It's annoying in my quiet, peaceful treatment room after a session. The sound is "turned off" in settings. This is a known issue for the past three years, according to the community forum. I have taped cotton balls over the holes which take the edge off and reduces it to annoying, but this isn't really sufficient. What do you suggest? Can I safely stuff the holes with modeling clay? When will this be addressed?

2) The newest update introduced a new step to the sales process. After I select items, I have to "review" the sale before running the card. I have very simple sales (1-2 items) and this extra step is unwanted. I don't have a receptionist and need to be quick between patients (need to change sheets, etc). I was able to recall the old settings, but the Terminal warned me that was a temporary fix. How do I streamline it permanently?

Thank you so much!

[Sean]

Hi @sharonrose and sorry to hear about the issue with your Square Terminal! I’m not sure familiar with what is expected, but I definitely haven’t noticed this sound with mine. I will have someone on our Customer Success Team follow up directly with you on this!

As for your second question, it’s great feedback. We are in the process of rolling out our new design for the Point of Sale app. While we don’t currently have disabling the confirmation screen as a feature, I’m happy to pass along the feedback! In the short term, if you go to Settings > Checkout > you should be able to click “Revert to previous experience” if you want to keep using that for the time being. I’m not exactly sure when this option will go away.

[sharonrose]

https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/Hardware-Feature-Requests/Can-I-turn-off-or-turn-down-the-very-lo...

[Sean]

Thanks for sharing that thread! I haven't seen it before, but I'll be sure to share the feedback with our Hardware Team. Someone should also be reaching out to you to make sure your Square Terminal is working within our specifications. 

[sharonrose]

Also - with this short notice I have patients tomorrow. Will I be able to read the answers/ see a video afterwards? Thanks!

[Sean]

Hi again @sharonrose! I’ll continue to monitor the conversation here even after the office hours, so feel free to post any follow up questions/commentary!

[awakenings]

I'd love to know why I have submitted three inquiries about the customized Square Retail option (volume required) and cannot get anyone from Square to return a phone call, send an email, nothing.

Thanks!

[Sean]

Hi @awakenings. Sorry to hear about the issue in getting a hold of us. I’ll escalate this for you and have your Account Manager give you a call!

[exodushair]

Hi! Thanks for doing this,

1. While on vacation, my wife and I paid at a restaurant on a handheld device, and after we picked our receipt  preferences, it immediately asked if we'd like to leave a Google Review. This would be an amazing thing to add to our POS checkout screens as many people want to leave reviews but it's not always convenient.

2. Having "no-show protection" is amazing for online bookings but we have no way to "no-show protect" against appointments booked in person or over the phone. Having a personalized link or something we can send to a customer where they can agree and attest as they link their card for their appointment would be so helpful. This would look something like, "Okay Mr. Customer, I have you booked for July 25th at 9am, you're going to receive a text message with a few prompts in order to reserve this appointment." or something like that. 

[Sean]

Hi @exodushair. Thank you for asking a question! For your first piece of feedback -- I love the suggestion! Getting your business name out there is critical. Our feedback tool is currently only geared and sharing direct feedback between buyer and seller. I’d suggest subscribing to this thread for future updates, and I’ll pass along the suggestion to the team that’s working on this tool. On a related note, our Square Marketing product does offer an automated campaign that you can set up that encourages sellers to review you on Facebook.

As for your second question around “no-show protection” for over the phone bookings, totally makes sense! I’ll share the request with our Square Appointments Team!

[chasruddy]

Hey Mike,  Square payments has been amazing for my customers (we are a platform development partner) - is it in your group to evaluate / explore allowing consumers to 'round up' for a designated charity?  This would be a fantastic option for my customers to help their local community causes.

[Sean]

Hi @chasruddy. This is a super interesting idea! Would you imagine this feature for in-person sales or online sales (or both)? Would love to hear about what development projects you’ve worked on using our APIs too. While this might be something more complex to do with our 1st party POS, it definitely seems feasible with 3rd party apps. We also have our Developer forums too if you want to chat with other folks or directly with that team.

[SeasideStonesME]

I will be at my store tomorrow and cannot join.

Here is my question - I use Square invoicing and PayPal invoicing to direct invoice customers (non-website orders). PayPal is raising their rates and I am going to switch to using Square only. Some customers are not familiar/comfortable with Square. Is there any way for me to send a Square invoice, and the customer use their PayPal account to pay the Square invoice? Thank you! 

[Sean]

Hi @SeasideStonesME, and thanks for the question! We don’t currently offer support for accepting payments over PayPal, but it is a request I’ve seen from other sellers. 

As for offering your customer’s piece of mind, Square does a lot to protect your customers’ data for you—we’re fully PCI compliant on your behalf as long as our solutions are applied throughout your business. From the time your customer uses a credit card in our readers or enters their information into our APIs, for example, payment data is encrypted until it reaches Square’s processing environment. You can learn more about the protections we put in place to keep Sellers, Buyers, and Square secure here: https://squareup.com/us/en/security.