WorkWave announces the arrival of WorkWave Payments

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Updated Sep 23, 2019
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With fleet management and field service systems becoming more mainstream in the world of professional landscaping, WorkWave has implemented something new to its WorkWave Service program that the company believes will only enhance the user experience.

Recently, WorkWave launched a payment program called WorkWave Payments, which the company says works seamlessly in its WorkWave Service platform, as it is embedded in the system.

According to David Giannetto, COO of WorkWave, WorkWave Payments is the first payment facilitator in the service offer industry, and it now gives their customers a much better customer service experience when facing issues.

“It will largely feel the same because you are taking payments on our mobile application or you’re putting credit cards on file,” says Giannetto. “The difference in the interaction that a landscape company might have with their customers is with WorkWave Payments, we’re going to be able to allow them to do and accept a lot more of the modern-day payment types that we’re all getting more accustomed to.”

According to Giannetto, WorkWave Payments will help customers in two major ways. The first, he says, is that it will help influence the landscaper’s interaction with their customer, thus aiding the merchant-customer relationship.

With the introduction of Apple Pay, Google Pay and other smartphone-based payment platforms, Giannetto says consumers have, naturally, become more accustomed to paying for goods and services via their devices. Before the implementation of WorkWave Payments, Giannetto says there was no way for WorkWave customers to utilize those platforms for payments.

“We’re able to help landscaping companies offer more flexible payment arrangements with their customers, and that makes it easier for them to do business,” says Giannetto. “That’s what those customers expect at the end of the day. We’re going to be able to really make sure that our customers are offering a great experience to their end customers.”

The second way Giannetto says WorkWave Payments will help customers is by allowing landscapers to have a better relationship with their money. Overwhelmingly, Giannetto says WorkWave customers have given feedback saying they desire the ability to accept a multitude of payment types, they want those payments to process quickly, they want to be protected from financial risks and fraud associated with taking these payments and they want to be able to get their money back as quickly as possible.

“Before WorkWave Payments, we really had very little control and very little visibility into that whole movement of money on behalf of our customers,” says Giannetto. “It was all done through a partnership of ours, and once that payment left our mobile technology, we had no visibility at all. WorkWave Payments gives us ownership of that backend processing transaction that’s happening.”

In the future, Giannetto says this system will allow WorkWave to do more to help their customers, such as automating the payment processes. With the overabundance of technology-based payment systems currently out there, Giannetto says customers are already used to having their checks immediately scanned, being able to pay with their phones or even just having a credit card on file for automatic payments.

“All of these things were being asked of WorkWave customers, and we couldn’t give them that because we were limited with our technology roadmap,” says Giannetto. “We had to do something to help our customers.”Unknown 1

To date, Giannetto says the technology has proved effective in processing payments, and some customers have actually noticed a reduction in their rates since the implementation of WorkWave Payments. Giannetto says with WorkWave Payments, there’s a very simple payment model that includes only one percentage and one transaction fee.

“With WorkWave Payments, we don’t have any of that complex structure,” says Giannetto. “It’s one fee, whether it’s Visa, MasterCard or American Express. Our customers now don’t have to worry about all those things because it’s a very simple model.”

The biggest learning curve Giannetto says he’s noticed so far is that customers finally see how much they’ve been paying all along for processing fees. In the future, he notes there could possibly be a learning curve once landscapers begin being able to scan checks into the system or the first time their customer requests to pay via Apple Pay, etc., but Giannetto is confident that in the end, it will still prove to be a more simplified process.

According to Giannetto, making sure you offer your customers the best-looking lawn and landscaping services is an important aspect of the job, but it’s not the only aspect you should focus on, especially in today’s culture.

He notes that it’s also vital that you look at everything else that impacts your customers, such as how easy your company is to do business with, how easy it is for them to communicate with you, how easy it is for them to pay you and what their first impression of you is when your crew arrives at their home.

“How a company differentiates itself today in an increasingly competitive landscape is not just by doing a great job and providing a service; more and more, that’s just the cost of doing business,” says Giannetto. “If you don’t do that well, you will lose them. But all these secondary things are having a much bigger impact than they used to, and the company that understands that every aspect of that relationship has an impact on their ability to keep and get new customers will succeed.”

Giannetto believes that WorkWave Payments will help demonstrate to customers that these landscaping companies that use it are worth doing business with and are also easy to do business with.

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