My Love-Hate Relationship With PayPal
When I first started freelancing I did what any self respecting internet writer does: I opened a Paypal account. Talk about torture. The process was slow, overly convoluted, and when I had to call them on the phone, I waited two hours before I talked to a human being. That human being couldn’t help me, and I had to wait another half hour before I talked to someone who could.
Recently my husband had to call PayPal. The phone service hasn’t changed. You would think that such a widely used service could afford adequate phone support.
Why do I use them anyway?
For one thing, they are the only game in town. If you want to accept payments without a merchant account, Paypal is the only real choice. And someday, when I start accepting payments through my website, they will be the company I use because everybody recognizes them. They have trust.
And once you get past the set up process using the system is relatively easy. The phone service still sucks, but everything else works just fine. One of these days someone is going to come along with all of the benefits of PayPal – but have stellar phone service. When that happens, I’m abandoning the PayPal ship. They are definitely the Good for Now bank.
Is your customer service on the par of PayPal’s? Then you better hope you are the only game in town. You can offer a great product, but if your customer service skills are lacking, your clients will go elsewhere.