CrossCheck Blog

It’s that time of the year – no, not the most wonderful – but when you’re scrambling to wrap up year-end while being bombarded by every organization your company may have ever donated to. You’re not averse to being charitable, but you want to do it on your own terms. There’s no need to go Grinch – we’ve rounded up some suggestions for ways to give that give yourself and staff that old holiday spirit.

Ah, it's that time of year. No, not the sweet, charitable one - the elbows-out, pushing and shoving time of year where we have to finish our holiday shopping. Is the clock running out? Are you slammed at work and just can't make it to the mall? Never fear. Whether you've been naughty or nice, we have a list (and checked it twice) of 10 reasons why checks can save your holiday season.

Today, Target is in the cross hairs of the bulls eye, indeed. The massive retailer may use the target bulls eye symbol on all of its marketing materials, but it and its credit and debit card holders woke up to one of the largest security breaches the country has ever seen. According to a report just released today by the Federal Reserve, there were 31.1 million third-party fraudulent transactions in 2012, totaling $6.1 billion. Target’s breach will certainly add to the 2013 total and create a wasteland of wreckage to dig out from under. Can you afford this kind of “plastic disaster” in your business?

Whether you perform microchipping yourself or recommend it to your veterinary practice’s patients and their people, you understand the idea of implementing technology that helps streamline the devastating issue of a lost pet. While losing money and time to waiting on check processing payments isn’t the same as a missing animal family member, you can harness technology to reduce those pain points in the same way.

OK, you know it, you love it, say it with us: “If you build it, he will come.” In the building materials and building supply industry, you’re not talking about Shoeless Joe Jackson, you’re talking about customers. Many, many customers, who you hope will keep your company in business for a long time. You may not be building fields, but you’re indubitably building dreams. We talked to a few guests at the North American Building Materials Distribution Asssociation’s 2013 conference this year about how they build their big dreams.

Having your company’s name associated with the trending architectural topic of the day can certainly bring fame and fortune to your business. Who wouldn’t want the free publicity associated with being the building developer for the world’s first, the world’s biggest, the world’s … something-est? But in the competition to reach for the sky, don’t forget to look down. The view from the top may seem lofty, but once those clouds in your head clear, you’ll see you’ll have quite a long way to fall.

Automotive News reported yesterday that American car dealers are seeing a soaring rise in auto loan originations. Due in a large part to what the group calls “a general rise in household debt,” auto loan originations are “back to prerecession levels and the highest for any quarter since the third quarter of 2006.” Don’t worry, you didn’t miss a bull market or a soaring economy spike. Auto buyers are simply taking on more debt, including what they need to purchase new and used vehicles.

Auto dealers rejoiced over the October, 2013 industry sales reports that indicated a major uptick in new car sales. While this may not directly affect your own bottom line, the indirect line is an easy one to spot – more car buyers mean more potential customers for your auto repair shop. With more customers comes more revenue, which is a good thing. But with more payments comes the potential for problems, including bad checks, as well as a drain on your staff’s time to process those payments. With check guarantee for auto repair shops, you can “check” those problems off your list.

With Veterans Day in mind, we at CrossCheck started thinking about the idea of service, and what it means to us. Those of us not in the military have an entirely different image of what serving can mean, so we decided to talk to some of our merchants about service, and how they are working service into their daily business routines.

Upselling is convincing a customer to switch from rail vodka to Grey Goose, from a single item order to a value meal, from a ... you get the idea. More sales and profit is the name of the upsell game and auto repair shops are no exception. Rules? There are no rules. In fact, instead of expecting that someone coming in to get a flat fixed will spend $10 on the patch kit, imagine if he left a couple of hundred dollars in your register -- $100 for the new tire, $5 for the tire gauge, a tire rotation, and not to mention fuzzy dice! The idea is to present your customers with things they find useful, as well as make the entire process easy, helpful, and fun for them.