Mixcrete

The challenge

Proudly family-run and with over 25 years’ experience in the concrete industry, Mixcrete has established itself as the “go-to” concrete supplier in the South East of England.

BSI ISO9001 approved, the company’s quality products and outstanding customer service have seen it expand to two depots: one in Dartford, Kent, and the other in Westerham, Surrey.

Over the years, they have grown to provide both domestic and commercial ready-mix concrete and concrete pump hire in London, Surrey, Kent, and West Sussex.

With a team of experts always at the ready to assist customers, Mixcrete have proven time and time again that their team’s vast knowledge has been critical in providing the perfect solution to a variety of building sites and, in many cases, always being on hand to assist and advise with complex pouring requirements.

However, with a growing business and two depots, Mixcrete was finding that taking all its payments for concrete over the phone was becoming problematic.

More often than not, contractors and builders need to order more concrete than they initially estimate, and usually at short notice. From a delivery perspective, Mixcrete always provides a fast turnaround and delivers the additional amount on site, but Mixcrete’s Director, Preeti Sanghera, was realising that there was a constant need to chase customers for payment in relation to surplus concrete.

Preeti said “Having to chase multiple customers for payment of surplus concrete was causing a serious cash flow domino effect and we were experiencing a large loss of revenue. It also resulted in time wastage with employees spending time on this rather than focussing on taking orders from new customers”.

There was also a serious problem with fraudulent payments as all payments were being taken over the phone and could not be instantly verified.
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The solution

Realising that Preeti and her team at Mixcrete needed a solution to the loss of revenue and fraudulent payments problem, they contacted the team at Blink Payment to see how they could assist.

With an in-depth demo of the platform, members of the Blink Payment team walked Preeti through the multitude of features and specifically explained payment delay capture, which would immediately solve the problem of lost revenue and wasted time as a result of chasing payments.

The delay capture feature would allow Mixcrete to ring fence a pre-set amount of money from a client’s card without actually charging them at that point. This would mean that Mixcrete would be in full control of the payment system and no longer have the problem of losing out on revenue.

All they would need to do is use the re-run feature to collect any outstanding funds as required.

The second problem of fraud would also be resolved with the delay capture function. Using payment links with a delay capture feature, this would allow Mixcrete’s team a time buffer to review orders and double check the details of customers placing an order carefully.

This would ultimately allow the employees at Mixcrete to spot any fraudulent payments and stop them from being accepted by the business.
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The outcome

Having come on board to help with Mixcrete’s problems, Blink Payment helped create a hassle free payment system which in turn has reduced cash flow problems and of course, rectified the issue of fraudulent transactions.

Preeti also described how she was able to focus on other aspects of the business knowing that these issues had been taken care of.

The delay capture feature has been proven to be extremely effective, with employees no longer having to chase customers for the payment of additional concrete. Not only was this happening with multiple customers at the same time, but in some cases, it was multiple times with the same customer, as each site and project had its own challenges.

Being able to ring-fence a pre-set amount has meant that re-running the details once captured to collect any outstanding balances has been a straightforward and seamless experience.

As fraudulent payments were a serious problem, and not being able to identify a fraudulent payment not only meant a lot of hassle in having to refund payments, but also a loss of time and revenue with employees spending time on this rather than assisting new and existing, genuine customers.

Fortunately, Mixcrete now has peace of mind knowing that the delay capture system solves this problem whereby they can check any suspicious payments and stop them before accepting them. This not only saves the company money but valuable time and resources.

Preeti mentions “Blink Payment were nothing short of exceptional all the way through. They told us how they could help, explained everything thoroughly and offered us a tailored solution to our problems. I have no doubt that we will not only continue to benefit from the current features but also the additional features of the platform as we move forward”.