Payment (Pay prompt)

Overview

A payment extension takes a card payment over the phone. The caller hears what they are being charged, types their card number, expiry and security code on the keypad, and the card is charged. Then the call carries on to wherever you send it.

Use it for donations, pledges, tuition, or paying a bill by phone. In the sidebar it lives under Advanced → Pay Prompts. Everywhere a destination is picked, and on My Hotline, it is called Payment.

Before you can use it you need two things: a merchant to receive the money (see Payments & payouts), and a payment extension on your plan (see Billing).

How It Works

1. The caller reaches the payment extension.
2. If the amount is caller-entered, they are asked for it: "Please enter the amount you would like to pay in whole dollars, followed by the pound key."
3. Your description recording plays, if you set one.
4. If you asked for it, the amount is announced: "You will be charged 18.00 dollars."
5. Unless your merchant settles directly to its own Stripe account, the caller is told "Please note, this charge will appear on your card statement as CALLMAGIC."
6. The caller types their card details on the keypad.
7. The caller hears "Your payment was successful. Thank you." or "Sorry, your payment was not successful."
8. The call follows the successful or failed route.

Every attempt, good or bad, is written to the charges log.

Creating a payment extension

Basic Information

• Name (required) — For your reference, e.g. "Donation Hotline".
• Merchant (required) — The merchant that will receive these payments. On My Hotline this field is called Charge through. See Payments & payouts.
• Phone System Reference → Extension ID — Only shown when your account has phone-system references turned on.

Amount

• How is the amount decided?
  • Fixed amount (default) — you set the price.
  • Caller enters the amount — the caller types it on the keypad in whole units, finishing with #.
• Charge Amount (required, fixed amount only) — In dollars, minimum 0.01. On My Hotline: Amount to charge.
• Announce charge amount to caller (fixed amount only) — Off by default. Speaks the exact amount before the card prompt. On My Hotline: Tell the caller the amount before charging.
• Minimum amount and Maximum amount (required, caller-entered only) — The allowed range. A caller who enters something outside it hears "That amount is outside the allowed range. Please try again." and is asked again. On My Hotline: Smallest amount allowed and Largest amount allowed.
• Currency — USD, EUR or GBP. Default USD. The spoken announcement follows it: dollars, euros or pounds.

Audio & behavior

A collapsed section.

• Description audio (optional) — A recording played right before the card prompt. It is picked from the active recordings in your libraries, so record or upload it there first.
• Max attempts — How many times the caller may try their card. 1 to 5, default 1.
• Per-input timeout (seconds) — How long to wait for each piece of card input. 3 to 60, default 5. On My Hotline: Seconds to wait for input.
• Require CVV / security code — On by default. On My Hotline: Ask for the card security code.
• Require postal code — Off by default. On My Hotline: Ask for the billing postal code.

Routing

Set both in the After charge section.

The spoken "successful" or "not successful" message plays first, then the call continues to the route. Leave a route empty and the call ends after the message. Sending the success route to a "thank you" Play recording and then back to your main menu works well.

Where the charges show up

• The Charges tab on the payment extension's own edit page lists every charge that went through it: when, the caller's number, the amount, the status, any failure reason, and the payout mode.
• Reports → Logs → Merchant charges lists every charge in the account across all merchants and all payment extensions, with filters. See Statistics, Logs & call traces.
• Advanced → Merchants shows each merchant's charge count and held balance. See Payments & payouts.

What it costs

A payment extension is a $20 a month add-on, one per payment extension, bought under Advanced options on the Plans & Add-ons page. The base plans include no advanced options, so buy one for each payment prompt you need. See Billing.

This is separate from the card processing itself, which runs through your merchant.

Tips

• Test with a real card for a small amount before you publish the number, and refund it. A payment that fails silently is the worst kind.
• Say the amount. For a fixed charge, turn on the announcement, or record a description that states the price. Callers who do not know what they are paying hang up.
• Give the failure route somewhere useful to go — back to the menu, or to a Message box so they can leave their number and you can call back.
• Caller-entered amounts are whole units. Callers type 18, not 18.00.
• More attempts means fewer lost donations, but each attempt is a real card attempt. Two or three is usually right.