How will you boost the success of your business is 2015? Maybe it is time to take a look at how payments can increase your sales and create a better customer experience?
We can tell you to enable things like “frictionless commerce”, but in simple terms, it is about removing any inconveniences when a customer is paying product or service. The truth is that people don’t like thinking about having to give up money, even if it will get them something in return, and that’s why the most successful businesses are adapting new ways to get paid. They make the payment experience seamless and in exchange, get happier customers and increases in revenue.
In 2015, there are a few things you can do to make the act of paying a better experience for your customers.
Go multichannel
We are in an era where your customer wants to pay when, where and how they want. The act of taking payments online, in the store or on a smartphone being called multi-channel. Some customers start their research in-store, price-check on their phone, and then buy the item online at home.
A Retail Systems Research report says that 79% of retailers believe it is important for consumers to be able to shop and pay across the channel of their choice in order to maximize customer loyalty1.
It is simple really, the more ways you have for your customers to pay, the more revenue streams you are opening up. With today’s payment options, you don’t need to piece together vendors to provide your customers with those choices. Multichannel pay platforms allow you to take payments in any way and have all your payment data accessible in one place.
Offer mobile payments
Okay so, you’ve probably heard about a mobile point of sale, or the ability to take payments on a smartphone. What you may not realize is that this technology is not just for food trucks or vendors at farmer’s markets. Even the heavyweights are doing it, Apple uses a mobile POS in their stores to get rid of line ups.
Fun fact: Apple sells more per square foot than any other retailer in North America. They have managed to deploy a mobile sales staff and make each one a roaming cashier with the power to check out customers on the spot.
The less time customers spend waiting to pay, the better their experience becomes. Mobile payments also offer a reliable method for accepting payments while on site, out for delivery, and at trade shows. It eliminates the frustrations associated with traditional invoicing while adding payment options beyond cash and cheques.
Streamline your online checkout
The new year will be a great time to revisit your website’s checkout experience. What kind of barriers exist between your customers and their purchases? Any redundant steps can lead your customers to leave and go elsewhere. Known shopping cart abandonment, it is the top problem plaguing the world of eCommerce. Research by User Interface Engineering shows that 75% of people who are forced to register before paying for something, never complete the purchase. In the same study, customer purchases increased by 45% after forced registration was removed2.
If you can, offering a guest login or a quick-buy option will cut down the time has to reconsider a purchase. You want your customer to remember that buying online was just as easy as being in your store.
Get NFC-enabled
If you haven’t had a chance to get familiar with NFC or Near Field Communication, take a look at our post on NFC. Positioned to play an important role in payments, the technology is far from new, but major credit cards like Visa and MasterCard offer options to pay with NFC technology. Even new entrants like Apple in the mobile payments market (Apple Pay) are choosing NFC as the primary choice for mobile payments.
Contactless payments have worked fiercely to shorten check-out lines while putting the focus back on the service, and not on your customer proving they are who they say they are.
As technology advances in payments, businesses of all sizes need to adapt new methods of accepting payments to provide the best possible customer experience. Use this year to consider new payment options to grow your business.