Customer Payment Experience is Key to Success

As technology continues to influence and drive commerce, merchants recognize that seamless payments and an exceptional customer experience are the ingredients that make clients come back and attract new prospects. And for any business, having happy customers is essential to success.

According to a Walker study, “customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator by 2020.” The study found that 86% of buyers would be willing to pay more for a better customer experience.

Tips for Improving Customer Payment Experiences:

1. Provide multiple payment options

The technology behind a payment transaction is constantly evolving and customers desire payment flexibility. Expanding payment processing capabilities across all sales channels and devices is a great way to adapt to the needs of customers and attract new prospects.

It is important to make sure that the payment experience is consistent across all platforms. According to Crowdspring, “90% of consumers expect their experience with a brand to be similar across all platforms and devices.”

Merchants should be prepared to offer customers a variety of different payment platforms to purchase goods or services online, by phone or in-store. Providing the consumer with a positive payment experience is key to building a positive customer base.

2. Ensure payment security

According to ACI Worldwide, 46% of Americans have been victims of credit card fraud in the past five years. Customers expect merchants to keep their sensitive payment information safe. As a merchant, there are many things you can do to help protect customers from fraud.

Using credit card tokenization on all transactions is key. Tokenization is an advanced data security method that protects sensitive credit card data at each stage of the transaction process. Tokenization replaces credit card information with an indecipherable code that keeps data safe from fraud.

Make sure to use a payment gateway that stores sensitive credit card information off-site on PCI-compliant servers. This eliminates security risks and liabilities for a merchant and ensures that customer information is protected.

Additionally, it’s important to utilize a payment gateway that submits line-item details to the point-of-sale when processing credit cards. This extra layer of information helps better identify a customer’s identity, significantly reducing liability if fraud occurs.

3. Integrate your payments

A payment integration can give businesses more ways to enhance the customer experience and ensure that payments are processed quickly and securely.

With a payment integration, merchants can process payments directly within existing ERP/accounting softwares, CRM systems, eCommerce shopping carts, and mobile solutions.

If a merchant sells products or services online, for example, an integration allows payment acceptance directly through an online shopping cart. This makes it easy for customers to complete their purchase, instead of forcing them to move to a third-party website that accepts payments on behalf of a business. Many times, the lack of payment integration will leave consumers to second-guess working with a merchant and that will not result in a completed transaction.

4. Brand everything

As a merchant, you want to make your brand is a household name. To do that, make sure the company logo and brand elements are present throughout the entire payment process. This helps create a sense of trust and security with a merchant’s brand.

Consumers form a first impression of a brand’s logo within 10 seconds, but “it takes 5-7 impressions for consumers to recognize the logo,” according to Action Card. The more a customer sees a logo or recognizes a brand, the more likely they will be to purchase from your company again in the future.

Maximizing the customer payment experience will help bring in new clients and retain existing customers. Ensuring that the payment process is focused on providing an excellent customer experience will help foster trust and build confidence in your business.

Learn How i3 Commerce Technology Can Help Prepare Your Business:

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