The payment experience is integral to a consumer’s overall shopping experience. To prove this point, 88% of UK shoppers say they will abandon a purchase if they experience payment friction or something that hinders a successful payment. This is because consumers want instantaneous transactions that don’t give them any trouble.
Given this, retailers must ensure that they offer streamlined payments to keep consumers and increase their engagement. After all, consumers highly appreciate seamless payments, so they’ll keep returning to businesses that provide this.
Here are a few ways to streamline the payment experience in your own business, in-store and online.
Simplify online payments
Customers want easy online payments. They don’t want tedious processes that require lots of information. Otherwise, they’ll stop shopping.
To prevent this, make sure that your online portals allow payments without having to log in or provide personal details. This enables consumers to buy items seamlessly, increasing the chances of them completing their purchase. Take Marks and Spencer’s official website: it simplifies the payment process by allowing customers to use the guest checkout, which doesn’t require them to log in to complete a transaction. Likewise, you can consider implementing this method on your online platforms.
Offer several payment options
Consumers have different preferences regarding payment methods. Cash, card, and mobile payments via digital wallets are a few. Catering to these inclinations improves consumer engagement since they’ll see your effort in meeting their expectations.
Surely, you’ll already have a till for cash payments, and card machines for debit and credit cards. However, you’ll need a mobile card reader to accept payments from digital wallets. This device connects to the internet to process mobile payments from merchants, including Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Google Pay. It also accepts card payments, including Visa, Mastercard, and Discover. With this one machine, you can start accepting multiple payment types to satisfy consumers. In this way, you can increase their appreciation for your brand. Tesco is one retailer that currently accepts all these payments in their stores.
Practice transparency when billing customers
Consumers want quick checkouts. They want a straightforward process where they’ll hand over their payment and get their purchased items immediately. Something that can hinder this process is hidden charges—like taxes or service charges—that customers aren’t aware of. This requires them to make another payment to cover these charges, leading to a longer checkout time.
It’s thus vital to inform customers of additional charges or taxes before payment. Your computer systems must also do the necessary calculations, such as taxes and discounts, so that consumers immediately receive the total price they need to pay. This increases consumer engagement because they’ll appreciate your transparency and honesty.
Provide self-checkout counters
Aside from quick and efficient checkouts, consumers are beginning to prefer checking out on their own. Self-service checkouts allow consumers to skip long queues in exchange for scanning, paying, and packing their own items. They can pay for their purchases using either a card or cash. This also improves store efficiency for retailers, as it can cover employee shortages.
You’ll need self-service units for this and security cameras to monitor consumers. It’s also best to have employees on stand-by if customers don’t know how to operate the self-service checkout. Overall, self-checkouts save time by enabling customers to pay swiftly and avoid long waiting times. Major retailer Primark already has self-checkouts in select locations, and plans to continue adding more to reduce queueing time.
The payment experience is an essential part of the whole consumer experience. Streamline your payment processes with our tips to increase customer engagement and satisfaction. If you liked this article, read this similar article from us on apps and customer engagement.
