Payment Solutions for Seamless Customer Experience
For payment solutions to crown seamless customer experience they need to meet consumer expectations for simple, secure check-out options. Service providers with SRC (Secure Remote Commerce) capability and contactless payment have opened the way for customers to ‘click & pay’ using mobile apps and interactive mobile sites.
While customer service tends to be reactive, only coming in to play when problems emerge, there’s very little one can do in advance. Customer experience encompasses a holistic approach that involves everyone in the company or organization. What the customer perceives as a rewarding shopping experience might end with using a payment solution, but customer experience depends on the interaction, attention, and consideration received from entering the store right till departure.
The goal is to meet or better still, exceed customer expectations to the end of increasing satisfaction and loyalty. That is the essence of CXM (customer experience management). “The average consumer now expects a slick and seamless payments transaction on everyday low-value items,” says Simon Kent, global head of financial services at A.T. Kearney.
According to global research and advisory firm, Gartner, more than 50% of organizations will redirect their investments towards customer experience innovations in the future. With respect to payment solutions, we can be sure our competitors will be rising to customer demands. To stay ahead of the pack, there are three fundamental areas for consideration in the CX/CXM arena as revealed at Oracle’s 2019 Customer Experience event:
- Connected Data – collect as much as possible to get to know the customer
- Connected Intelligence – applications to convert customer data into actionable insights
- Connected Experience – delivery through connected channels to create great CX
Redefining Payment Solutions in the B2Me Economy
Where B2B refers to business to business and B2C means business to consumer, the CX/CXM paradigm has evolved into B2Me, which brings the human factor back into the cold digital world we are creating. Personal technology essentially drove the bus to get marketers to jack up and catch up with customers who are digitally savvy, mobile attached and more in touch and control of the sales cycle than ever before.
B2Me is about respecting the differences in humans and tailoring the customer experience seamlessly to honour that. Payment solutions, being the final touchpoint in the CX/CXM/B2Me journey leaves the deepest and most lasting impression. Paying attention to this aspect ahead of all else does facilitate more forgiveness for shortfall earlier on in the sales journey
Benefits of CX/CXM/B2Me Consideration in Payment Solutions
Marketing is no longer about closing the deal or landing a sale, it’s about developing relationships with each unique customer. That means finding common ground within seconds – hopefully at the first few touchpoints of the sale journey. Here are a few requirements for a B2Me approach, which must conclude with seamless payment solutions.
- Adaptability – to the customer’s situation at the moment of engagement, responding to attitudes, behaviours, and needs.
- Uniqueness – in individualized approaches. Drop the past demographic grouping idea. Customers want to be treated as individuals.
- Intelligence – is required to stay ahead of the pack. It’s about selling better tomorrow because of what we learned today.
The Way of The Future for Payment Solutions
Wearables like smartwatches and wrist bands are also increasingly defining customer experiences at the checkout, and voice payments are on the rise too. “There’s a real move to make payments more instant,” says Mr Kent quoted earlier.
Social media is likely to morph from a marketing channel to a sales channel. “For example,” says Myles Dawson, UK MD of Adyen, a global payments company, “if I see a post of something that I like on Instagram, I should be able to click a buy button and checkout in one click without leaving Instagram. Having the payment infrastructure in place is a crucial part of making that possible.”
Dawson also alerts us to the fact that expectations rise when it comes to international payments and experiences. “Tourism is increasingly important, especially as the number of global travellers grows. With this comes the expectation that the payment methods used at home should be supported abroad,” he says.
Soon, payment solutions will optimise to the max and provide customers with the freedom to pay anywhere, with anything at any time.
Finally, it is readily apparent that to optimise marketing relevance, hyper-personalization is the name of the game. Marketers need to obtain and use actionable intelligence to capture their market share and maximise customer lifetime value.
Payment solutions crown all those critical essentials and Huge is here to get you there; exceptional and reliable connectivity coupled with great customer service is all you need. Call Huge Connect now for the solution that’s right for you.
