Searching For A Customer Experience in the Payments Industry

Easy. Frictionless. Responsive. Secure. Flexible. There’s no shortage of words to describe a winning customer experience, and they all add up to success for companies in its pursuit. In their report The Business Impact of Customer Experience, Forrester Research defines customer experience as how customers perceive their interactions with your company.

Organizations in the payments industry are finding ways to take customer experience with their brands to the next level. And for most companies, that means delivering interactions that are at once integrated (yet seamless), personalized (but not intrusive), and engaging (and fast). They’re rising to the challenge to remain competitive—because today’s customers have a long list of expectations. They have access to more payment options than ever before and hold much of the bargaining power when it comes to where—and how—they’ll spend their money.

In Search of Customer Loyalty

Businesses are working hard to provide customer experiences that result in repeat purchases, positive recommendations, and an overall reluctance to switch to another brand. The Forrester study reveals the revenue impact of customer loyalty among credit card providers is $27 million in word-of-mouth, $290 million in churn reduction, and $548 million in additional purchases.

What, exactly, does a successful customer experience look like? Naturally, that depends on the company—and the customer—in question. It comes down to a marriage between a company’s capabilities and their customer preferences. Take, for example, in-store mobile alerts offering tailored discounts that the shopper can take advantage of, right then and there, with the swipe of their mobile device. This experience might be just the ticket for some, a surefire loyalty payoff.

Different Ways To Achieve Success

To be sure, there’s a wide range of directions a company can travel to meet their customers’ expectations. Investment dollars can be placed in countless technologies. The white paper Payments Strategy–Renew the Old, Ring in the New from Infosys and MobilePaymentsToday.com reveals these top customer experience-related payment tech trends:

• Tokenization
• Biometrics
• Merchant-driven loyalty schemes
• Standardized platforms and utilities
• Virtual cards
• Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
• Blockchain Technology
• Artificial Intelligence

A look at how companies are leveraging technology to inform strategy and further their business is as equally diverse. Here’s how the Infosys survey participants say they are currently using digital to influence customer experience:

• Increase faster transaction capability – 40%
• Create omnichannel capabilities for customers – 39%
• Better understand customer dynamics – 38%
• Increase customer self-service utilization – 37%
• Improve upsell/cross-sell opportunities – 36%
• Increase security – 35%

Payments industry professionals have to think strategically about the road ahead. Flashy technology on its own won’t make a solution take off. What survives in the consumer payments space are the capabilities that most closely align with the consumer’s need. Consumers expect to make payments that are convenient and easy, and that solve real problems. Achieving the right balance takes some trial and error—and plenty of marketplace intelligence—but a commitment to solving real problems is what needs to drive investment in new payment technologies.

For insights into the customer experience from the B2B perspective, read B2B Procurement Goes Digital and Balancing Online and Offline Procurement Channels in B2B Commerce.