Businesses tend to put so much emphasis on how they market their products and services, build their brand and acquire new customers. But sometimes they forget a crucial component that is payment conversion.
No matter how successful your business is at attracting sales, friction with your online payment process will lead to shopping cart abandonment and increase customer churn. One of the best methods to overcome this hurdle by utilizing a payment system that enables a faster, more secure and seamless checkout experience.
When considering how to enhance the buyer’s journey, businesses should consider these following measures to determine which payment processor will provide the best online checkout experience for every customer.
Table of Contents
Offer More Types of Payment Methods
Consumers have access to more types of payment methods than ever before, and they expect business to accept their preferred method. Whether it’s a digital payment method like PayPal, a credit/debit card or a mobile payment service, offering diverse ways to pay gives your business a significant edge over your competitors.
Digital payment methods are one particular way to streamline online payments for your customers by eliminating the need to have a physical card number to checkout. Instead, these methods often allow a quick and easy payment experience that can be authorized with a few clicks and a password.
Provide an Integrated Payment Experience
Some customers may be weary of being redirected to an external payment gateway site. Not only will this raise red flags, and increase the chance of payment error, it takes your customer’s attention away from your company-branded experience.
Instead, your business should invest in an online payment gateway solution that integrates with your shopping cart, website, and mobile app without having to send customers to an external site. The right payment gateway partner will give your company the ability to instantly enable faster mobile and online payments, and help your business’ operations run smoother. Integrated payment solutions are one of the most efficient ways to improve the user experience and checkout process online.
Enable Faster Checkout with Less Form Fills
By the time a customer decides to get to the checkout process, you’ve almost secured their business. One of the easiest ways to lose that sale is by having too many forms to navigate or requiring too much personal information before finalizing a payment. You should only ask a customer for necessary information. Is that extra form question worth causing some visitors to abandon their purchase?
The same concept applies to requiring customers to have an account before checking out. Although it’s beneficial to your business to gather more customer information, some may be turned off by having to provide too much personal data only to make a purchase. To avoid turning customers away, you should always have a guest checkout option. Especially for first-timers, requiring an account is likely to lead to more churn.
Be Direct and Transparent about How to Pay
With so much focus on promoting a product or service, business sometimes can forget to provide a clear indication of the final purchase price. If your customers have to spend time researching what a particular product/service with your company will cost, they’re likely to lose interest or look somewhere else. Sorting through multiple pages, having too many clicks, or needing to read a lot of information before finding the necessary details is a fast track to creating a negative user experience.
Being direct with customers also matters during the checkout process. This starts by having easy-to-find buttons that allow visitors to add items to their shopping cart and easily navigate the buying process. This messaging matters from the start of the customer journey until when a payment is completed. Be sure that your customer receives a confirmation letting them know that the purchase is finalized. Being transparent is a simple way to build real trust with consumers and helps to create a smooth online checkout experience.
Invest in Better Security and Privacy Measures
Besides making sure your online store has an amazing user experience, is highly-functional and seamless to use, it’s also critical that your business’ online payments are equipped with enhanced security measures. If a customer feels an online site isn’t secure, they likely won’t continue with their purchase.
Necessary security features include having an SSL certificate for your website to provide a secure connection and ensure credit card data is encrypted. Complying with PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) is another must, that all businesses need to follow. Because PCI compliance relates to the security measures needed to process credit card data, it’s important for businesses to invest in the right security protocols.
Of course, these are just a few of the key ways to make online payments easier for your customers. The right payments processing partner will help you implement these and more. Start by finding a company that will enable you to serve your customers faster through a modern, integrated online payment gateway.
