The mobile payments industry today faces an adoption conundrum. Customers need businesses to offer mobile payments in order to use them, but many businesses aren’t offering them because they don’t think customers care to use mobile payments.
No one wants to be the early adopter of a technology, only to discover it’s fizzled as quick as the latest fad in the market. For businesses looking to scale and evolve, however, there’s a difference between being first and recognizing where the future of an industry is headed. There’s a reason mobile payments is a multi-billion dollar industry, and has every major player in the tech and financial world talking.
There’s no definitive answer on what’s next for the world of mobile payments, but if you analyze the many studies on this topic — and where FinTech investors are tossing their money — it’s all about mobile. Beyond that, it’s clear the future is all about how mobile will transform experiences, including how people and businesses think about payments.
There’s plenty of benefits that mobile payments bring to the table, but one that presents an obvious perk to any business is the ability to transform the customer experience in ways never possible before. In today’s competitive landscape, you can’t risk missing the opportunity to set your brand apart. Mobile payments is one way to achieve this goal.
Improving the Customer Experience
There are four key words in the mobile payments industry driving every trend you see today: Ubiquitous, seamless, security and speed. What’s important to keep in mind when crafting your customer retention and acquisition strategy is integrating solutions equipped with each of those features.
Mobile phones themselves have become so ubiquitous they’re second nature to everything else in customers’ lives. Most are never more than an arm’s reach away from their device, and they’ve quickly replaced the need for having a watch or a calculator on hand (among plenty of other features). That ubiquity has created the ability of a smartphone to be an extension of another thing most people don’t leave home without: A wallet.
Thanks to advancements in mobile payments technology, particularly the availability of in-app payments, making a mobile payment (or using a mobile wallet) is a seamless experience. Businesses must take advantage of technology available in the marketplace and realize how embracing mobile payments can translate to a customer loyalty boost.
Consumers today expect making a payment to be as quick as a swipe (or dip) of a card, or the click of a button. Particularly with some delays created with EMV transactions, the time is ripe to embrace mobile payments. When thinking about delivering a seamless customer experience, why not offer an alternative option that’s safe, speedy secure and seamless?
Mobile Payments Break Down Barriers
Powered by features like TouchID, biometrics and tokenization, mobile payments solutions have built-in security features unmatched by traditional payments methods. Knowing those extra security layers exist should give consumers, and business leaders, confidence that transactions will be processed quickly and properly.
Bottom line? Mobile payments have the ability to break down barriers between businesses and customers in a way that hasn’t been possible before. Unlike the uncertainty of traditional payment methods, there tends to be less friction in the mobile payment checkout process. Not only does it eliminate the lengthy forms at checkout, and reduce the chance of errors, it gives customers peace of mind their credit card information isn’t being left in the wrong hands.
With mobile payments, unlike a traditional payment system, consumers have the choice to decide how they want their payment to be processed. Instead of only having the traditional options of card, cash or check, offering mobile payments puts the customer in control with selecting an option they’ve already opted to engage with. Meeting the customer how they want to pay, and thorough their device of choice, can be a game-changer for boosting loyalty.
When opportunity knocks for a business, you don’t want to overlook how it could influence your business’ ability to scale and acquire new customers. Mobile payments is that opportunity worth exploring.
