Digital payments whether on mobile or computer, done using card/net banking, UPI or any other payment mode are critical to both online and offline merchants. A bad payment experience, an outage or transaction decline has adverse impact on business. Large merchants in digitally advanced countries have long implemented their own payment solutions to meet the growing demands of their digital consumers.
Back home, IRCTC recently launched its own payment aggregator system called IRCTC iPay. In a statement from IRCTC said this exclusive digital payment gateway is aimed at offering improved convenience and ease of doing business to the passengers.
Let’s look at some pertinent benefits from exclusive payment infrastructure
Customized Payment Experience
Billing and payment experience have a tremendous impact on customer satisfaction scores. A highly-customized and personalized payment experience ensures higher customer satisfaction and engagement. Card on file, giving the option to set a payment mode as preferred payment mode and displaying the same during next payment, invoices pre-filled with billing data, in-app payment notifications are some of the ways in which merchants are customizing payment flows for consumers.
Effortless Backend Processing
Each business is unique and has a peculiar business workflows. A standard payment solution may not fit the requirements of every business. A custom payment infrastructure, designed as per the business needs, ensures automated payment processing as per the business requirements – resulting in tremendous time and cost saving for the business and a seamless experience for the consumer.
Frictionless and Easy Payments
The Starbucks App is an excellent example of this. Launched even before Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay, Starbucks app is one of the most popular payments apps. By the end of 2018, over 23.4 million users (in the U.S. alone) have used this app. It allows users to pay with their phones and earn credits. They can, of course, use their credit toward future purchases. Loyalty points, coupons, mobile ordering, and time-saving are some of the main reasons behind the massive popularity of this platform. This app was a critical part of the company’s digital transformation agenda to offer stellar customer experience.
Seamless and easy payment infrastructure helps in not only growing revenue but also drive brand stickiness and brand loyalty.
Security
Did you know? Home Depot, one of the largest retailers in the US, paid $19.5 million to U.S. customers who were affected by a data breach in 2014. A data breach in 2013 costed Target, another well-known US-based retailer, a whopping $150 million!
Security is a serious concern for merchants. Any data breach not only costs money but also the loss of reputation to the brand. Merchants are, therefore, extremely cautious with respect to their payment infrastructures. With exclusive payment setups merchants can enforce their own security standards and reduce the chances of data breaches.
Clearly, payment solutions that create a coherent user experience, engage with customers in a highly personalized manner, offer seamless and secure payments, scale as business volumes demand are winning the game. Solutions which go the extra mile and provide for easy reconciliation result in increased revenue, lower costs, and higher customer engagement for merchants.
