How To Retain Your Customers With An Online Payment Solution

From social media campaigns to customer support and branding, there’s no end to promoting your business in the market. When it comes to customer retention, it simply means creating happy and satisfied customers. 

While expanding your customer base is excellent, customer retention may even be better. Customer retention acts as a strong indicator of the success of your business. Accepting online payments is just another way to enhance customer experience and loyalty. 

To do so, you must choose the right payment service provider who understands both you and your customers.

NTT DATA Payment Services is a secure payment platform that ensures your transactions’ safety and security. We offer real-time insights and help you track, monitor and manage your transactions.

Keep reading the blog to know more about how you can improve customer retention through online payment solutions.

Why should you focus on customer retention?

Customer retention is engaging with existing customers and persuading them to stay in business with you. It’s important to retain your customers as it is comparatively less expensive and more effective to do business with customers who have already purchased from you at least once. 

Did you know that customer retention is 5 times cheaper than customer acquisition?

As a business owner, you can build long-lasting customer relationships by always putting the customer first. Personalizing your services, having an effective communication channel, rewarding loyal customers and offering quality products and services at competitive prices are some of the many ways in which you can retain customers.

So, why exactly should you focus on customer retention? Here are a few reasons:

• Reduced marketing costs: Your customers are already familiar with your products and services and naturally come back to them. You don’t have to create new marketing campaigns to promote and advertise your business to gain new clients. This automatically translates to reduced money and time from your side. 

• Gain valuable customer feedback: Since loyal customers of your business make frequent purchases, they are aware of areas you could improve. They are also more likely to give you honest and valuable feedback. 

• Word-of-mouth advertising: Repeat customers are more likely to tell their friends, family, and coworkers about your products and services. With no additional costs, your customers will promote your brand, creating a good name for your business in the eyes of potential customers.

The importance of accepting online payments in businesses

Over the years, businesses have shifted to e-payment systems for several reasons. With the advancement of technology, it’s no surprise that online payment solutions are more preferred by both businesses and customers worldwide. 

Online payment systems include using digital financial instruments like e-tokens, debit/credit cards, bank transfers and checks. A business might decide to incorporate online payments into its operations for a number of reasons. Though traditional payments are considered to have a personal touch, online payments offer other benefits that are more beneficial to the growth and development of a business.

Here are a few benefits of accepting online payments in businesses

• Reduced transaction costs: Accepting payments in cash is comparatively more expensive and time-consuming than online payments. The bills and checks also consume a lot of paper and cause unavoidable expenses for both businesses and suppliers. In contrast, digital payments are quicker and less expensive.

• Security: E-payment systems provide encrypted services that protect customers’ private information during fund transmission. Though hackers and security breaches are common, most e-payment providers use the help of data experts to ensure the safety of their customers’ data and funds.

• Saving time and resources: By accepting online payments, your business saves both its employees’ and customers’ time. A huge chunk of the repetitive and labour-intensive tasks that burden the accounts departments are automated with a smart e-payment solution, giving them time to focus on more value-driven operations.

How to retain your customers with an online payment solution

Now that you know the importance of both customer retention and online payments for a business, the only thing remaining is learning how to retain customers with the help of online payment solutions. 

Here’s how:

1. Provide multiple payment options

The easier you make the payment process, the better the chances of making a sale. Your customers will find it more convenient to make the purchasing decision if they are provided with several options to choose from. Even if you don’t offer every payment method, make sure you cover all the common and popular ones.

Additionally, if your company relies on subscriptions, you can increase conversion by making it simple for customers to switch to recurring payments.

2. User-friendly interface

The solution to an efficient online payment system is to keep the process as simple as possible. Most website visitors don’t feel comfortable providing information beyond what is necessary to make the payment. A tried-and-tested method for lowering your cart abandonment rate is to limit the information you request on the payment page. 

3. Automate the payment process

Your entire checkout and payment process can be made simple and direct using AI-based smart systems. This enhances customer experience, which automatically improves loyalty and retention. By using automated payment systems, you can also identify patterns of behaviour, from browsing to payment history.

Along with this, make sure your payment system offers automatic retry options, and updates account data regularly. As a business owner, it’s a rule of thumb never to let involuntary churn (payment failure) ruin a sale. 

4. Minimize and fix payment failures

Sometimes, even when customers decide to stay and purchase from your business, they might be turned down due to repeated payment failures. This might cause the customer to abandon the purchase. Use a billing system that minimizes card declines and failed transactions. Use a tool that can recognise and fix failed payments without much input from the customer’s side.

By automating your payment system, you can simplify the overall process, from sending out invoices to payment retries.

5. Enhance system performance and efficiency

The primary concern when it comes to accepting online payments is the redirects from the billing portal that your customers have to encounter. To ensure a smooth and hassle-free payment process, you must reduce the number of redirects during payments. 

Since most customers are now technologically aware, you can also provide self-service portals that will reduce waiting time and other inconveniences faced by them. 

Your payment system should rapidly deliver key information to both your customers and the customer support team. As a result of better system efficiency, your business can witness higher customer satisfaction ratings and fewer customer churn.

6. Personalize customer interactions

Maintaining a personalized connection with your customers goes a long way. Every step of the buyer journey requires some sort of personalization to make the customer feel special and important to the business. 

Throughout the buyer journey, use data-driven insights to understand your customers and their behaviour. This will enable you to target them with the appropriate content and communication methods and personalise your customer interactions even at the time of payment. 

Customers often return to businesses that make their purchases easier and more convenient by offering discounts, loyalty programs, and personalized deals.

Conclusion

Payment is the last step in a buyer’s journey that decides whether or not they make the purchase, and as a business owner, you have to make sure you don’t mess up the process. 

The right payment service provider will help you formulate the right solution and provide you with cutting-edge tech tools to give you the upper hand. From integration to personalization, choose a service provider who will make the payment process easy and smooth for you and your customers.

NTT DATA Payment Services provides you with a complete payment solution to advance your business. With our wide range of payment services, we guarantee a high success rate when accepting online payments from your customers. Customer retention is the key to success for any business, and we will help you achieve it through our global payment solutions.