The payment news articles we curated for this week focus on the importance of having a payment strategy. When businesses are strategic about payments, they are in a good position to enhance the customer experience and encourage brand loyalty.
QR Codes Enhance Contactless QSR Experiences
We loved how QSR Web touched on the benefits of QR technology and shared contactless payment strategies that quick-service restaurants can implement in short order.
While design aficionados may still cringe at the sight of a QR code, restaurant patrons are starting to see that its presence signals a streamlined dining experience. Restaurants can leverage QR codes to share menu items, promote special deals, and collect payment without the need to type in URLs on a mobile browser.
Restaurants can even remove the barrier of entering credit card details at checkout by having their QR codes complete transactions from popular digital wallets that already have these details stored.
As contactless payments continue to become mainstream, we look forward to seeing more innovative use cases for QR codes in the QSR industry.
The Importance of Integrated Payments in E-Commerce
Finextra put a spotlight on e-Commerce’s explosive growth in the past year and how payment providers play an important role in supporting merchants who continue to experience heavy sales volumes into 2021.
Specifically, payment providers need to enhance security to combat fraudulent transactions, offer updated payment methods, and meet customer expectations around frictionless payments. Additionally, providing customer analytics to merchants is a must. Businesses can use this data to better understand customer spending and adjust their sales strategies accordingly.
At Global Payments Integrated, we understand the value these tools bring. Our commerce enablement solutions present merchants with key analytics to help make data-driven decisions, automate interactions along the customer journey, and provide opportunities for payment at each touchpoint.
B2B Payments Push To Be Paperless
B2B payments are finally getting the glow up they deserve. A CTech opinion piece discusses potential B2B payment trends, spurred by the pandemic forcing businesses to shift to electronic invoices and digital payments for the sake of business continuity.
Manual processes such as getting checks signed for deposit or mailing payments to suppliers are becoming a thing of the past. Legacy payment systems are very limited compared to what current cloud computing solutions can now offer, making B2B payments’ digital transformation inevitable.
Just as e-Commerce merchants are leaning on customer analytics to make savvy business decisions, those in B2B payments may soon be relying on artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze accounting data and workflow patterns, in turn making it easier to spot trends and find new ways to make payments work for them.
Learn more about digital B2B payments.
Payments and Loyalty Go Hand in Hand
TotalRetail referenced a recent payment survey that suggests a merchant’s payment strategy has the power to attract and retain customers.
According to the survey, 28% of shoppers will avoid a retailer if they don’t offer contactless payment options. However, the work isn’t done on the day the retailer makes these options available. Rather, it is advisable to continually promote these new payment options at checkout to encourage usage from those who are unfamiliar with them. A successful first transaction is critical in convincing initially wary consumers to return.
Retailers can take contactless payments a step further by linking these payments with their loyalty programs. When done correctly, merchants can continue to provide customers value through marketing segmentation based on past purchases.
The Reality of Real-Time Payments
Consumers appear to have a knowledge gap around real-time payments. According to PYMNTS research, “36.2% of consumers claim to have used real-time payments even though the methods they use either do not support real-time payments or are not made in real-time.”
To confirm, real-time payments are payments that can be made at any time of the day, including weekends and holidays, and the funds transferred are available to the recipient immediately.
Perhaps this gap persists because consumers are used to receiving instant confirmations for payments on their mobile device, or seeing transactions on credit card machines approved within seconds. They may not realize that it will still take time for the funds to reach the receiver.
For those looking to better understand payment processes, our guide on credit card payment processing is a good place to start.
Michelle Mondonedo
Brand Marketing Manager
