Why Chief Market Officers should prioritise their payment strategy Part I

Part I – Repositioning the role of payments in your sales cycle

Traditionally relegated to the Chief Finance Officer’s remit, payment facilities were seen as a necessary means to an end that were costly and peripheral to the overall customer experience that companies carefully crafted. The conversation has changed over the last decade, as consumer expectations for digital, seamless and personalised payment experiences have driven companies to rethink their relationship with their payments strategy, reframing it as an untapped opportunity to bolster customer experience and create even more stickiness with their customers.

Increasingly Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) and Marketing Managers are reconsidering how their payment strategy fits into their overall customer experience framework.  In a 2020 survey by Ernst and Young, over 50% of CMOs surveyed stated they want to invest more in omnichannel customer experiences such as, frictionless payments.

Payments are a touchpoint, not a transaction

Payments should be viewed as a touchpoint, not an isolated transaction that has no impact on your overall customer buying cycle. It’s part of the sale, not the result of a one. Most importantly, it’s the last touchpoint of your customer’s buying journey, and the one that may stay freshest in their minds when they consider buying from you again.

The payment is the moment when customers buy into your company’s value proposition – they invest in their belief that your product or service meets their needs. Once a customer has gotten to this point, they want what you’ve promised. And a payment experience that’s anything less than easy and frictionless could cause frustration, or even more problematic, offer an opportunity for the customer to rethink their purchase altogether.

This phenomenon is called the “pain of paying” – the more complex a payment experience is, the more likely a customer is to interrogate their choice to buy, and less likely they are to follow through with the purchase.

Choosing the right payment technology could reduce the “pain of paying”, improving the experience for the customer and increasing sales.

Brand identity as a function of payments

In some cases, payment acceptance models become core to brand identity. If your brand’s mission is to make it as easy as possible for your customer to get your good or service, then the payment experience is a critical piece of the puzzle.

Take Uber as an example – their customer value proposition rests on how easy it is to book a ride and pay for it, seamlessly and effortlessly. As one of the first champions of “invisible payments”, they’ve set the standard for leveraging payment strategy to enhance customer experience. It’s all but impossible to think of Uber without associating the brand with how easy it is to pay for a ride.

Let your customers pay how they want

Whether it’s instore or online, via a traditional checkout counter or in an app, your customers confront the payment moment with preconceived likes and dislikes. Debit vs credit, mobile wallet vs physical card, even cash. Some don’t trust online or in-app purchases due to security concerns, while others relish the convenience of a single-click purchase with a digital wallet.

While it’s easy to assume every customer can simply pay with a backup credit or debit card – even if they prefer to use another method – you may be surprised to find that you could be losing customers over it. Not only are online shoppers more likely to abandon their carts, a 2020 study reported that 56% of consumers surveyed may never return to your webstore if you don’t offer their preferred payment method.

Understanding how your customers want to pay may help in meeting their expectations without overcooking your budget and overwhelming your customers by offering too many options.

Debit Cards are the card of choice for Australians, accounting for 75% of all card transactions in 2020/2021.

83% of Australians surveyed by Marqeta in 2022 said they had used a mobile wallet in the last year.

Almost two-thirds of Australian digital wallet users surveyed by Savvy in 2022 reported it as  their preferred payment method.

Cash and Cheque use has declined sharply, driven largely by the pandemic. The Australian Banking Association reported that cash withdrawals fell by 10% while cheque use fell by 40% in 2020.

Read the rest of our series “Why Chief Market Officers should prioritise their payment strategy” below:

Part II - Redesign your instore experience by taking payments to the customer

Part III – Getting the most out of your eCommerce platforms

Part IV – Omnichannel and the rise of live social selling

ANZ Worldline Payment Solutions provides payment technologies that can benefit Australian businesses.

To find out more about how we can help bring your customer payment experience to life, get in touch today. 

ANZ Worldline Payment Solutions means Worldline Australia Pty Ltd ACN 645 073 034 (“Worldline”), a provider of merchant solutions. Worldline is not an authorised deposit taking institution (ADI) and entry into any agreement with Worldline is neither a deposit nor liability of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited ACN 005 357 522 (“ANZ”) or any of its related bodies corporate (together “ANZ Group”). Neither ANZ nor any other member of the ANZ Group stands behind or guarantees Worldline.