Merchants from various industries have had to adjust quickly in response to a sudden change in consumer buying behavior. The truth is, the pandemic also triggered a rapid acceleration in the adoption and usage of digital payments. As a result, many businesses started to digitize so that they could maintain their revenue streams.
The ENTERTAINER business’s Head of Key Accounts and Strategic Sales, Vaibhav Goel, highlights how companies can enhance their brand loyalty through digital payments. Read on to find out more about his key insights on the subject.
Digital Payments
Digital payments are made via online channels without the exchange of physical money. Also, commonly referred to as electronic payments (e-payments) and can be carried out through:
- Mobiles
- Computers
- Tap and Pay
- Digital wallets
- Card Linked Offers
- Credit cards
- Debit cards
- Prepaid cards
- Point-of-sale (POS) terminals
- National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT)
- Unified Payments Interface (UPI)
Both online and in-person transactions are possible when making digital payments. Thus, it is very convenient as you can even make payments on the go!
Enhance Your Customer Loyalty
Brands are enhancing their payment procedures to guarantee a frictionless and seamless checkout journey. This is because online and in-store checkouts are such an important part of the overall customer experience.
The loyalty landscape today is fast evolving on many fronts and one of the most phenomenal changes includes adapting to digital payments for processing loyalty transactions. This not only extends a smooth experience to members but also offers additional benefits sponsored by financial service partners. Digital payments also build flexibility to add instant gratification during checkout and this can be tactically managed on short notice.
Depending on the size and popularity of the loyalty program, brands can partner on a short term or permanent basis and add credits to a single loyalty wallet. Digital payment options make it easy to integrate and thanks to the quick go-live turnaround, it adds more benefits for end users meaning they do not lose out on opportunities to earn rewards.
To help elaborate, here’s an example of a large multi-brand coalition loyalty or a mall loyalty program, where consumers are benefited via accelerated earning as they potentially shop across hundreds of allied merchants and brands that issue a single loyalty currency. The biggest challenge for such programs is the tedious earn and burn process as well as the huge investments (including time and money) in various partners’ POS integrations. However, with card linked technology, members can map up to five credit cards from any bank and seamlessly earn rewards points. This is applicable every time they use the mapped credit cards at allied outlets.
Final Thoughts
Digital payments can improve Customer Value Proposition (CVP) and the seamless experience can augment the overall engagement in loyalty programs.
Most marketers believe that loyalty yields consumer engagement. However, the reality is the opposite – high engagement leads to absolute loyalty! Hence, loyalty experts are on a continuous quest for low-cost triggers for engagement, preferably as much as possible, uniform to the base and digital payments are playing a crucial role in this.