Today’s consumers demand digital experiences that are fast, frictionless, and personal. When brands tailor their offerings to align with individual tastes and preferences, they don’t just sell a product – they forge a meaningful connection. It’s all about how the customer feels at every step of the shopping journey, and that positive feeling is what keeps them coming back.

Payments play a pivotal role in this experience. In an era defined by choice, 77 percent of consumers say they’d abandon a cart if their preferred payment method isn’t available. As the final touchpoint, the payment process is an extension of the brand and where impressions stick. 

To create an effective checkout experience, it’s essential to eliminate friction, offer secure and convenient payment options, leverage context-driven personalization, and maintain strong branding. Together, these elements build trust, enhance brand recall, and facilitate payment success. 

With the holiday season around the corner, here are four strategies to personalize the payment journey, meet rising customer expectations, and ultimately drive sales and brand loyalty.

Optimize Social and Live Commerce with Integrated Pay-by-Link Solutions

In 2023, social commerce generated an estimated $571 billion USD worldwide, set to exceed $1 trillion USD by 2028, thanks to Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. The growing demand for personalized shopping experiences fuels live commerce, allowing customers to engage in live streams where they can ask questions, seek advice, and receive tailored suggestions from hosts or influencers.

This personal connection increases engagement and influences purchase decisions, particularly in fashion, beauty, and electronics. Live commerce conversion rates are up to 10 times higher than traditional e-commerce, because influencers, as trusted figures, significantly impact consumer behavior. As of April 2024, there are over 5 billion active social media users, collectively spending 12 billion hours a day on these platforms. 

Tap into this trend by integrating pay-by-link features within social media and messaging apps, allowing your customers to make purchases directly from live videos using multiple payment methods. Luxury retailers can elevate this experience further by offering personalized online consultations, followed by secure, branded payment requests sent via SMS, email, web chat, or messaging apps.

Use Context-Driven Communication with Consistent End-to-End Branding

Provide ample context during the remote checkout process. Including relevant details can help mitigate fraud risk and create a more personalized experience. For example, if a customer has interacted with Sam in the car showroom, incorporate Sam’s name along with your brand name in the payment request. This personal touch builds confidence and trust.

Highlight key information by including details, such as payment initiation time and additional purchase information to show you’re not taking a one-size-fits-all approach. This context-driven strategy enables your customers to review and confirm all details before completing their payment, giving them the reassurance they need to proceed. If anything feels off, the checkout process should help identify discrepancies, allowing customers to decline the payment if necessary.

Keep it simple and eliminate friction points. For instance, opt for clear layouts and minimal form fields to reduce complexity and speed up payment completion. Provide intuitive navigation with prominent buttons and defined steps to guide your customers seamlessly through their journey. Identify and resolve obstacles that may deter purchases, like unnecessary pop-ups or complicated verification processes.

Implement strong, consistent branding throughout the payment journey. Use customized design elements and cohesive messaging to create a tailored experience that resonates with your customers and improves brand recall. Ensure every payment link is branded and originates from the merchant domain, instilling confidence in its legitimacy. Additionally, make sure all reminders and receipts are fully branded.

Harness Data Analytics and Automation 

Use customer data to highlight preferred payment and delivery options, creating a smoother, more personalized experience. Stay proactive about cart abandonment by analyzing behavior patterns and adjusting the checkout design to remove obstacles.

Automate follow-ups for failed transactions or abandoned carts, offering alternative payment options to complete the sale. Re-engage hesitant customers with timely incentives, like discounts or free shipping. With data and automation, you can create a fast, efficient checkout that improves satisfaction, drives conversions, and builds loyalty.

Leverage Payment Orchestration for Greater Choice and Convenience

With smart payment orchestration controls, you can offer a choice of payment options or automatically present the most suitable method – whether bank or card – based on transaction value, type, or location. For example, a jeweler might accept card payments for deposits while processing the final balance through open banking. This strategy allows customers to enjoy credit card protection while retailers dodge card fees on larger payments.

You can set automated chase paths for failed transactions or abandoned carts, and present alternative payment methods to complete the sale. Optimizing payment options improves your conversion rates, reduces costs for high-value transactions, and delivers a seamless payment journey. 

Personalizing the payment experience is key to increasing sales and customer retention. Retailers can make the most of live commerce with integrated pay-by-link options, using smart payment orchestration tools to offer choice and convenience and employ data analytics for actionable insights. By implementing context-aware communication and maintaining consistent branding throughout the payment journey, businesses can create seamless experiences that engage customers and encourage brand loyalty.

About Prommt

Founded in 2017, Prommt is a payments platform that is revolutionizing payments for enterprises and their clients, across the Hospitality, Automotive, Builders Merchants and Luxury Retail sectors. Its innovative solutions enable fast, frictionless card and open banking payments anytime, anywhere. Prommt is an enterprise-grade solution that is built for teams, supporting multiple locations, and provides powerful, reporting, and alerting capabilities. Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, Prommt is used by businesses today across the UK, Europe, USA, Canada, and Australia. Prommt is this year’s winner of “Best Open Banking Payments Project” at the Open Banking Expo Awards in London. The company won the “Innovative Banking Product Award” at the FS Awards 2024 and the 2023 “Best Open Banking Service Initiative” awarded by Global Payments Innovation Awards. For further information please visit https://www.prommt.com/

About the Author 

Serial paytech entrepreneur Donal McGuinness is CEO of Prommt. He studied Information Technology at DCU and Telecommunications Engineering at DIT and spent the early years of his career in the telecommunications industry. His experience in mobile payments dates to 1999 when he founded his first mobile payments company, ItsMobile and since then has been working areas covering payments, money remittances and digital identity.