Times have changed, consumer behaviour and expectations around online retail has changed. Consumers now expect immediate, real-time purchases to take place and more and more new technology is appearing each day to enable this to happen.
So what do consumers want? They want convenience. It’s all around us and people are willing to pay for it. But how do we create convenience? In this article, I explore why User Centred Design is key in integrating payment solutions to create services and experiences that are seamless and convenient.
A user-centric approach to online retail
Firstly, who has been taking a user-centric approach and doing it right? Amazon!
Amazon exploded into the online retail space by applying a user-centric approach, offering a large selection of products, with efficient fulfilment and logistics. But the key part is that they were user and data driven, making evidence-based decisions and combining innovative technology and continuous improvement to their ways of working.
Amazon didn’t just focus on the customer experience, or what we call the ‘front-stage’, they also focused on the ‘back-stage’, exploring their processes and people.
So let’s bring the concept of ‘front-stage’ and ‘back-stage’ to life from a consumer point of view.
Consumers now expect to have convenience and personalisation (front-stage) in their digital shopping experiences. Businesses need to ensure that security and a seamless experience, such as using a single ID across various platforms or devices (back-stage), wraps around this theme of convenience to enable safe, reliable services. This keeps them ahead of the competition and meets their customer needs.
The digital payments landscape
To understand the complexities that businesses need to navigate in the digital payments arena, we need to understand the landscape.
There are a diverse range of online digital payment solutions that retailers use such as: debit/credit cards; digital wallets; bank transfers; cryptocurrency; prepaid cards; pay-by-phone services; in-app payments; QR code payments; subscription billing; digital cards; contactless payments; the list goes on. This diversity is great for consumers, but it causes problems for businesses.
It means that nowadays, there’s an option for almost everyone to pay for their goods and services how they want to. But from a business point of view, this variety becomes complex and difficult to maintain, as each method can have its own security requirements, unique interfaces and user expectations.
Many payment methods have strict rules and regulations, such as PCI DSS compliance and PSD2 authentication for card payments, that are becoming increasingly complex. Most payments within a digital journey are now carried out by third party suppliers, so you must hand the customer over and bring them back seamlessly once the payment has completed. This can present a real challenge and will feel disjointed (and at worst, untrustworthy) if your UCD teams don’t work through it properly.
We often see retailers sticking to three or four payment methods because of the complexities involved in serving, processing and reconciling these payments.
What to consider when integrating multiple payment solutions
Integrating digital payment solutions into a consumer facing site, often comes across as a technical task, but it’s equally a user-centric challenge that needs to consider the following:
User experience consistency to ensure that the different payment methods (which each have their own unique interfaces and journeys) are integrated into the main user journey and avoid disjointed experiences. Creating consistency is key to maintaining user-trust and reducing friction along the checkout process.
Security & compliance varies depending on the payment solution as security protocols and compliance requirements differ. Ensuring that all methods meet required standards without overwhelming users is a fine balance.
User choice and flexibility creates freedom to use a preferred payment method. Presenting these choices in a clear and user-friendly manner is key to ensuring that your customers come back, time and time again and that you can attract additional customers.
Efficient checkout process is key to avoiding cart-abandonment. Having a simple and clutter-free checkout that has been designed and built around user centred design principles is key to creating a streamlined payment process.
When something goes wrong, what happens? Are your customers able to understand what to do if a payment fails? Thinking through all the eventualities and being prepared for them, allows customers to navigate their way out of what could have been a tricky situation. This could lead to frustration, cart-abandonment and the loss of a potential customer.
Have confidence it was right, but how will you know? Implementing measurements of success before a release that relate to the customer and business goals, is crucial when launching a new payment solution on a consumer website. They provide a clear and objective assessment of the solutions effectiveness, user’s satisfaction along their journey and the efficiency of the implemented solution.
Personalisation in any process, journey or experience is crucial in enhancing user engagement and satisfaction. Payment is no exception, but it can be tricky if your payment solution is with a third party. UCD principles will help provide consistency around any constraints you have.
Back-stage processes and teams who ensure that the service is running and is performing to the required state, operation teams ensuring that validation is taking place and teams that may be reconciling payments (etc) need to have information, access and systems to meet their own needs.
What about recurring payments?
Convenience isn’t just a one-time transaction. Many goods and services are now offered on a subscription basis. This isn’t new to mobile phone providers or car finance companies, but it might be innovation to those selling coffee or software.
Consumers demand just as much convenience and personalisation with recurring payments, as they do with single transactions. They are as much a part of their journey as the initial transaction, and in some cases, might be your only opportunity to interact with them for months, or even years.
And again, there are strict rules and regulations. The customer might buy your service with a debit card, but pay for their subscription via Direct Debit. You need to ensure that the experience is consistent, the customer’s needs are met across all journeys, and they can get help when they need it.
What's the role of UCD in all this?
UCD is one cog in a wider digital / technical challenge, however it is (if I do say so myself) the guiding light that navigates consumers through a journey to reach their goal, by:
Understanding the users of a service and their needs
Ensuring consistency is built into journeys, steps and experiences
Simplifying user choices around making a payment
Ensuring accessibility & inclusivity are baked into all aspects of payment choices and journeys
Testing and iterating upon existing journeys to keep up to date with customer needs, available tech and design.
Connect the dots within the business and across the service to ensure that people, processes and products work together seamlessly to deliver, maintain and improve on the service(s)
Some Case Studies (that I totally stole from the web, not even sorry)
Amazon: Amazon's checkout process is a prime (great pun...) example. It seamlessly integrates multiple payment methods, while maintaining a consistent and user-friendly interface. Users can easily switch between cards, digital wallets, and Amazon-specific payment options.
eBay: eBay's UCD-driven approach offers various payment methods for buyers and sellers. The platform ensures that payment options are presented clearly, reducing friction in the buying and selling processes.
So what does this all mean?
Integrating multiple digital payment solutions into consumer sites, needs to be considered from the ‘front-stage’ (what consumers see and interact with) as well as the ‘back-stage’ (the technical back-end functionality and processes) and including UCD teams in this is key to creating seamless journeys that surprise and delight customers.
When customer needs are fully understood, then the business needs can be strategically aligned and work together, to ensure that a seamless and secure experience is designed, built and iterated upon.
Being innovative and user-centric ensures that businesses position themselves as leaders in the dynamic world of digital payments.
I would love to hear your thoughts on the above, do you agree, or do you have alternative experiences ? Have you integrated payment solutions into online channels? What was the most important part to ‘get it right’ for you? What caused you more work than you initially thought?
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