The days of needing to run back home to grab your wallet are slowly dwindling. More and more businesses around the world are using mobile payments to promote convenience, ease and a better customer experience.
Mobile wallets were first popularized in 2014 when Apple began offering Apple Pay on its smartphones. The mobile payments trend shows all the signs to remain strong in 2018. According to Statista, mobile payments will drive 930 billion US dollars in revenue this year, compared to 780 billion dollars last year.
Brick-and-mortar businesses simply cannot compete with the sheer convenience of online purchases, and they are making efforts to reduce any friction of in-store purchases. They are beginning to implement mobile payments so that they can provide their customers with the convenience of contactless payments, and target their best customers with more personalized rewards and discounts.
In this post, we’ve outlined five core reasons for why brick-and-mortar businesses benefit from using mobile payments.
1. Mobile payments provide a better customer experience
Waiting in long lines and fumbling between credit cards slow down the checkout process. Using mobile payments is more convenient for consumers because they are able to pay with just one click.
Not only are wait times dramatically reduced with mobile payments, customers can also carry information regarding multiple credit cards on their phones. All of their payment data is stored in one place and the checkout process is seamless as well as personalized.
By 2016, 47% of Americans reported using their mobile phones for payment processing and that number continues to grow. The quicker the checkout process is, the happier the customer, which influences their overall experience with your business. In today’s marketplace, convenience is key – consumers are looking for the easiest ways to interact with their favorite stores
2. Mobile payments are safer and more secure
Mobile payments are more secure than traditional credit card payments in a couple of ways. When customers enter their credit card details in a mobile app, their credit card number is encrypted and becomes a token number, as opposed to their actual credit card number. This makes it very difficult for a hacker to steal their payment information and commit fraud.
Mobile apps also require all users to use a password or their fingerprint to access their payment information, which adds another layer of security. In the worst case scenario, if someone’s mobile phone is stolen, they can easily freeze their payment information and prevent anyone from accessing their credit card details.
Banks are helping customers lock down their credit cards against fraud. From an app that will freeze your credit card account instantly, to free fraud alerts and social security number alerts, consumer protections on credit cards are hitting new heights.
The Thanx mobile app doesn’t store any credit information and all of the data sent to or from a consumer’s phone is encrypted. This keeps everything extra secure for all mobile users.
3. Mobile payments and loyalty go hand in hand
Mobile payments can be directly integrated with your loyalty program to make sure that the process is extra convenient and tailored for all of your customers. As customers move closer to mobile payments, traditional plastic card loyalty programs will be left behind.
Merchants can use technology to their advantage and move their loyalty program and payments to mobile so that they can capture complete data during every interaction a customer has with their business. When your data doesn’t fully encompass the behavior of your customers, it’s hard to take action based off of that information. Mobile payments are a great way to stay on top of who your customers are and what they need.
4. As technology evolves, businesses need to evolve with it
According to research, mobile payment software could net over $500 billion in payments by 2020, a roughly 80% compound annual growth rate. Consumers are favoring mobile payments over traditional ones, and businesses need to keep up with evolving technology in order to remain relevant.
While brick-and-mortar businesses may feel as though they can’t compete with online businesses, mobile payments will dramatically reduce friction and help merchants remain relevant to their customers.
It’s important that your customer experience is meeting the evolving expectations of consumers, as well as providing you the actionable data that enables you to stay competitive in an increasingly data-driven world.
5. Mobile payments increase ROI and personalization
Evolving with technology will not only provide your customers with a better experience, it will also enable you to increase sales and ROI using the critical data you will capture on mobile.
Using a technology like Thanx will provide you with the tools you need to implement a loyalty program that identifies your best customers and helps you utilize the data you capture to grow your business. For example, you can track visit frequency and overall spend for each and every customer and determine who visits your business the most and who spends the most.
You can also capture what your customers think about your business and what their experiences are like. Identifying this data by using mobile payments and feedback allows you to strategize and encourage your best customers to spend more, visit more often, and refer their friends.
Knowledge is power, and mobile payments will help you learn more about your customers than you ever knew before.
Wrap up
Brick and mortar merchants don’t need to fall behind when it comes to frictionless online payments. Mobile payments can transform the way businesses interact with their customers and capture data to better understand who they are. Contactless payments create an overall better experience for customers and for merchants.
To learn more, get our free guide The Undeniable Link Between Data and Revenue.
