How To Make Your Payment Process Seamless

We have all been there – trying to make a purchase online, only to find that the payment system doesn’t seem to load well. The payment is declined, even though you know you have enough cash to pay for it. Or worse, you get charged multiple times. 

It is a nightmare for the customer and the business. 

Making your payment process smooth and enjoyable is one of the most important things you can do to support your customer’s journey. So here are several ways that you can make that happen.

Wide range of methods

If you want to ensure that the maximum amount of customers can pay for your goods, you need to offer a wide range of payment options. The standard options like PayPal and MasterCard are a given – but what else could you offer? 

• Square
• Stripe
• Apple Pay
• Google Pay
• Braintree
• WePay
• Dwolla

Many of these integrate effortlessly into woo-commerce payment plugins, but you might need to spend some extra time and care to set up your virtual terminal – and test how it works. 

Design

If you have designed your website yourself, it can feel a little disjointed when the payment page doesn’t have the same branding. 

When choosing a payment portal, choose one that offers you the maximum in terms of personalization and branding. This cohesion is what will give your customers an enjoyable experience. 

If the design suddenly changes between product pages and the payment page, it can feel like they have been taken away from the website – leaving an uneasy feeling. 

Security

Would-be cybercriminals most commonly attack small business payment portals. It is up to you to make sure that you keep your website’s security, especially the payment portal, tight. 

Whenever a customer has to enter personal information like name, address, and payment details, they have to feel secure. An SSL certificate is a minimum – it is also wise to ensure that any other security methods offered by different payment platforms are implemented too. 

You should also carefully outline how you use any of the customer’s information input and add that into your privacy policy. 

Essentials only

It can be tempting to use your payment portal as a means to get as much information as possible about your customers. After all, who doesn’t love metrics? 

But the truth is that customers want to make a speedy purchase and then leave. If you’re offering follow-up questionnaires and surveys about the products, get permission from a simple checkbox in the check-out process. 

If you need extra information beyond payment and address, you should clearly state why this is. Often you will see that a company requires your phone number so that they can keep you up to date on delivery times. 

Anything outside the scope of essential information makes your customer work to make a purchase so skip it. 

Offer information

Have you ever filled a form online, and one of the boxes highlighted red – for error, but you have no idea why? It can be very irritating to try and work out what you have done wrong if there isn’t any guidance. 

Customers should be able to spot the issue and fix it almost instantly, intuitive use of your payment portal is a must. This is a mixture of intelligent UX and the correct wording. 

Guide the customer through the form with plain language so that they never feel like they have missed some information or done something wrong. 

Minimal

Your payment page should have an overview of what is in your customer’s basket, the total amount, payment options, and any codes they can use. This is not the place for pop-ups or anything distracting. 

Keep the pay minimal and straightforward. Allow the customer to have an enjoyable purchasing experience. 

CTA

The estimated amount of abandoned carts is between 65-70%, And that might seem scary at first, but it is also very common. Although you should keep the page reasonably minimal, if the user begins to display leave behavior (as identified by a pop-up plugin), it’s time to offer them a discount. 

Even 10% can change a potential buyer’s mind. 

Keep your call to actions simple here, and avoid offering anything that will take the user away from the checkout page. 

Guest checkout

Although you ideally want to create loyal customers, forcing them into an account is not the way to succeed. Allow users to checkout with a guest function to completely control the process. 

If they like what you offer, they will sign-up. 

Of course, the payment page is just one step in the process; your whole website needs to be purpose-built and user-friendly. Here are some tips for you: How to Build a Great Business Website and Grow it Online – Matt Sweetwood.