New technologies, providers, and tools are emerging for the payments industry. This is great news for enhancing customer experience, however, it can impose challenges on traditional finance and insurance companies that simply aren’t build on modern systems.
Payments in particular is critical to the customer journey and payment optimization is an opportunity for long-term improvement. It is a crucial part of not just surviving, but thriving in this complex, competitive and disruptive industry.
In this article, we will explore some of the ways in which you can optimize your payments system to meet and exceed customer expectations, as well as to future-proof your system and operations for years to come.
Before we get into methods for optimizing your payment system, let’s first explain the difference between payment orchestration and optimization.
Payment Orchestration is the process of expanding the reach of a payment stack by assembling all the required components to intelligently manage payments and ensure the capture of every legitimate transaction.
Once this is achieved, merchants can then apply Payment Optimization to improve outcomes on a transaction-by-transaction basis. Payment optimization involves identifying areas of opportunity to increase authorization rates (the percentage of transactions that you submit and are accepted by the cardholder’s bank), reduce false declines, and reduce fraud within the payment system.
Our previous article explores the differences between a payment orchestration platform, a payment gateway, and a payment middleware like Imburse which can help reduce payment costs. Payment processing is a different tangent and we have another article which explains what payment processors do.
In order to meet customer demand, continue to exceed their expectations and even reach new customer bases, companies must now offer a considerable variety of payment options. Personalisation has become a priority for insurers and financial services, allowing for a higher level of customer engagement and retention.
Therefore, it is crucial that you allow your customers to pay in their preferred payment method, both to improve customer retention and to boost profit. Besides the traditional debit or credit card, customers may prefer to use mobile wallets such as Apple Pay, Google Pay and others or alternative methods such as PayPal and Amazon Payments. You must also ensure that the PSPs you choose to connect to support the currency of the countries you operate in and can connect to their local banks.
Another important area of payment optimization is mobile. The number of consumers using mobile payment methods has risen greatly in recent years and a study by Juniper Research estimates that the number of mobile wallet users will reach 4.6 billion by 2024. It’s clear that mobile payments are becoming an increasingly popular option among consumers, and businesses should implement mobile payment options to stay competitive.
One payment method that makes for a particularly smooth customer experience on mobile is pay-by-link. Customers click a link and are directed to a secure online payment page. No lengthy website checkouts, document exchanges or telephone calls to collect payment.
Every business wants to protect their customers, but not every business knows how to do so. That is why it is important to find PSPs that offer strong fraud prevention and risk management tools. Equally important, look for PSPs that are certified and compliant with all the key regulations, such as PSD2.
Imburse enables you to connect to any PSPs you want, in any market, so you have full flexibility in choosing the most trusted providers available. The Imburse platform also has all the key industry certifications and governance in place, so you are safe and protected from day one.
Streamlining payment operations seems like a very broad task, but it can be divided into actionable goals in areas such as reconciliation and analytics. Auto-reconciliation, for instance, allows you a huge amount of time and resources, and even reduces the potential risk for errors of manual reconciliation.
Equally, have a single reporting source that combines the analytics from all your providers will allow you to have clearer and instant visibility into your customers’ transactions, so that you can more easily take that data and use it to improve the business and make informed decisions. Streamlining your payment operations allows you to save time, costs and resources, making it easier for your teams to leverage the payment operations.
Imburse enables you to do all of the above. In a world where consumers payment preferences and technologies are ever-evolving, with a single integration, we connect you to the entire payments ecosystem.
Creating the desired payment experience for policyholders means you have the competitive edge amongst enterprise insurance providers. Imburse connects you to your choice of technology and provider, including any business area, market, or requirements.
Reach out to our team below should you want to discuss how Imburse can help you. Our team is happy to show you what our platform can do for your business and offer you a free demo.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on the 11th November 2021 and has since been updated for comprehensiveness.
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