How the way your business takes payment could be the key to getting customers to return
There’s no such thing as customer loyalty anymore, it’s a thing of the past. Everyone has read the reports and seen the headlines, but has it really become so unobtainable?
With businesses feeling the squeeze from every direction as costs continue to rise, it’s easy to understand why. Price is king and sometimes it just doesn’t pay for customers not to be promiscuous when it comes to making purchasing decisions – if there’s a better price elsewhere, it’s hard to ignore.
That’s a challenge for many businesses (both those serving consumers and in B2B trades) because they’re constantly having to come up with new offers, services or schemes to maintain custom.
And while there’s no sign of any of those needs abating, there’s another tool that could be key to keeping customers coming back to your business for more – the way they pay for their orders.
We often talk about how the growth of open banking technology is an effective way to cut costs out of a business, with comparably bargain-basement transaction rates stripping thousands from any business that relies on receiving regular payments. But there’s a lot more nuance to what open banking can deliver to guarantee customers come back for more.
- Pass savings back to your customers
If you’re making significant savings on card-transaction and cash-handling fees by driving payments through open banking, it provides more leeway to pass that on to your own customers. After all, in an environment where everyone is desperate to find the best price, if you can find more wriggle room to beat the competition, it keeps you one step ahead.
There are examples of some wholesalers offering special discounts on their most popular SKUs exclusively to customers who pay by open banking, therefore incentivising usage and garnering loyalty.
- Cash incentives to spend with you
The businesses we’ve worked with that have had most success getting their customers to use open banking have offered strong incentives to try a different payment method.
By offering money off an order, it’s possible to guarantee that customers are feeling the true benefit of the incentive, but rather than taking it off the current order, an easily redeemable voucher for the next order ensures a customer comes back.
- Reinvest savings into other technology
If price is one of the biggest drivers to retaining customer loyalty, service is up there with it – although when costs are high and businesses are running as leanly as possible, making further investments isn’t easy.
However, armed with significant cost savings from open banking, there’s a regular pot of money that is freed up that would otherwise have been spent elsewhere. This could be used to dial up customer services; employ more staff to help around the depot or help with deliveries; or to launch a B2B WhatsApp channel to maintain a stronger communication channel with your customers to make sure they keep coming back.
For more information on our B2B Open Banking service, check out our solutions page.
PHOTO CREDIT: DAVID DVORACEK VIA UNSPLASH.COM
