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Reinventing the Customer
Experience by Focusing on
the After-Payment Emotional
Experience
170 By Dr Christine Bailey
Chief Marketing Officer, Valitor
Payments in Practice
The customer experience is vital to success in the retail sector
and represents a continuous battleground for retailers. Omni-
channel retailers have the added challenge of delivering a great
customer experience across all of their channels. By rethinking
the customer experience to focus on the after-sales experience,
retailers can stand out, increase customer retention and even gain
new customers.
The After-Payment Emotional
Experience
At the heart of this new approach is the concept that retailers need
to view the customer experience as a virtuous circle, containing
three core elements: pre-, during and post-payment. Currently,
retailers have focused on and seen success in the pre-payment
element. However, for the modern customer this is only part of the
journey. Following an independent research report into customer
experience, it is clear that consumers have an after-payment
emotional experience (APEX) that is being overlooked. This should
worry every business leader, as APEX is the key to unlocking
customer experience success.
APEX is the emotional feeling that customers have, both
immediately after making a purchase and throughout their post-
payment interactions with a retailer. It particularly affects areas
such as returns, refunds, target marketing and promotions. The
cyclical nature of the customer experience means that it also plays
a crucial role in the pre-payment and during-payment elements as
well.
Right now, retailers are largely ignoring APEX. They are letting their
customers down and losing them in the process. This is at odds
with the work brands are doing to win customers and it makes the
process of customer retention much harder. Consumers are keen
to establish trust and loyalty with a retailer, but will not hesitate to
move to a competitor if they feel let down. The future of retail will
be won or lost in the post-payment experience.
Start the Right Way
It all starts at the beginning of the relationship. Get it right and you
can quickly foster trust and loyalty that can grow into a beneficial
relationship for both parties. The first touchpoint with a customer
will often set the tone of the relationship and the likelihood that the
customer not only returns, but shares their positive experience with
their own communities.
The results of a survey of over 2,000 consumers in the UK
indicated that in this area, retailers are succeeding. When asked
how much they enjoyed the customer experience, across a range
of five different product categories, on average over three-quarters
(77%) of consumers said they enjoyed it. Researching a product
(60%), visiting a store or website (59%) and paying for a product
(42%) were highlighted as the most important parts, emotionally,
within the buying process.
But despite retailers getting off to the right start, they cannot afford
to take their eye off the ball during the pre-payment experience.
Rude staff (55%), long checkout processes (38%) and difficulties
in finding the right product are the most likely issues to repel a
customer. It’s essential that every part of the customer experience
lives up to customers’ ever-increasing expectations. If they feel let
down, they will vote with their wallets.
Customer Insights vs. Data
Getting marketing and promotional materials right from the start is
important for the customer experience. Wasting time (33%) and
delivering irrelevant offers are the biggest turn-offs for consumers
with email marketing. However, omni-channel retailers already have
the ammunition at their disposal to solve these problems, in the form
of data. Having data on a customer’s habits and preferences means
that retailers can develop personalized and tailored offerings to
entice consumers back without jeopardizing the relationship.
To do this effectively, retailers need to ensure they have an omni-
channel payment solution that combines all the different online
and in-store payment methods into one, connected system.
With regulations such as the General Data Protection Regulation
(GDPR) and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard
(PCI-DSS) making it critical to keep customer information safe,
omni-channel retailers need secure systems for doing this. One
way to do this is via tokenization. Tokenization is a simple yet
secure way to collect information from multiple payment methods
and connect them together. In essence, it replaces a customer’s
bank or payment details with a unique identifier (a token) that can
then be shared across different payment systems, while at the
same time the actual customer data is safely and securely stored.
Using tokenization, retailers can quickly start to build up a picture
of a customer, and use these insights to develop marketing,
promotions and offers that are relevant to them. Tokenization also
reduces the burden of PCI-DSS compliance, providing a dual
benefit to retailers and their IT and compliance teams.
Think After…Before
Payment, while important, is not the end of the customer journey.
Over half (54%) of consumers expect at least a basic level of
support from a retailer post-purchase. In fact, 22% view a payment
as a contract or agreement and rightly expect a certain level of
care after making a purchase.
It is at this transition that the story begins to change. Once payment
has been made, many retailers are failing. This is risking not only
customer retention, but also the chances of gaining new customers.
For example, a negative APEX experience will mean nearly half (47%)
of consumers will be less likely to pay attention to a brand’s marketing
in future. And once lost, a customer is even harder to win back.
A key sign of this failure is visible in how consumers view their 171
experience of returning a product, with over a third stating that
Payments in Practice
the process to do it is “rubbish”. This is in addition to the 40% of
consumers who see the complaints procedures as “rubbish” too.
Improving APEX Doesn’t Need to
be Expensive
The good news is that improvements don’t need to cost the earth.
In fact, half of the consumers surveyed reported that the biggest
annoyance with returning an item was simply the lack of free returns.
This is in addition to the quarter of consumers who see a badly
explained returns policy as the biggest reason for them to not return
to a retailer. For any retailer looking for a competitive edge, reviewing
these processes and policies is an easy win. Making a few small
changes and having the right technology will have a positive effect
on APEX and as a result, customer profitability and lifetime value.
It’s Time to Act
The first step for those looking to change is to rethink the customer
experience as a continuous cycle that needs attention at each of the
three key stages of pre-, during and post-payment. Think after, before.
Next, retailers need the right omni-channel payment solution
that features tokenization technology to help them gather and
consolidate data for a 360° view of a customer. Leveraging data
from a customer’s actual purchases and habits will quickly lead
to the APEX that they now rightly expect. If retailers don’t put the
customer first at every stage of the buying process, they will have
to watch their customers go to a brand that does.