How to Create a Frictionless Payment Experience

Frictionless payments offer seamless transactions with minimal or no interruption to the user experience.

In a frictionless payment process, customers can make purchases quickly and conveniently without encountering obstacles. Achieving a frictionless payment experience often requires the integration of advanced technologies to eliminate inefficiencies, like network tokenization and advanced vaulting.

By streamlining the payment process and removing friction points, you can enhance customer satisfaction, increase your conversion rates, and encourage customers to return to your business in the future. As payment orchestration capabilities become more widespread, frictionless payments are helping to shape the digital economy and modern payment preferences. 

What Causes Friction in Payments?

Payment friction can arise from many factors, often leading to frustration over failed transactions. 

Cumbersome checkout processes are a common cause, requiring customers to input excessive personal information that weighs down the checkout experience. Entering details like billing addresses, card numbers, and security codes all add unnecessary time to the checkout process — and customers know it. 

The rise of digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay have given customers new expectations for payments. With many wallets offering one-touch payment capabilities, businesses can have a long way to catch up in terms of their digital payment process. This can be exacerbated by poorly designed user interfaces or long loading times, deterring customers from completing their purchases. 

To address these issues requires you to first assess your existing approach to payments. Understanding what technologies you currently employ is the basis for building a more modern payment infrastructure, 

Simplifying the checkout process by allowing customers to store payment details on file for later use and minimizing the number of steps and fields required can significantly reduce friction. However, achieving a simplified checkout likely requires the capabilities to connect with and embed various third-party payment service providers (PSPs). 

As such, adopting innovative technologies plays a significant role in your ability to provide customers with smooth, friction-free payment experiences. 

Key Technologies Enabling Frictionless Payment Experiences

Today’s advanced technologies can enable a frictionless payment experience by enhancing overall convenience, security, and efficiency. 

Payment orchestration refers not to a specific technology but to a modern tech-based approach to facilitating payments. Embracing payment orchestration can be a vital first step if you want to improve your payment experiences across the board, from customers to suppliers and business partners. 

Before you can integrate products like digital wallets into your platform, you need the right set of foundational technologies to sculpt your payment stack: 

• Stored Credential Management: Storing a payment method for future customer initiated transactions or automation of subscription and recurring payments is not only common but expected in many customer experiences. A Stored Credential Framework provides a PCI compliant way to keep customer’s payment methods on file and maintains card association compliance for cardholder initiated and merchant initiated transactions.
• Network Tokens: Network tokenization offers many advantages for creating frictionless payments. From one-time payments to recurring bills or subscriptions, network tokens enable you to reduce your decline rate and keep your stored payment data fresh. Network tokens also reduce your PCI compliance scope, helping you to meet key security and privacy requirements. 
• Advanced Vaulting: Modern vaulting capabilities are imperative when enabling frictionless payments. An advanced vaulting solution can provide you with the ability to optimize your payment lifecycles while simultaneously simplifying your payment system management. Leveraging an advanced vaulting solution can streamline payment experiences for your customers, increase acceptance rates, and lower overall costs.
• Intelligent Payment Routing: Intelligent payment routing technologies ensure the efficiency and success of your transactions. With smart routing tools, you can optimize each payment for cost-effectiveness automatically while also increasing your transaction success rates. Technologies like machine learning help identify the best routing options for each individual payment. 
• Event-Based Payments: Specific events like concerts or sporting events can cause businesses to experience large, short-term spikes in transactions. Event-based payment technologies ensure you have the scalability to handle major fluctuations in transaction volume. When effectively employed, event-based payments can be the key to an excellent customer experience during times of high demand. 

The Benefits of Payment Orchestration for Frictionless Payments

A fully integrated and frictionless payment experience offers numerous benefits for both you and your customers. With the help of payment orchestration, you can revolutionize how you handle payments and establish a competitive advantage as a digitally-minded business. 

Take a look at the key benefits of achieving frictionless payments via payment orchestration: 

• Heightened Operational Efficiency: Payment orchestration solutions can improve your overall operational efficiency and ensure timely payment processing. Automation of payment processes and integration of third-party PSPs can streamline your operations and reduce your manual workload. In turn, you can allocate your resources more effectively and focus on core activities, such as engaging directly with customers to troubleshoot ongoing problems. 
• Increased Conversions: One of the primary advantages of frictionless payments is increased conversion rates. By streamlining the payment process and reducing friction points via payment orchestration, you can minimize cart abandonment rates and encourage customers to complete their purchases. Simplified checkout processes, such as one-click payments or seamless integration with digital wallets, make it easier for users to buy again. 
• Enhanced Customer Service: A frictionless payment experience powered by payment orchestration enhances customer satisfaction and loyalty. When transactions are smooth and hassle-free, customers are more likely to have positive perceptions of your brand and are inclined to buy from you again in the future. Seamless payments contribute to an overall positive shopping experience, strengthening your customer relationships and fostering a positive brand reputation. 
• Trustworthy Security: From the customer’s perspective, a frictionless payment experience offers convenience and peace of mind. Modern security features like tokenization allow customers to store their payment information securely and make purchases with just a few clicks or taps. This saves significant time and effort, particularly on repetitive tasks like entering payment details for each transaction. 

A frictionless, fully integrated payment experience can benefit you and your customers in a multitude of ways. The key to reaping all the benefits of frictionless payments is to leverage payment orchestration as a modern core for your payment system.  

Optimize Your Payments End-to-End with Spreedly

Frictionless payments start with an open payments platform.

Spreedly’s solution has the capabilities you need to optimize your payment system end-to-end. With connections to hundreds of PSPs, payment gateways, and more, Spreedly can help you build a payment infrastructure that matches your needs and demand.

Contact Spreedly today to remove friction from your payments stack.

Download the Payments Orchestration eBook Below