In the world of B2C recurring commerce, merchants often grapple with a trio of formidable challenges: unpaid subscriptions, manual payment entry errors, and the complexities of payment reconciliation. These issues can disrupt operations, impact cash flow, and strain business relationships.
In this blog post, we’ll delve into these common merchant pains and explore how a simple innovation—a payment link—can help ease these pains.
Join us as we unravel the ways in which businesses can streamline processes, reduce errors, and ensure timely payments, ultimately paving the way for more efficient and successful operations in the B2C space.
Resolving unpaid subscriptions with payment link
One of the most frustrating dilemmas for businesses offering subscription-based services is dealing with customers who don’t pay on time, or worse, forget to pay altogether. This not only affects your cash flow but also has a negative impact on the customer experience. A payment link addresses these pain points head-on.
For customers whose payments don’t go through (ex: insufficient funds, expired cards, closed account, incorrect IBAN, etc.), a payment link can prove to be helpful in recovering funds.
This is often the recourse after first trying to automatically retry payments, for example, three and five days after the initial payment failed. Once this option has been exhausted, many merchants turn to a payment link to collect the payment.
A payment link offers a smooth and frictionless journey, sent directly to the customer’s email.
Their information is pre-filled, which makes the process quick for them to settle their outstanding debt. SlimPay offers SlimCollect by Link, a payment link that leverages open banking to easily collect payments while offering all the benefits built into open banking.
The customer validates the payment directly from their banking app in just a few taps. Both customer and merchant receive a payment confirmation at the end of the process.
Beyond streamlining payments, it also enhances customer retention.
For online merchants catering to a B2C audience, customer retention is the cornerstone of sustainable success. Payment links play a pivotal role in this endeavour by simplifying the payment experience.
When you offer your customers a straightforward and convenient way to make payments via payment links, you not only streamline their purchasing journey but also enhance their satisfaction.
The ease of use, real-time verification, and secure transactions build trust and loyalty.
Customers appreciate the hassle-free nature of payment links, making them more likely to return for repeat transactions and long-term partnerships.
By consistently delivering a superior payment experience, you’re not just processing payments; you’re nurturing lasting relationships with your valued customers and they are more likely to continue their subscriptions and engage with your business over the long term.
Payment Errors: Taming the Data Entry Beast
Manual payment entry errors can wreak havoc on your financial processes.
Whether it’s a simple typo in a credit card number or an incorrect billing address, these errors lead to payment failures, customer frustration, and wasted time on rectifying mistakes.
Approximately 10% of failed payments are due to incorrect data entry across a variety of industries.
SlimCollect by Link eliminates the need for manual data entry, as details such as name and IBAN are sent directly to the merchant via API. Customers don’t have to spend time entering data and merchants are assured that the data is accurate.
The customer simply authenticates the payment in their banking app and SlimPay takes care of the rest.
Reconciliation Nightmares: Bringing Clarity to Chaos
The process of reconciling payments against invoices can be a nightmare.
It’s time-consuming, error-prone, and often leads to discrepancies that are challenging to resolve. A payment link simplifies this ordeal by leveraging automation and real-time data.
With SlimCollect by Link, the unique identifiers associated with payment links and transaction data make it easier for the merchant’s systems to automatically match payments to invoices or orders.
Open banking provides access to real-time transaction data, ensuring that the payment information is accurate and up-to-date.
And as mentioned above, the accuracy of open banking nearly eliminates the risk of errors in the reconciliation process, leading to more precise financial records.
Streamlining Success in Merchant Operations
In this article, we’ve explored three common merchant challenges – unpaid subscriptions, payment errors, and reconciliation—and unveiled how a versatile tool, SlimCollect by Link, can transform these pain points into pillars of strength.
Unpaid subscriptions, often a source of frustration, can be mitigated through personalised payment links that simplify payment reminders and encourage prompt settlements. This not only keeps revenue flowing but fosters customer loyalty through an enhanced subscription experience.
Payment errors, stemming from manual data entry mishaps, can be dramatically reduced by using payment links. By automating the payment process and conducting real-time verification, the risk of errors is minimised, ensuring secure and error-free transactions.
Reconciliation, a notorious challenge for merchants, becomes a thing of the past with the aid of payment links, especially with SlimCollect by Link, which is powered by open banking. Automation and real-time data capture streamline financial reporting, leaving behind the days of tedious manual reconciliation.
SlimCollect by Link: a Merchant’s Best Friend
SlimCollect by Link is more than just a payment feature; it’s a merchant’s best friend in the battle against unpaid subscriptions, payment errors, and reconciliation woes, among other common challenges that merchants face.
SlimCollect by Link is available directly from the Dashboard, where merchants like you can easily create a payment link. It is also available via API, where the applications for it are countless—merchants can plug the API into existing software they use in their system to create a bespoke payment process.
A few examples of how SlimCollect by Link could be used:
- Debt collection—settle debts with a simple payment link that is sent directly to the customer’s email. Can be combined and automated with Automatic Retry for optimal debt collection management.
- Marketing campaigns—send campaigns for various marketing events: abandoned cart recovery, flash sales, membership renewals, donation campaigns and more.
- Real estate agency—simplify one-off rent payments for tenants, or enrol them in a Direct Debit plan so the tenant’s rent is automatically paid each month.
- Insurance—streamline premium payments and policy management by offering an easy payment and document signature in one step.
- Card to Direct Debit migration—for customers who subscribed with a card, a payment link offers an easy way to enrol them in a Direct Debit plan, with a first payment using open banking
As you explore the potential of payment links in your business, remember that this versatile tool is designed to ease your merchant pains and offer additional benefits that positively impact your bottom line.
It offers convenience to your customers, enhances your financial processes, bolsters security, and empowers you to focus on what matters most – growing your business and serving your customers with excellence.
