Two focuses of my blog are Financial Literacy/Money and Business/Entrepreneurship. When you’re running a business, you want to your transaction speeds to be both efficient and fast. The following contributed post is entitled, The Need For Speed In Your Business Transactions.
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With consumer attention spans now believed to be at an all-time low of eight seconds, marketers face more challenges in both gaining and retaining interest than ever before. This has facilitated major company focuses on everything from website load times to the speed of customer service. However, one area that doesn’t receive half as much attention is the need for increasingly fast payment processing.
Admittedly, while they might not appear in many how-to guides, fast transactions aren’t an altogether new business focus. In fact, a focus on speeding up the payment process at both ends is a driving force for various new and emerging technologies and is playing a major role in the impact of blockchain on businesses, and even the introduction of recent updates like same-day ACH. That said, with many companies continuing to overlook the benefits on offer, faster transaction times are too often falling under the radar, leaving consumers frustrate and keeping businesses from feeling a range of benefits, the most pressing of which we’ll discuss here.
#1 – Simplified consumer journeys
Complications in everything from payment methods to completion processes are a driving cause of shopping cart abandonment, and complex payment processing times can also cost significant custom. This is especially true as more companies invest in immediate solutions, and can lead to both lost custom, and time frames that provide far too much scope for changed minds. Competitively-led, real-time payment methods close that gap for doubt with immediately processed payments, or at least payments that can clear in less than the standard 3-5 working days. This can significantly increase both a company’s chances at successful sales, and the trust created through increased satisfaction/results that consumers can immediately rely on.
#2 – Always-available payments
While most companies can now at least accept payments at any time of day or night, the need to wait for bank opening hours or the processing of invoicing during office hours can still limit 24/7 availability. This is inevitably frustrating for consumers who expect in-the-moment results and is something that institution-free transaction methods like blockchains can altogether eliminate. Instead, even late-night or early-morning shoppers will be able to get online, make a payment, and rest easy that their money will go straight out of their account. This ensures service as they need it, and financial management that largely takes care of itself.
#3 – Increasing company understanding of cash flow
From a company-first perspective, faster transactions also provide real-time accounts that never have to make space for pending transactions which can too easily be forgotten. Instead, faster payments ensure up-to-date account balances at all times, making it easier to protect your financial future with the most accurate possible profit reports, as well as enabling the scheduling of payments that you can meet far more quickly than you would if you were continually waiting around for outstanding fees.
There’s a need for speed in everything you do across your business right now, and you can rest assured that payments will increasingly fall within that expectation.
