Lauren Watson
Use these key questions to evaluate your payments process and identify opportunities you can open up by updating your solution.
In the world of live events, you’re processing hundreds of transactions a day. It’s not just the tickets you’re selling but also donations, membership renewals, merchandise, snacks, add-ons, and more.
Yet, it’s all too easy to wait until you have payment processing problems to pay attention to your service.
It’s time to get strategic and proactive. The right event payment processing solution won’t just help you avoid issues – it should make your team’s lives easier and enable your organisation to build revenue.
1. Is my payments process creating friction for my customers?
Put yourself in the shoes of your customer for a moment. You’ve received a beautiful marketing email about an exciting show. You click on the offer. You pick the perfect seats. You go to checkout and then, when it comes time to pay, something goes wrong so your transaction won't complete.
Now, instead of asking yourself 'Do I want to go see this show?' You’re asking yourself, 'Is this show worth the hassle of figuring this mess out?' Naturally, for many people, the answer is going to be a 'no'.
The more friction you have in your payments process, the more opportunities there are for customers to change their mind.
- Frequent reports of card failures
- Big gaps between engagement with your website and actual sales made
- Excessive staff time spent troubleshooting issues for customers
Think about choosing the right payment provider as an investment in your conversions. The smoother your checkouts go and the more authorisations your payment processor completes, the more revenue is flowing into your organisation.
2. Am I paying hidden or surprise fees?
Unexpected “junk fees” from your payments solution add up fast.
Really take a look at the billing from your payments solution. Is the fee structure complicated, obscure, or downright sneaky? Are junk fees costing you significant chunks of money you haven’t accounted for?
Be wary of extra charges for:
- Refunds
- Declined transactions
- Reporting fees
- Batch fees
- Terminal or gateway fees
- Card not present fees
- PCI fees
- Underwriting fees
- Additional risk fees
- Storing card information – or updating your stored card information
- Any “miscellaneous” fees your provider can’t explain
Transparency, consistency, and simplicity make a difference for your bottom line.
3. Can I accept the payment methods my customers want to use?
“Can you take Apple Pay?” If you find yourself saying 'no' to that question again and again, it might be time to turn that answer into a 'yes'. Modern customers are coming to expect Apple Pay and Google Pay to be available everywhere they go.
And there’s more. Let’s go back to that first example. You’re exciteed about a new show, you’ve selected your seats, you go to checkout and… oh, you need to enter credit card information. So, now you have to go find your credit card, which is in your wallet, which is in your bag, which is on the coat rack – and maybe you’re in the other room or perhaps you even left home with just your phone. So, you tell yourself you’ll do it later – but will you?
There’s that friction again.
That’s one reason why mobile payment methods are such a game-changer for audience members and organisations alike. When paying online, all you have to do is select 'Apple Pay' or 'Google Pay' as your payment method and the payment is authorised in seconds – no need to memorise or find card information. Or, if paying in person, all it takes is a quick phone tap on the payment terminal and you’re good to go.
We’ll say it again: quick, easy payments mean happy customers and happy sales figures.
4. Does my payments solution make it simple for memberships to renew?
We’ve talked to many organisations who want to start a membership programme, but are worried about the burden that keeping up with renewals would place on their team, whether that's through chasing a new credit card number or dealing with fiddly direct debit processes.
Here’s some good news: modern payment solutions can now offer the ability to automatically update stored card details as they change.
So, if you have a member whose credit card has changed – whether it’s lost or simply expired – your payment processing system makes the change, with no work needed from your team or your customers. When it’s time for their membership to renew, it will do so automatically, without a hitch.
Now that membership program you’ve been dreaming of is so much more achievable.
Even better, with the whole process running automatically, you’ll reduce involuntary churn and see an increase in member retention – along with the dependable revenue that comes with it.
5. When issues arise, is there a straightforward path to resolve them?
Nobody wants to go back and forth with a thousand different representatives, trying to figure out who exactly can help with an issue. When it’s an issue with a payment, you’re especially feeling the heat to resolve it.
You need to know who to call at any point in the process, as a baseline. But, what if you only had to make one call, no matter what the issue was? Plus, go a step further and imagine a world in which you have a strong, reliable, pre-existing relationship with the company on the other end, so that you can truly feel taken care of.
TLDR: You don’t have to put up with bad customer service from your payment processing provider.
6. How much time and energy are we spending sourcing, installing, and troubleshooting hardware?
We hear about headaches with sourcing and setting up payment terminals all the time. Any of these sound familiar?
- Finding the right payment terminals to match your needs and budget – or having access to a terminal in the first place
- Installing a million drivers and pieces of software to get your terminals up and running
- Getting blocked by firewall restrictions or PCI compliance concerns
- Confusing warranties from different suppliers
- The inevitable reality that hardware malfunctions or wears down – and the cost and annoyance of having to go through the set-up process all over again when it does
Better than aspirin, consider what a difference it would make if your payments provider also provided tried-and-true hardware, ready to go right out of the box.
7. How customisable is our set-up?
Whenever possible, your team should be in the driver’s seat.
There are myriad strategic decisions your team can make in order to craft a smooth, cohesive audience experience. It could be choosing the receipt printing settings to meet the needs of your box office operations, and it could be customising your hardware to match the look and feel of your organisation’s brand. Imagine your logo right there on the screen!
Look for a payment processing provider that opens doors for you and makes options available.
The big one: Is my payment processing provider making my life easier?
It should be. That’s why we’ve created Spektrix Payments as part of our complete marketing, ticketing, and fundraising solution. Talk to our team to explore the value we could bring to your organisation’s payments process, as part of our market solution for ticketing and customer relationship management in the live events sector.
Lauren Watson (she/they) is a Client Success Lead at Spektrix.