How to optimize the recurring payment feature?

Paying for something often tastes bitter especially when you need to remind yourself about it again and again. The fact that your money went to another hand, making it a process that you wish you didn’t have to go through. What’s more bitter when you have to keep reminding yourself about it weekly, monthly or annual payment. For merchant, reminding their customer to pay the bill is a nuisance. Nobody likes to be reminded or reminding someone especially when involving payment.
What’s the solution to this? Recurring payment. For consumers, recurring payment allows them to provide payment details to a merchant and dictate the timing, frequency and volume of debits from their accounts. For business owners, it helps to maintain steady cash flow and reduce delayed payments.
A study stated, 56% of card users in USA prefer to pay with recurring payments. With consumer’s positive attitudes towards recurring payment, more online business owners should offer this option, especially those with regular customers with regular payments.
Getting started with recurring payment
1. Find a payment gateway company with recurring payment feature.
Usually, recurring payment is a must-have feature offered by payment gateway companies. Finding a payment gateway with recurring features won’t be that hard.
For low monthly cost, you will be able to manage your customer database, run one-time transaction, invoice and set up recurring payment schedules for your customers. You don’t have to keep reminding them and also you can maintain your customer’s satisfaction eventually.
2. Let your customers know about the option
Your customers need to know about the options that you offer. For customers, this is a bundle of joy, never to be reminded again to pay their bill on time is a bless to their ears. Most will be happy to hear that you’re catering their need, simplifying their billing process.
3. Gather payment information
If you already have your customer’s payment information, that’s good but if you haven’t, you might want to collect it for recurring payment because it’s not the same with one-time payment situation. With this, you will not only gain the advantages of uploading your customer’s payment information into the solution but you will also gain the power to manage their information with more convenience.
4. Receive authorization
Remember this, you must have their permission because it is as important as collecting the payment information itself. You need to make sure that your customers know that you are ensuring their information safe and well set up while you organize their payment schedule correctly as requested.
5. Set the time, frequency and amount
You can set up the recurring payment schedule once you have your customer’s payment information along with their authorization. Do not set it without if you don’t have both. The solution you choose will determine how you want to set your schedule, you can set:
- When the schedule starts
- Payment frequency
- First payment amount
- Subsequent payment amount
- Schedule end date