Ensuring a good customer experience at checkout is a surefire way to either make or break a customer’s loyalty. In fact, research from Applause, the testing and digital quality solutions provider, has found over three in four (76 per cent) customers will abandon a transaction if their preferred payment method is not accepted.
The survey, titled Digital Payments and Localization Survey, examined 6,700 customers, software developers and QA professionals. In addition to uncovering user behaviours and preferences, it also revealed digital payment and localisation testing strategies.
Some key highlights from the survey show that 68 per cent of consumers prefer to use mobile/digital wallets to pay for goods and services. However, only 56 per cent of providers accept them. Furthermore, 41 per cent said payment issues prevented them from making a purchase within the last three months. This seriously impacts retailers and merchants.
Luke Damian, chief growth officer, Applause
“Choice and speed are top of mind for consumers. If they can’t quickly make a purchase with their preferred payment method, they’re not going to continue on with the experience,” said Luke Damian, chief growth officer, Applause.
“Digital payments is a complex landscape. Beyond transaction processing, developers need to think about returns, exchanges, receipts, rewards programs and more. Every aspect of the customer journey is an opportunity to drive customer satisfaction and retention, which is why expanding test coverage through crowdtesting is so critical.”
Localisation issues are as serious as payment issues
In addition to payment issues, the survey revealed that 52 per cent of consumers have abandoned an app due to poor localisation. Effective localisation – particularly translation accuracy – is critical to retaining users. Respondents shared the top localisation issues they have encountered: 48 per cent of app responses used incorrect words or syntax, 40 per cent assumed local knowledge with which they were unfamiliar, and 38 per cent had misspellings.
Developers are focusing on localisation. However, they continue to test by ‘dogfooding’ which limits coverage and introduces bias. While 66 per cent of organisations surveyed are working to adapt their customer journeys and checkout processes to regional and cultural norms, more than half (59 per cent) rely on in-house developers and QA staff who are native speakers to test apps for each language.
Rémi Lakmeche, VP e-commerce engineering, Accor
Damian also added: “Innovators like Accor, one of the world’s largest hospitality brands, come to Applause for payments and localization expertise and experience high ROI. Community-based testing ensures the user experience is optimal, no matter where their customers are located or what payment instrument is used.”
“As an international business, Accor relies on Applause to ensure customers all over the world can seamlessly book and pay for hotels through our e-commerce platform,” said Rémi Lakmeche, VP e-commerce engineering, Accor. “Applause’s global community of digital experts enables us to perform live payments testing in real scenarios with real payment instruments, so we can identify and address potential issues quickly. It gives us a high level of confidence about the quality of our product to our customers.”
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