Growing Customer Retention with Payment Retries
Startups are designed to grow fast. The only essential thing is growth - The true North Star, the compass to make every decision. Everything you do follows from this idea of growth, it’s what you’re after.
Startup = Growth
But Growth is a marathon, not a sprint.
In a marathon, pacing and perseverance are paramount. And, while “Growth Hacking” has been the undisputed Mantra for businesses over the last decade, businesses that scale have perused deeper through their growth funnels to identify their key levers.
One such lever is Customer Retention.
They say that first impressions matter but when you’re buying something online, the last impression, which is Payments is just as paramount.
Payments can fail for a variety of reasons, but failed payments undisputedly leave a sour taste in your customers’ mouth.
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How well you plan for payment failures (technical and otherwise) is key to ensure that fewer customers churn out because of a payment issue.
Why do Payment Failures occur?
Payment failures can be due to either ‘hard or soft declines’. Soft declines stem from a temporary problem with the PG, Processor, or network. Hard declines are due to issues such as insufficient balance, incorrect details, etc.
Hard Declines
A hard decline refers to the rejection of a payment by the issuing bank. In essence, it is a permanent authorization failure and should not be reattempted. Hard declines are often due to stolen or invalid card or a closed account.
When a hard decline happens, the issue typically originates from the processor or the issuing bank. The challenge with hard declines is that even if they occur during a renewal, attempting to retry the card number is futile. The only foolproof approach to avoid losing the payment is to prompt the customer to resolve the underlying issue, which may necessitate providing a new credit card.
Soft Declines
When the issuing bank approves the payment, but the transaction fails due to another reason, it is called a soft decline. Common reasons for soft declines include insufficient funds, processor decline, exceeded card activity limit, expired card, unusual purchase, mismatched billing address, and IP address or card used abroad.
Thankfully, the majority of declines fall into the soft decline category, providing you with the opportunity to recover these failed transactions.
Don’t let Payment Failures fail your customers
It’s hard enough building something that your customers would want and even harder to make them shell out their hard-earned cash. But, once you’ve crossed that chasm, the last thing you want is for your customers to see the dreaded “Payment Failed” message.
While this can be due to technical failures or something as simple as incorrect CVV by the customer, there should never be a situation where you’ve a customer who wants to pay and can’t.
Payment Retries - Don’t let em go
A high intent customer is a testament to the quality of your solution - if they really want to get their hands on something, they’ll come with that intent. Hence, it is imperative that you provide an experience that enables and empowers them to complete their purchase even in the face of failures, whether hard or soft.
The Payments Trust Fall
Everything considered, the harsh reality is that some payments will fail anyway. Catching a payment failure as it’s happening is a near foolproof way to combat payment failure - it’s highly unlikely for two different payment methods to fail at the same time.
These failed transactions lead to cart abandonment and takes a toll on your conversion rate.
The task at hand then becomes providing a state-of-the-art retry experience. Setting up backup Payment methods for your customers to instantly fall back on when the first payment method fails.
Users are more likely to complete the transaction if they can easily retry the payment rather than having to start the entire checkout process from scratch. A backup payment method on the Payment Status page can help reduce the friction in retrying a transaction, which otherwise would have taken multiple steps. This in turn leads to higher Success Rates and better Conversion.
Additionally, you can feature more attractive payment instruments to the users on the retry screen, nudging them to choose the best option.
The Juspay edge
Seamless & Intelligent Payment Retries
Juspay Retry Engine is a state of the art intelligent and dynamic system that can identify the best possible recourse. Whether it’s showing backup Payment Methods post failure or automatic retries for subscriptions.
With 40% of users choosing to retry with a backup payment method, Juspay’s Retry Engine has been able to achieve an impressive 12% increase in overall success rates, with up to 25% of previously failed transactions being made successful.
In a nutshell, Juspay’s Retry Engine is your ally in fighting involuntary churn. Ammunition for your arsenal so that there’s never (or there’s rarely, at the very least) a situation where someone who wants to pay you can’t.
Before you go
As you build, refine and grow your business, it is imperative to have a payments partner who understands the complexities and challenges that come in the journey and can help you navigate the same.
Juspay is the payments platform of choice for India’s leading companies, who partner with us right from their early days. We provide a future-proof end-to-end infrastructure connecting directly to 300+ Payment Gateways, Networks like Visa, Mastercard, and NPCI, and your customers’ favorite payment methods. Juspay’s innovative products have transformed the payments experience, turning payments into a growth lever for your business.
We’re part of India’s growth story, one which makes Payments seamless for her startup ecosystem and her billion citizens. Are you ready? Explore how Juspay can hyper-charge your growth story.
