The tech revolution is happening – and it’s right here in our hands, quite literally. Smartphones have never been more popular, and with 80% of North America using SMS messaging (almost 300 million people), thinking about how your business could incorporate smartphone use into your payment model has never been more prudent.
That’s where text payment gateway solutions come in. Through implementing text payment gateway solutions, you can enable pay by text functionalities for your business – meaning that your customers can pay for goods or services through a simple SMS message from their mobile phone, leading to much quicker payments for your business.
We’ll talk you through everything you need to know below.
Text Payment Gateways
Text payment solutions supply your business with the capabilities to send SMS (or Short Messaging Service) messages directly to your customers to remind them of payments – and then, they allow your customers to pay directly from that text.
Upon the customer entering their card or ACH data, there needs to be a clear transmission of that sensitive data to the back-end payment processor in a secure manner. This data transmission is performed by the text payment gateway solutions (as well as any reporting on that data needed to reconcile the payment).
With the speed and ease that text payments offer, combined with the almost-perfect rate of text message opens (over 98% of text messages are opened within a phone), this could mean big business for your organization.
Sounds Great – But How Does It Work?
Upon onboarding, or at another time, customers can opt-in to text messaging services from your business that can supply them both with reminders to pay or late payment reminders, and/or receive messages for any payment-related needs.
Once they’ve opted in, a text message is sent to the customer upon a specific date – either a date they’ve chosen as a reminder for payment, or a date set by the business (for example, you could set a text to be sent three days after a payment is due to remind the customer, and incorporate this into your workflow).
The customer is then able to pay the invoice via text. They could already have a payment account with details securely stored with the text to pay provider, in which case payment can be made with a few simple taps. In other instances, customers may be guided to a separate (entirely secure) page to enter the required payment data – their card details, for example, or ACH information.
Once the customer has paid, both they and the business will receive a notification confirming receipt. This also provides an opportunity for further automation if your platform is also using management software – if your SMS solution is integrated, the entire process can be reconciled automatically.
And that’s it! It takes a mere matter of seconds to make payments for your customers, and as the business, your time waiting on payments is massively reduced. Win-win.
What Should I Look For In A Text Payment Gateway Provider?
The right text payment gateway solution should not only be competitively priced, have a basis in communications (as opposed to marketing), and offer ease of integration to your platform and service, but they should also have strong PCI compliance to ensure safety and security for your customers.
As SMS is not usually a PCI compliant route, the best text payment gateway suppliers can offer functionality to deliver trackable links to unique micro-sites, to collect card details securely through smartphone browsers.
Text payment gateway solution providers should also be able to offer the ability to store payment methods for the user to have the most convenient experience possible. Also, as customer service is still essential even when the payment is conducted via SMS, a 2-way SMS system provided by text payment gateway operators can allow your customers to respond to certain keywords delivered in text messages, taking them to further information or allowing them to speak to a customer service representative.
It’s also important to consider your self-service capacities with any text payment gateway provider. You should be able to set up customized messages, reply logic and sequences, fail-over settings without any managed service charges, change fees, or codes.
Furthermore, your provider should be able to offer processes beyond SMS delivery, should it fail, by being able to switch to a different mode of outreach (like email, or phone call) if messages aren’t delivered. It’s worth noting, of course, that this is pretty rare – but can occur due to incorrect numbers or network issues, so having contingency is important. On the note of network: the network quality that the provider has is also vital – if your provider doesn’t have solid, high-quality carrier connections, this could spell trouble for your business.
Finally, your text gateway provider should be able to offer you a unique numberfor your sales campaigns. A lower-quality provider might steer you towards a random or shared number – which may very well get caught in spam filters when trying to contact customers, and totally inhibit your payments. And ideally, you’ll want a provider that can provide you with services for global number access, to allow you to diversify your business and access customers worldwide.
The Bottom Line
If you’re thinking about SMS payments for your business, choosing your text payment gateway provider is crucial – but with the right partner, you could see your business grow to new heights.
If you’d like to discuss further possibilities for partnership and integration, contact Agile Payments. We’ve been helping businesses with their payment solutions for almost 20 years – so whatever the need, we have the answer.
