Why airlines need a better payment customer experience

Payments are a key part of the customer experience journey, and if things go awry here, it can impact how those customers perceive your brand. By addressing the fragmented payment experience, airlines can improve their customer experience while creating massive cost savings.

Airlines are also experiencing increasing competition from Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) who are web-based services that can allow consumers to research and book travel products and services, such as flights. Rather than simply pay for flights directly, customers can instead work through these intermediaries to arrange their travel, which takes the payment process out of their hands. According to research from PATA, OTAs have captured an average of 40% of the total global travel market, which includes air travel. Thus, organizations like Booking.com and Expedia are cutting into the potential revenue of airlines, making it more important than ever for them to get their payment CX correct.

But before we can improve the payment experience for customers, we first have to establish what aspects of the payment experience they find the most frustrating. To do that, we must first ask what barriers currently exist to prevent consumers from making a payment.

With these issues in mind, we can see why a Head of Payment or CFO might be reticent about investing more in their payment CX. But consider some of the net benefits that a positive payment CX can offer an airline.

If a customer wants to fly from New York to Los Angeles, their trip doesn’t begin when they step on board the plane, from the minute they enter the airport or the second they leave their own home. The customer’s journey with your airline begins the second they interact with your brand. The time that customers spend booking and paying for the ticket is all part of their travel experience with your airline.

This is why airlines need to ensure that their customers have a positive experience from the moment they book their flight to the moment they arrive at their destination. Therefore, ensuring that their payment experience is optimised can ensure that their overall journey is a positive one.

A seamless payment CX also means an airline can be proactive about potential lost revenue, allowing it to retain its current customers and capture new consumers in fresh markets.

There’s also the fact that digital customers expect online stores to cater to a wide variety of payment options. In the globalised digital travel marketplace, brands need to be able to ensure that all currencies can be accepted from any part of the world.

Optimising the payment CX means including more payment options, such as new currencies or payments from digital wallets, to expand the airline’s reach. On the other hand, by neglecting to offer consumers their preferred payment options, airlines risk alienating a significant number of potential customers.

According to a study of more than 50.9 million online shoppers conducted by Merchant Advice Service, 67% of respondents claimed they found it frustrating when there is a lack of payment methods available, and a further 54% of them stated they were discouraged to complete an online purchase if the payment options consisted only of debit or credit cards. By adopting a better payment CX, an airline can in turn, increase its potential takings and make its ticket pricing more competitive.