Finding New Ways to Improve the Customer Experience
You’ve probably seen the commercials where many customers pay swiftly for purchases with Visa or MasterCard. All of a sudden, someone pays cash, disrupting the entire operation into madness. The cash-paying customer suffers dirty looks as she frantically digs change out of her handbag. As she leaves the register, happy customers go back on auto-pilot and the swift-moving pay line begins again.
These commercials illustrate a brand new way to pay fur purchases—the ‘contactless’ payment processing. Using an enabled credit card and simple RFID card reader connected to a high-speed credit card processing system, customer wait times are greatly decreased, encouraging greater spending and improving brand loyalty.
Credit card issuers are swinging into full gear, sending tens of millions of customers contactless-enabled debit and credit cards from MasterCard (Paypass), Visa (payWave) and American Express (express pay). As more banks jump on for the ride and credit cards expire, they will be replaced with contactless-enabled cards. The future of contactless cards includes cell phones and key fobs imbedded with RFID payment chips. Even the New York subway system and taxicabs are being outfitted with RFID readers.
In the world of customer service, where retailers continually seek ways to capture market share and brand loyalty, it looks as though contactless credits cards will be a tremendous boon to improving the customer experience for all.