Parking Positives | The Benefits of Contactless Payment Options
There's a good reason why the contactless payment market is set to surpass 4.60 trillion dollars by 2027. We could say that's because consumers increasingly see the benefit of utilizing debit and credit cards, smartphones, keychain fobs, and other tools to conduct transactions without the need for physical contact.
Or we just could (more honestly?) say lots of people don't want to touch things with their hands since Covid. Especially cash, which didn't have much of a reputation for cleanliness before the pandemic.
But all that aside, contactless payment options are just proving to make good business sense. We've attempted to put our finger on why below (so you don't have to touch anything).
Customer Benefits
Some of the most obvious customer benefits for upgrading to contactless payment solutions are:
Ease of Use
Parking isn’t a customer’s primary activity. Rather, it facilitates other activities. So, it's no surprise that customers overwhelmingly appreciate how contactless payment methods are just plain fast. The relief they feel when they easily find the perfect spot fades quickly if it takes a long time to pay their parking fee. Contactless payment options have simplified the entire parking transaction process, right down to removing the need for customers to lean out of their windows to punch in their PIN codes.
Security and Safety
At the most basic level, contactless payments increase security by eliminating the need for customers to provide their card numbers (or the cards themselves) to people they don't know to complete a transaction. But thanks to Covid, people aren't just looking out for themselves anymore. Businesses prioritize the safety of their employees by minimizing or removing their need to be in face-to-face situations.
Flexibility
In 2020, 92.3 million U.S. consumers used proximity-based payment methods (e.g., an iPhone) at least once during a six-month period. This figure is expected to explode, reaching 125 million by 2025, which will then account for more than half of all total cell phone users. The expectation for businesses to provide contactless payment options will soon be the rule, not the exception, among a majority of parking customers.
iPhone user or not, device-agnostic methods of payment have already grown more popular in the past year, meaning that businesses who utilize safe technology to improve their customer experience are more likely to capture repeat business.
Owner Benefits
While the customer always comes first, how can contactless payment options benefit business owners as well?
Efficiency/Costs
Sure, customers enjoy the speed of transaction that contactless payments provide, but there are big upsides for business owners as well. Compared to card transactions (avg. 26.7 seconds) and good old cash transactions (avg. 33.7 seconds), contactless payments average just 12.5 seconds per transaction.
This can lead to a direct increase in revenue by reducing staffing needs during peak business hours. Contactless payment also removes some of the equipment needed to support the payment process, reducing repair and replacement costs over time.
Customer Experience
As opposed to business models that were able to take some (if not all) of their operations online, the parking business remains firmly brick and mortar. This means a concrete way of providing a great customer experience isn’t just good ROI, it can also become a competitive advantage, especially if other business owners lag behind.
Fraud Protection
Much like efficiency, the increased security afforded by contactless payment systems benefits business owners as well as their customers. Going contactless makes magnetic stripe readers, commonly used to steal credit card information, obsolete. What’s more, as the tech that makes contactless payments possible has evolved over the past 20 years, so has the security keeping the payment process safe. Available security can now utilize multiple layers of protection, including authentication protocols, unique transaction data, and tokenization.
A Wetherbee POV
All these benefits are fantastic in theory. But, ultimately, you need to invest in a contactless payment solution that can overdeliver on them all. We install SKIDATA payment kiosks for many of our clients, and a brief breakdown here will make it pretty obvious why we do.
SKIDATA Business Benefits
The fact that SKIDATA contactless solutions range from simple to custom makes them a great fit for most businesses. Their products are designed to seamlessly integrate with existing software you’ve already invested in. Plus, easy customer access combined with useful usage metrics tend to quickly show ROI. But it gets even better, as SKIDATA understands there’s no “one-size-fits-all” kiosk solution. They offer two popular kiosk products to suit a range of businesses: skiosk® Smart and skiosk® Lite.
skiosk® Smart Parking Terminals
skiosk® Smart is designed for business owners who prioritize customer experience and customer loyalty. Offering a complete array of customization options, the Smart’s large-format split-screen is customer-friendly, and a proximity sensor automatically switches to the operational screen when customers approach. This makes for a vivid information center (one which can be fully customized to your business).
But the skiosk® Smart also provides robust features, like the ability to use vouchers or loyalty cards to access discounts, accept cash payments, read cards in multiple directions to create an easier customer experience, and the capability to print receipts on demand.
However, the skiosk® Smart may be more robust than your business needs. If you don’t anticipate taking advantage of its wide array of customization options, then it may not be necessary to get such a robust terminal.
skiosk® Lite Parking Terminals
While a focus on customer service is always important, some business owners are more limited by the space they have available for kiosks. Featuring the same split-screen capabilities as the skiosk® Smart, the more compact skiosk® Lite still offers a surprising amount of customization features.
Furthermore, the Lite is also available in four different device heights for user-friendly and handicap-accessible operating heights. It’s a great option for medium to small parking facilities that want an outstanding customer experience but are not as interested in deeply customizing the terminal to their business.
Upgrade to Contactless Payment Today
Contactless payments are the way of the future. Is your business ready? Get in touch with us today to talk about which contactless payment kiosk will be best suited to your business and growth goals.
